Smash - SMASH {News & Media} #2:If something good can come from bad, the past can rest in peace. - Page 3

MrღMrsStinsbatskys · 05-26-2013, 07:20 AM

Love the Playbill I wish these shows were real shows cause I would see them right away they are both amazing.

**airali_glo** · 05-26-2013, 01:17 PM

In general I admit that if I lived in NY (or London, but more NY

) I'd have a Playbills binder full of booklets

Even Kyle had a collection of Playbills (but of unsuccessful musicals

)

I just found out this article pre-Smash pilot. It's from January 2012. Look at all the kind words about it, it was such a promise, then

Quote:

Bob Greenblatt shows his roots by bringing a cable-worthy singing show to NBC's big tent.
1/31/2012

Bob Greenblatt shows his roots by bringing a cable-worthy singing show to NBC's big tent.

There are multiple ways to look at the very conception of Smash, the Broadway-musical-theater drama from NBC. It was originally developed at Showtime when Bob Greenblatt, now the head of NBC, was running the pay-cable channel. So the narrow constraints of the premise make sense -- it could have been perfect on cable. It also was an idea that came from Steven Spielberg, and nobody in the television business has been able to say no to him for, well, ever. Which means it was likely to get made no matter what.

The adorable part is Greenblatt bringing it over to NBC, walking it into the big tent and promoting the hell out of it (the show will air the night after the Super Bowl, no doubt with ad support, following one of the rare NBC hits, The Voice). It's almost like Smash was a remembrance of things past for Greenblatt -- a gewgaw from the gilded world of cable, useless in the brutal world of mass entertainment.

Then there is this other way to look at it: Smash is excellent, a bar-raiser for broadcast networks. It may be pigeonholed as "Glee for grown-ups," but Smash could be the first series to take America's fascination with singing shows (one of its main stars is singer-turned-actress Katharine McPhee, the beloved 2006 American Idol runner-up) and mix it with a well-written drama to create something of more substance than Glee.

Of course, Smash wouldn't shy away from Glee's ratings or attention, but its focus is loftier -- a behind-the-scenes look at casting and launching a show on Broadway and the ego clashes, emotional toll and dramatic battles that ensue before the curtain finally goes up. Where Glee is a tonal collision of styles that was admirably ambitious in its first season, the Fox show is a creative mess at this point, content to be pop culture candy haphazardly tossed together in the hopes of being passably funny, superficially dramatic or treacly.

Smash, on the other hand, looks and feels like a well-written, tightly focused adult drama -- NBC didn't tamper with its intellectual DNA. That doesn't mean it's going to be a hit, or even acclaimed going forward. But it's a hell of a start.

Smash focuses on Broadway writing partners Julia Houston (Debra Messing) and Tom Levitt (Christian Borle), who have had enough success to take a break while Julia and her husband, Frank (Brian d'Arcy James), adopt a child. But the hectic life of Broadway beckons when Tom writes a song he wants Julia to hear -- for a potential musical based on the life of Marilyn Monroe, an idea both had dismissed as impossible or dumb -- and slowly the duo are lured into making it happen. Anjelica Huston plays producer Eileen Rand, who desperately wants the production to go forward even though she's in a bitter divorce with a husband bent on freezing her assets.

Rand hires the brilliant but egotistical and difficult director-choreographer Derek Wills (Jack Davenport), who creates drama wherever he steps. And soon there's a battle for the lead of the Marilyn musical between Ivy Lynn (Megan Hilty), the seasoned chorus performer obsessed with being the star, and recent New York arrival (via Iowa) Karen Cartwright (McPhee), who has the talent but perhaps not the conniving viciousness to make it to the top.

A well-worn theme, yes, but in the hands of the Smash creators, the drama has real vitality and the musical numbers are exceptional. That's because the talent in front of and behind the camera on Smash is gold. Borle, Hilty, James and Davenport have theater experience. All the songs are written by Tony and Grammy Award winners Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman. The pilot was written by playwright and screenwriter Theresa Rebeck and directed by Tony Award winner Michael Mayer. The list goes on.

