There’s an old business saying I like: “A camel is a horse built by committee.” By throwing in amenities from different angles and trying to please everyone via a variety of voices and perspectives, you’re left with a product that doesn’t really appeal to anyone (see also: The Pontiac Aztec). And as much as I was a huge fan of Smash, and dearly want to see it succeed, I have to admit that there’s this odd, multifaceted pandering going on in episodes like last night’s “Previews;” it’s as if the show is trying so hard to appeal to as broad a demographic as possible, and in doing so, no one’s worried that its core audience—the bona-fide lovers and professionals of the performing arts—are going to end up pissed off and alienated by what the show gets wrong, who gets insulted, and which intelligent thoughts get jettisoned.
Anyway, THE SHORT VERSION: Dev does, in fact, sleep with Ivy, and maybe loses the wedding ring in her room. Gasp! Karen then apologizes to Dev and says she does want to marry him, and Dev gets all smiley and fidgety. Meanwhile, Michael Swift is back in as Joe DiMaggio, and tries to kiss Julia, and her family goes all awkward and splodey and there’s a rift between her and Tom.
Most importantly, Derek and Rebecca are sleeping together, Derek doesn’t care that everyone knows (Ivy inclusive), and we get our first preview, in which Rebecca doesn’t suck. She sounds good, she looks good, there’s some lighting problems, and the ending of the musical, in which Marilyn commits suicide, is so amorphous and weird that the audience doesn’t clap. So, everyone goes into rewrite mode.
This is all made more complicated by Rebecca getting poisoned via peanuts in her smoothie (she’s allergic, remember?) and getting hospitalized. The remainder of the shows for the weekend are cancelled as the gang tries to regroup, fix the show, and decide if Karen (the hired understudy, who hasn’t had time to learn the part) or Ivy (who’s got a crazypants reputation but knows the show cold) will step in.
Also, Eileen sings a surprisingly pretty arrangement of the Kurt Weill classic “September Song,” and her bartender man-toy Nick has a busted arm. That’ll be important later, I think. And Ellis is turning into a pretty good producer with a solid eye for what works and doesn’t, despite the whole thing with him being, you know, manipulative and evil.
Oh, and everyone goes to church. Then, we find out Rebecca is going to be fine, but the stress of the show is too much for her and she’s stepping out. We also discover that 1) someone DELIBERATELY POISONED THE SMOOTHIE and 2) REBECCA KNEW IT WAS FULL OF PEANUT EVIL AND DRANK IT ANYWAY, BECAUSE SHE DIDN’T WANT TO DEAL WITH THE STRESS. There is so much wrong with that last sentence.
WHAT WORKED THIS WEEK; The drama was nice and juicy and I get a kick out of seeing the show fully staged, with the pieces of fantasy staging incorporated into the real work. It’s a beautiful number, and despite the whole thing with Rebecca being comically bad in the last few weeks, Smash sees Uma out properly by letting her act and sing with commitment and vigor. She doesn’t suck; in fact, she’s pretty great.
WHAT MAKES THIS EPISODE A PROBLEM: My friends who work in theater, and love theater, are starting to rebel against Smash, and here’s why: the amount of amateur unprofessionalism and the timeline and mess of previews, even before we get to the poison thing, is sort of staggering. I know doctors who want to beat the writers of Grey’s Anatomy with a hammer, and I think I sort of get it, now. Yes, this is tv, and all a good tv drama is, after all, is life with the dull bits cut out (I think Alfred Hitchcock said that). Everyone’s sleeping with everyone, time and money are being wasted, and the basics of how stage management works, and how understudies are utilized, and how a show is put together—there’s drama in all of that, and this show is throwing out the baby with the bathwater in assuming that the general public would rather see the overtly slutty/sudsy stuff than the tensions of actually putting on a show.
This is a show made by theater professionals; that much is clear. But it’s no longer a love letter to Broadway, as it started out fifteen weeks ago. I’m hoping the finale, and next season (with a new showrunner and direction) can provide a little course-correction.
See you next week.
