TV Review: SMASH – Season 1 – “Understudy”

By ANNE LOUISE BANNON 04/10/2012
Uma Thurman in SMASH - Season 1 - "Understudy" | ©2012 NBC/Will Hart

Stars: Debra Messing, Christian Borle, Megan Hilty, Katharine McPhee, Jack Davenport, Angelica Houston Writers: Jason Grote Director: Mimi Leder Network: NBC, airs Mondays Original Telecast: April 9, 2012 Sometimes you just wish you could holler at the writers of SMASH “the play’s the thing.” This episode, “Understudy,” gets it, well, almost. We’ve still got lyricist Julia (Debra Messing) still dealing with her husband leaving her, which is sad and all, but we’re not seeing its affect on the show. Dev (Raza Jaffrey) is having a really, really bad day, being passed up for a much-wanted promotion to a scumbucket – but again, just […]Read On »


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TV Review: SMASH – Season 1 – “Hell On Earth”

By CARL CORTEZ 04/04/2012
Katharine McPhee and Megan Hilty in SMASH - Season 1 - "Hell On Earth" | ©2012 NBC/Craig Blankenhorn

Stars: Debra Messing, Christian Borle, Megan Hilty, Katharine McPhee, Jack Davenport, Anjelica Houston Writers: Scott Burkhardt Director: Paul McGuigan Network: NBC, airs Mondays Original Telecast: April 4, 2012 After the nosedive SMASH took last week, the only place to go was up which is what “Hell on Earth” does, but only marginally. It’s another wading water episode until we get some movie star power with Uma Thurman next week. The big news this week is watching Ivy (Megan Hilty) go on a downward spiral into self-pity and heavy medication (shades of Marilyn?). It’s already been established she has adverse reaction […]Read On »


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TV Review: SMASH – Season 1 – “The Workshop”

By ANNE LOUISE BANNON 03/21/2012
Bernadette Peters in SMASH - Season 1 - "The Workshop" | ©2012 NBC/Eric Liebowitz

Stars: Debra Messing, Christian Borle, Megan Hilty, Katharine McPhee, Jack Davenport, Angelica Houston Writers: Jason Grote Director: Mimi Leder Network: NBC, airs Mondays Original Telecast: March 19, 2012 I have written repeatedly that it’s the singing and dancing that makes SMASH so fun to watch, and while “The Workshop” proves my point quite neatly, I think I am going to have to revise my thesis a little. When the show becomes about who is sleeping with whom and the petty in-fighting, well, then it loses what makes it special and unique – it becomes just like any other mildly soapy series […]Read On »


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TV Review: SMASH – Season 1 – “Chemistry”

By ANNE LOUISE BANNON 03/13/2012
Katharine McPhee in SMASH - Season 1 - "Chemistry" | ©2012 NBC/Patrick Harbron

Stars: Debra Messing, Christian Borle, Megan Hilty, Katharine McPhee, Jack Davenport, Angelica Houston Writers: Jacquelyn Reingold Director: Dan Attias Network: NBC, airs Mondays Original Telecast: March 12, 2012 Oh, for crying out loud! If there was ever a storyline that would make me want to dump SMASH, the affair between lyricist/book writer Julia (Debra Messing) and actor Michael (Will Chase), now heating up in “Chemistry,” would make me do it. Because there isn’t any chemistry between Messing and Chase. Because it’s just too tiresome that the one married character has to have an affair. Because it’s just too creepy the […]Read On »


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TV Review: SMASH – Season 1 – “Let’s Be Bad”

By ANNE LOUISE BANNON 03/07/2012
Megan Hilty in SMASH - Season 1 - "Let's Be Bad" | ©2012 NBC/Will Hart

Stars: Debra Messing, Christian Borle, Megan Hilty, Katharine McPhee, Jack Davenport, Angelica Houston Writers: Julie Rotenberg & Elisa Zuritsky Director: Jamie Babbit Network: NBC, airs Mondays Original Telecast: March 5, 2012 “Let’s Be Bad,” as an episode, is all over the place, but on the plus side, the SMASH writers have backed off on a couple cliches. They went hog wild on the others, though, including a final scene you could see coming from the back balcony far corner with restricted sight lines in that sound dead corner of the auditorium. We start out with Julia (Debra Messing) still behind on pages […]Read On »


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TV Review: SMASH – Season 1 – “The Cost of Art”

