By ROGER WESLEY, Staff Writer
Musicals aren’t anything that I really care to watch on television.
Using this preface, I’m going to give this one a pass. At least NBC is trying something innovative and expensive after spending what seems like a damn decade-plus trolling the bottom of the pile doing countless reality shows and other mass-market tripe that used to be relegated to the truly awful channels of basic cable. Somewhere along the way, things got fucked up…but this show could be a step in the right direction for the once-great network
Katherine McPhee is a go-getter, and dreams about living her dreams, and other such blah-blah horseshit. She’s serviceable enough, just like the true-blonde actress (the luscious Megan Hilty) is. They both sing, and the writers kind of used the same character archetypes as Paul Verhoven used with Elizabeth Berkeley and Gina Gershon from Showgirls. The difference here is that I bet McPhee and Hilty don’t end up doing anything that isn’t PG-13 or milder. There certainly won’t be any over-the-top pool-oriented sex scenes flopping around like a fish while straddling Kyle Chandler…this is network television, after all.
And that’s where I don’t think this show can succeed, is network television. This show has fairly-slow pacing during the scenes that aren’t lavished with musical tinge, and I found myself grabbing for my smartphone to catch up on my ridiculous friends’ Facebook status updates more than a couple of times. Good television shows don’t make you bored. The pilot did this, and it just didn’t feel like the jet took off.
I really doubt I’ll be sitting through any more episodes of NBC’s Smash, or what they probably want to refer to as their only successful hour-long drama pilot of the season. Everything else has been akin to droll, putrid garbage, up until now. Here’s hoping that the former number-one network in all of television gets big enough ratings that they can improve upon what is really a big undertaking in the realm of storytelling. While not entirely original either, there is potential there, and maybe that can be spun into at least one full season of quality network television programming.
Smash airs Mondays on NBC at 10pm Eastern / 9pm Central. But if you’re smart, you’ll probably end up watching it on Hulu like a normal modern American…if you care about it in the first place, that is.
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Roger is a stay-at-home father of four who loves reading, mentoring at-risk youth, and attempting to learn Metallica melodies on his guitar.
Also from Roger:
»Rob Schneider has a New Televised Program
More Mass-Market Media Madness:
»Homeland’s 90-Minute Finale Was Amazing Television
»Apple’s Core, The Devil And More
»Sunday Nights On Showtime Are Marvelous
Part 6 of Afterwards lands in five days…take cover: »1 »2 »3 »4 »5
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