SMASH

[best12bars]

LOL!

I don't like double negatives in slogans. I'm standing on principle here.

[random person 112]

I was just thinking why don't they just split the role of marilyn one play norma jean and the other marilyn. That would be fun and they wouldn't lose either actress.

[best12bars]

They did that already in a TV movie with Ashely Judd and Mira Sorvino playing the two sides of her.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117201/

EDIT: I don't mean to imply that there isn't some merit to this idea. There is a definite internal struggle between the real Norma and the invented "Marilyn." I think if it were played out in a literal sense as dual sides of the same person for any length of time, it would be a little too "Sybil."

But I could see a single production number where she struggles and even argues with her invented persona(s) on stage. You could have the "real" Marilyn dancing and singing with various iconic images of herself in films. She could either try to mold them or erase them, in a "love/hate" conflict. The search for her self-identity.

And that could be paralleled in the private lives of the behind-the-scenes characters on this show. They live one life at work filled with glamour and importance and another at home in their small apartments (even the rich ones) and their normal and often anonymous existences, always trying to reconcile and justify the two.

[someone.else's.story2]

Wow, I so wholeheartedly agree with Best12bars!

I wish you could go in and save the show as your ideas would add much needed depth to the characters and plot.

I loved:
<<<<>>>

Yes, if they could show the reality of the struggles of kids trying to break in in NYC, it would be so much more interesting. Even the apartments of "highly successful" people in NY are not so lavish, although that seems to happen with every tv show that is set in NYC and it has always bugged me.

Anyway, kudos to you. I think you've really hit the nail on the head with your analysis.

[someone.else's.story2]

Oops, I meant to quote Best12bars (see below).

I want the Hilty character to live in an apartment with cockroaches. I want her to be struggling to get out of debt (student loans, paying her insane rent, etc.), even while she's currently in the chorus of a Broadway show. I want to see her struggling with weight issues and thinking she's not pretty enough or tall enough or good enough, even if we can see her light up, filled with talent, on a stage.

Read more: http://broadwayworld.com/board/readmessage.php?page=10&thread=1040522&boardid=1#ixzz1lil7AIX9

[random person 112]

No offense but we haven't even seen enough of her character to know all that, i mean we can assume she's anorexic but that's about it. So wait a little longer before we start wishing for plots. They mit even come up.

[PalJoey]

Except the cockroaches. Mice, maybe. But not cockroaches.

[miss pennywise]

Oh god. I'm having serious flashbacks, now, Pal Joey. To this day I quote you to anyone who asks why I hate mice so much.

[best12bars]

Cockroaches ... I know, nasty stuff. Unless they sing like in "Enchanted," right? (no!)

random person 112---I know this is an ongoing series, and many things will develop and perhaps even be "reinvented" a bit. But a pilot episode is at least supposed to introduce us to the characters, the tone, the perspective, and set the stage for what's to come.

A "pilot" steers the show (hence the name), in other words. I wasn't asking for any more than that. And I thought it was veering a bit off-course for me already. I was looking for a little more truth to counterbalance the glamorous fantasy world of the theatre. To have the "real life" characters come off as so fictional to me, lessened the stakes of everything from their on-stage musical to their private lives.

EDIT: And thanks, someone.else's.story2!

[best12bars]

I will say this, too ... am I mad, sorry, or "disappointed" that the show did well in the ratings last night?

Absolutely not!

Would I prefer to know that America was watching this as opposed to yet another reality-game show?

You bet I would, given the choice of what's out there.

[henrikegerman]

Good points, best12, certainly there is an effort here to create something meaningful, and it may well not be. But 1) the material already presented may well be provisional, as it is in any musical, subject to cuts and changes in production, let alone pre-production; here it appeared to have been whipped up in no time at all; and 2) great artists misfire; I have no problem taking Borle and Messing's talent on faith and believing in them as artists even if M the Musical turns out to be pablum.

