• Show: Smash
Airtime: Mon., 10/9c on NBC
• Rating: TV-14 (language, sexual references)
• Genre: Drama, Musical
Cast: Debra Messing, Jack Davenport, Katharine McPhee, Christian Borle, Megan Hilty, Raza Jaffrey, Brian d’Arcy James, Jaime Cepero, Angelica Houston
• Ok for Ages: 14+
• Parents Should Know: The main concern here is sexual content, which begins with a casting couch scene in the pilot and escalates into affairs, implied intercourse, kissing, and assorted love scenes, including gay lovers in bed together. It’s based on Marilyn Monroe, so expect seductive dancing and singing, as well as social drinking and a few drug-related storylines. The TV-14 rating is spot-on.

Review:

When I first heard about Smash, the NBC drama that goes behind the scenes of a fictional Broadway musical, I figured it would be a lot like Glee. But it’s not like Glee at all. In fact, it couldn’t be any less like Glee if it tried. About the only thing Smash has in common with Glee is that both shows are centered on music.
To me, Glee seems more like a live-action cartoon because the characters, although fleshed out over time, are more like caricatures than real people. Glee is also fast-paced, breezy, and rife with snappy dialogue and auto-tuned pop songs. It also doesn’t fit neatly into any genre, which is both good and bad. Good because it’s more things to more people. Bad because award shows don’t know how to categorize it. When the show started in 2009, a discussion among the TV Critics Association had us questioning whether it was a drama or a comedy or a musical. I guess it’s all three.
But Smash fits squarely into the musical drama category, with bits of comedy tossed in here and there. It’s slower-paced than Glee and includes a mix of original songs and Top 10 hits. It’s also unlike any show I can think of, which is partly why I’m so in love with it. The characters seem like real people, only with enough soapy drama to make it fun for viewers.
The story follows the making of a fictional Broadway musical based on the life of Marilyn Monroe (though expect a full-fledged musical if the TV show goes well). It’s written by the successful songwriting duo of Tom (Tony Award nominee Christian Borle) and Julia (Emmy Award winner Debra Messing). I missed the whole Will & Grace craze, but I do love Debra Messing. She seems like the kind of girl who’d sit down and have coffee with you.
Julia recently began the process of adopting a child with her husband Frank (Tony Award nominee Brian d’Arcy James), but despite her best efforts to take time off, she finds herself smack in the middle of this musical.
As you might imagine, there’s more drama behind the scenes than on stage, starting with a big rivalry between stage veteran Ivy Lynn (real-life Broadway star Megan Hilty) and youthful ingenue Karen (Katharine McPhee, runner-up on American Idol in 2006). Anjelica Huston plays tenacious producer Eileen, who’s divorcing her husband and jumps into the Marilyn project with brilliant-but-egotistical director Derek (Jack Davenport).
One thing I love about Smash is that even if you’ve never been to a Broadway musical and, say, live in the north woods of Michigan and have only done community theater, the show makes you feel like you’re part of the in-crowd. Most of the cast have been involved with Broadway shows, and there are little in-jokes here and there, as well as real-life Broadway stars like Bernadette Peters showing up in the cast.
One in-joke example is when Julia refers to “Riedel” as a “Napoleonic little Nazi.” It’s actually the real-life Michael Riedel, the influential and acerbic theater critic for The New York Post. I’m waiting for a storyline where a musical director punches him in the face, just as David Leveaux, director of the 2004 revival of Fiddler on the Roof, did in front of a crowd at the theater district restaurant Angus McIndoe. Just you wait – we’ll see it on Smash!
And there are plenty of frothy suds to keep even disoriented daytime soap fans happy — steamy affairs, marital rifts, bitter divorces, juicy gossip, back-stabbing rivalries, nasty drug issues, nail-biting auditions, financial woes, and a running joke about Anjelica Huston’s character throwing a drink in the face of her ex. And that’s just in the first episode!
Seriously, though, there’s a lot to love about Smash, which is why from the minute I screened the pilot last fall, it immediately became must-see TV for me.