Comments on A Follow Spot: Get a Sneak Peek at NBC's "Smash"

AND no one is adopting a baby from China in "...

2012-01-18T17:04:07.172-06:00

AND no one is adopting a baby from China in "Mauritius," which makes it stand out. Oh, and "Mauritius" is what Kevin is talking about. Opening February 16th at Heartland Theatre.

Gosh, and Theresa Rebeck is usually so good at tan...

2012-01-18T16:50:13.531-06:00

Gosh, and Theresa Rebeck is usually so good at tangling and untangling the lives, motivations and foibles of multiple characters. Seems to me there's a fine example of this coming up soon, locally...

I appreciate the differing views. I'd like to ...

2012-01-18T16:17:07.867-06:00

I appreciate the differing views. I'd like to see the show succeed, I do like most of the people involved, and any attention to Broadway is fine by me. So maybe it will get better for me. Fingers crossed.

Did we see Karen dance? I don't recall that.

And I'm definitely TEAM KAREN!!!!!! She can ...

2012-01-18T16:09:18.147-06:00

And I'm definitely TEAM KAREN!!!!!! She can SING and DANCE and ACT!!

Too bad that you don't like the pilot. I'...

2012-01-18T16:07:51.428-06:00

Too bad that you don't like the pilot. I've watched it free OnDemand 7 times and enjoy more & more each time! After the pilot is the sizzle reel which shows alot of future scenes. Now this is where all the excitement for Smash comes; the singing, the dancing, more detailed stories, the flirting! Ahh definitely my favorite show this season and I'm not a theatre person!

I may perhaps be one of the friends who said it ex...

2012-01-18T16:00:19.149-06:00

I may perhaps be one of the friends who said it exceeded my expectations, but I should underline that that remark was in the context of deliberately reduced expectations. After "Glee," which also purports to take us behind the scenes with performing musicians and which I find unbearable and unwatchable, and after "The Playboy Club" and "Pan Am" tried to create soapy fun in specialized milieus and failed... I was expecting very little, and found myself more than decently entertained.

Of course, it remains to be seen how it'll hold up, and several of Julie's objections are spot-on -- I don't care about the name thing (I'm not the name researcher she is, but I teach undergraduates and I've had several Karens lately), but we do have
- the lyricist who has agreed to take a year off for her family and immediately reneges
- the eager young assistant who betrays a confidence and is rightly fired, and then somehow is given an important position in the production
- the nasty director, the only one in the world the composer absolutely will not have, who is the one they get
- once they get this director, he messes with the material

But the last of those points seems weirdly true to life -- see the Wise Guys / Bounce saga that Sondheim writes about in his newest book. You trust yourself to a director's vision, and he screws up what you thought you were writing and turns it into something else.

The incongruity of Ms. McPhee (whose name I knew but whom I've never seen before) as the charismatic new girl they gotta have... well, I write that off in advance as the deal with the devil that a series makes to get this subject matter on the air at all. I mean, the country sadly won't be tuning in to see Christian Borle or Brian d'Arcy James or Megan Hilty, and even names like Anjelica Huston or Jack Davenport are no draw.

Well, we'll see what it comes of it, and I may tune out eventually. But for now, I want to see episode 2.

By the way, for non-Comcast people, iTunes may be the easiest way to check it out right now, and they've made it free.