I'm not watching SMASH to judge MARILYN THE MUSICAL and I find the musical within a musical numbers more than adequate for the purposes of the series. And who knows, they may get much better. I don't recall the original material in ALL THAT JAZZ being exactly brilliant either, with the exception of Fosse's staging of it. Nor was it important to me that the movie within a movie in DAY FOR NIGHT was a work of comic bliss or that AGED IN WOOD was, as Karen Richards says to Margo Channing, "a fine and distinguished play." What matters here is that the numbers are fairly entertaining and show off McPhee and Hilty well. So far, they do that.

As for the show itself, I think it has to do with expectations. Personally, I was expecting a fun, fairly well written show with some interesting likable characters and good performances and I'm happy to report that the results so far are more than meeting my expectations. In terms of a program about a group of theatrical professionals putting on a musical, I wasn't expecting contemporary television's answer to THE BAND WAGON.

[miss pennywise]

More than anything else, I am discouraged by the news of Uma Thurman making a five-episode appearance as a movie star who wants to play Marilyn. While the movie musical THE PRODUCERS had a number of flaws, she was the WORST of the lot! I can't imagine anyone I'd rather NOT play Marilyn Monroe. (How's that for double-negativin', Besty?)

[Bettyboy72]

PJ-that article was worth the time. It cracked me up.

"We don’t know. We can’t know. But Anjelica Huston does. Anjelica Huston, her dark bob swinging purposefully as she strides, pantherlike, through the oddly empty streets of Times Square; Anjelica Huston, her sphinxlike mask of a face hiding eyes that have seen the deepest mysteries of time, that have seen stars born, and seen them fade, that have beheld as life took its first faltering steps from the sea, eyes that will still blink impassively when Earth at last is subsumed by the fiery death of the sun. Anjelica Huston has seen it all."

[best12bars]

Uma? Oh, no! Or is that Ono?

Sounds like more soap-opera hijinks. Which means the "pilot" was steering the show in its intended direction.

henrik--I'm glad you enjoyed it. I think the show-within-the-show can be played so many ways, as you've pointed out. It can be not more than a marquee and someone running around in a costume, or it can be a full number, or a full scene, or a complete show within the show. "Smash" put a lot of time and effort and emphasis into showing us the "show," so that's why I'm placing more emphasis on it than "Aged In Wood" or the musical in All That Jazz (I forget it's name). The number "Take Off With Us" is used as a mediocre song one step away from an airline jingle, painstakingly turned into a thrilling and atmospheric production number by the director, so it served a great purpose there, even if we know next to nothing about the musical itself. I remember the first table reading, where everything suddenly goes silent and all we hear are the sound effects of matches and a cigarette being lit, while everybody seems to be laughing their asses off. At what, we never know.

[Bettyboy72]

I definitely liked the smaller moments, like when Hilty was on the phone with her mom or when McPhee was upset in the bathroom. I liked it less when it was heavyhanded. However, I still loved it.

I do hate the NYC apartments on TV shows. No one I know lives like that-even people with a little money.

[henrikegerman]

ah, yes, best12, that was a great moment in ALL THAT JAZZ. I especially loved Leland Palmer knowing glances at Roy Scheider.

[best12bars]

Exactly! The focus of that scene was so terrific.

[FindingNamo]

"I am discouraged by the news of Uma Thurman making a five-episode appearance as a movie star who wants to play Marilyn."

Actually, this is an area of great interest in many households, including the Cody-Fosters'. It seems worth exploring to me.

But listen, I don't get why anybody who had such a negative response to the pilot would bother investing any more time in it? I lasted 15 minutes through the pilot of "Glee," and turned it off because it nauseated me. Eventually, enough people I love and care about were such big fans I gave the next 45 minutes a chance. I ended up going with how I felt originally, except for one other time maybe in the second season when I watched a whole episode and confirmed it Really Wasn't For Me!

Life is just too short!

I can't really think of any episodic television that isn't a soap opera anymore, including, most regrettably, all post-Cheers sitcoms. So, that's a kind of fundamental nature of the beast that one can rail against but is not likely to change.