By ANNE LOUISE BANNON 02/29/2012
Katharine McPhee as Karen Cartwright in SMASH - Season 1 - "The Cost of Art" | ©2012 NBC/Patrick Harbron

Stars: Debra Messing, Christian Borle, Megan Hilty, Katharine McPhee, Jack Davenport, Angelica Houston Writers: David Marshall Grant Director: Michael Morris Network: NBC, airs Mondays Original Telecast: February 27, 2012 There is no getting around it that SMASH is a fun show to watch. The singing and dancing are wonderful fun. The original songs don’t suffer too much from Andrew Lloyd Webber syndrome (beating you over the head with soulful sappiness and the tendency to become insidious ear worms). In fact, the  featured production number in this episode “The Cost of Art,” I Never Met a Wolf Who Didn’t Love to Howl, […]Read On »


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TV Review: SMASH – Season 1 – “Enter Mr. DiMaggio”

By CARL CORTEZ 02/23/2012
Megan Hilty and Michael Swift in SMASH - Season 1 - "Enter Mr. DiMaggio" | ©2012 NBC/Will Hart

Stars: Debra Messing, Christian Borle, Megan Hilty, Katharine McPhee, Jack Davenport, Angelica Houston Writers: Theresa Rebeck Director: Michael Mayer Network: NBC, airs Mondays Original Telecast: February 20, 2012 The testament of a good show is to be able to turn it on, intending to watch a few minutes, and getting sucked in to watch the whole thing. That’s what happened while watching SMASH, the “Enter Mr. DiMaggio” episode. I was only going to check out how things held up after the first two stellar weeks, and well, I was sucked right back into the series. Of course, with the good, […]Read On »


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TV Review: SMASH – Season 1 – “The Callback”

By CARL CORTEZ 02/14/2012
Megan Hilty in SMASH - Season 1 - "The Callback" | ©2012 NBC/Patrick Harbron

Stars: Debra Messing, Christian Borle, Megan Hilty, Katharine McPhee, Jack Davenport, Angelica Houston Writers: Theresa Rebeck Director: Michael Mayer Network: NBC, airs Mondays Original Telecast: February 6, 2012 After an amazing premiere episode, SMASH settles into its second episode “The Callback” with the same great writing and directing and adds some more drama to the mix. Above all, the series knows who these characters are and the actors fit them like a glove already (and we’re only two episodes in). That’s rare in network television, but that speaks volumes for the work that went into creating SMASH. As the title […]Read On »


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TV Review: SMASH – Season 1 – “Pilot” – Series Premiere

By CARL CORTEZ 02/07/2012
Katharine McPhee and Megan Hilty in SMASH - Season 1 | ©2012 NBC/Mark Seliger

Stars: Debra Messing, Christian Borle, Megan Hilty, Katharine McPhee, Jack Davenport, Angelica Houston Writers: Theresa Rebeck Director: Michael Mayer Network: NBC, airs Mondays Original Telecast: February 6, 2012 Of all the new TV series, SMASH seemed to be the least appealing to me. My initial perception, like many, that it was a more adult version of GLEE set in the world of Broadway. It looked like it had limited appeal across the board. Then something magnificent happened. I actually watched the pilot episode and was blown away. Granted, I am reviewing the “Pilot” episode, but since the second episode was […]Read On »


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Exclusive Interview: SMASH producers Justin Falvey and Darryl Frank bring Broadway to NBC

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN 02/06/2012
Brian d'Arcy, Frank Houston, Jaime Cepero, Anjelica Huston, Jack Davenport, Katharine McPhee, Megan Hilty, Debra Messing, Christian Borle, Raza Jaffrey in SMASH - Season 1 | ©2011 NBC/Mark Seliger

Getting an original musical onto Broadway is an epic undertaking. Getting a scripted network TV series depicting the travails of getting an original musical onto Broadway magnifies that epic undertaking into what some might consider realms of sanity-challenging difficulty. However, NBC and executive producer Steven Spielberg are bringing forth SMASH, which premieres tonight, Monday, at 10 PM. SMASH is about the creation of a new musical about the life of Marilyn Monroe. Debra Messing and Christian Borle play the songwriting duo who launch the project. Anjelica Huston plays their hard-nosed producer and Jack Davenport plays the temperamental director. Megan Hilty and […]Read On »


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