Complaining about the veracity also seems to be a waste of time to me, or is everybody so conditioned by reality TV that they want to sit through 4 hours of auditions alone? I don't care if a drama is "how it really is" or not so much as that it establishes a set of rules in its own universe and sticks to them. (Something I know, even from afar, that frustrates GLEE fans.) I thought the SMASH pilot showed us the stakes and gave us perfectly fine television reason for all the fast tracking: divorce battle royale!

I can't wait to see more and love the fact that the woman in the New Yorker got my hopes up for the next three episodes.

I was a little disappointed by the interview linked above to the Canadian actors, listening to them go on about how "theater is not really like a fictional television portrayal." Well, Bob Martin, a story teller like the man in the chair would just sit and talk your ear off, it's not really like an entire musical would spring to live in his living room. It wouldn't be like that at all!

[miss pennywise]

As I said before, Namo, I am going to give it another shot because of what BWWers like you, MB and Addy, for example, have said. I trust the opinions of several posters and respect their perspectives. That doesn't mean I always agree with them, and maybe we'll simply "agree to disagree," but I'm going to keep an open mind...even though I didn't care very much for the pilot.

The simple point that last night's episode was *the pilot* is enough for me to tune in again. There have been shows I loved in the beginning that grew tiresome with age as well as the reverse. We'll see.

I am involved with a man I thought was a total jerk the first time I met him, and now I'm totally in love. The open mind thing is important, you know?

Also, as I pointed out, there have been very few TV programs whose backdrop was the theatre, so that alone is a draw for me. I remember a TV show that was actually a weekly musical comedy starring Robert Morse and EJ Peaker. I think it was called "That's Life!" Even though I was just a kid, I was already hooked on musical theatre, so I watched it every week and loved every minute of it. Of course, it didn't last, but the concept was original and close to my heart.

I am a big enough person to say, "I didn't care for the first episode, but there is so much enthusiasm and positive response from others that I am willing to take another stab at it." And I really WANT to like it!

So that's why I will "bother investing any more time in it."

But, as a rule, I don't like Uma Thurman, so she better "win me over"! (Something Sara Lee has never quite accomplished.)

[PalJoey]

What am I? Chopped liver?

[tazber]

I for one am kind of hoping it gets more soapy.

(btw, apparently it will; as cast members and characters start playing musical beds - this from a interview on EW.com)

It's about theater people. Are there any more dramatic creatures on the planet?

I'm sticking with it b/c I just know there's going to be All About Eve levels of bitchery and backstabbing.

Personally I'm going to invest my time because it's a show about musical theater, which obviously I have great passion for. Even mediocre musical theater soap is better than 5 star doctor/lawyer/hospital staff/cop soap.



Actually, this is an area of great interest in many households, including the Cody-Fosters'.

Bold and underscored LOL, namo!

[miss pennywise]

PJ, you got a singular shout-out in the "mouse urine" post. What more could you ask for?

[CurtainPullDowner]

Now that ALL MY CHILDREN is gone, I'm glad we have SMASH!
It's fun.

[miss pennywise]

I'm with everyone on the soapy part. I wanna see lots and lots of suds.

[best12bars]

Taz, that's probably the road it's taking: more soapy ... unrealistic and over-the-top.

Even if they lose viewers like me, they will likely gain a whole different and much bigger audience in the end who love crazy soaps and may or may not care about the theatre part. There are a lot of people who are into those shows, simply for the "who's sleeping with who" shock-value aspect. They could be set in a bar or a brothel or a balloon factory, it wouldn't matter to them as long as it was "juicy."

The only "soapy" series I've been hooked on in a decade is Downton Abbey. That's a rare exception to the rule for me, but I also love the subject matter, setting, and the era. And it leans toward the drama side of "soapdom" rather than the over-the-top comedy side.

For the very reasons Miss Penny mentioned, I still hope Smash is a smash and has a nice run, even if it's not for me.

[PalJoey]

I wonder who Ellis, Tom's beautiful assistant with the dangeous camcorder, is going to sleep with--and whether he's going to sue them for a portion of the writers' proceeds since the Marilyn musical was his idea in the first place.