So the pedigree is there (and if you're dubious about McPhee's ability to play on this team, she's wonderful). The question then is, will anyone watch? They should. But musical theater isn't exactly mainstream fare in America, no matter how well it's wrapped in drama. On the plus side, it will have The Voice as a lead-in on Mondays and, theoretically, the audience would be interested in similar content.

Or it could be that Smash is just another niche show, something NBC has all too many of scattered about the schedule. And yet, quantitative performance is not your worry -- leave that to Greenblatt. Smash is a surprisingly high-quality drama and entertainment well worth your time and support, and that's the only thing a viewer needs to be concerned about.

Airdate 10 p.m. Feb. 6 (NBC)

source

Honestly the only good in having it on Showtime would have been the less worry about the ratings. But for the rest...I don't know, probably it would have been all "too much", probably with more explicit sex scenes, too.

Will Chase tweeted this, about this video(s):

**airali_glo** · 05-27-2013, 01:24 PM

It's not spoiler because the episodes aired on tv - and we won't have a S3

Quote:

'Smash': Exec Producer Josh Safran on the series finale and what season 3 would have been

After two seasons, the curtain has closed on NBC’s ambitious musical Smash. The series climaxed with Marilyn Monroe musical Bombshell winning big at the Tonys, including awards for Ivy (Megan Hilty) and composers Tom (Christian Borle) and Julia (Debra Messing). It also marked the end of an attempt to reboot the series under new executive producer Joshua Safran (Gossip Girl), who replaced series creator Theresa Rebeck. EW talked to Safran about the surprising finale, what season 3 would have looked like, and Rebeck’s criticism of his Smash.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: When did you know this would be the series finale and not the season finale?
JOSHUA SAFRAN: It was like day two of episode 15 when the premiere aired. So 16 and 17 are the two-hour finale – 17 had already been broken and not broken as a series finale. Then after the ratings came through from the première, it was like maybe it would be, maybe it wouldn’t be. Then, as the next airing happened two weeks later, it was clear. The plot actually didn’t change — it was always the Tonys and the people who win and lose were the same people whether it was season finale or a series finale. We had to cut for time because the finale ended up being 15 minutes over, and those scenes will be on the DVD. But after Karen is at Table 46 at the end of the episode, before Jimmy comes to talk to her, an agent played by Nadja Dajani comes over to her and says, “I know you didn’t win tonight, but I want to tell you I think you’re incredible and I don’t just think you’re a stage star — I think you’re a movie star.” It would have paved the way for what the plan for season 3 was.

The plan for season 3 in my mind was a Hollywood movie musical. It would shoot in New York. I felt like after two seasons of watching two shows full trajectories, I didn’t want to repeat the story again so I thought I would take the season off and do a movie musical still using Broadway actors, still using Broadway stages, maybe it would have even been set in the world of Broadway. Who knows because we didn’t even get that far but it would have given audiences a season to [see] a different way of muscials being put together and then you could come back to Broadway in season 4. You see the seeds that are in the finale.

Like with Luke McFarlane’s character Patrick.
Yeah, and it was going to be maybe Derek was going to direct it or maybe he wouldn’t direct it or Tom would direct it? And they’d need a new composer so Jimmy would compose with Julia. It’s all there. So that’s the Smash that would have been.

So the long answer is we knew after it was broken [that it would be the final episode] but while I was writing it, I was reshaping it to be a series finale.

Is it hard to have to continue to work on something when you know it’s ending?
The problem is we didn’t even know we were moving to Saturdays until after we wrapped. So I think there was still a hope that maybe the audience would return. So we didn’t even know it was a series finale until well after we wrapped. I started reading the tea leaves so I started constructing it that way. But I still left enough open – like not everyone gets their fully happy ending.

There were certain choices I made. The neon sign was initially going to say “Big Finish” for their song and I decided you know what, it’s the end. A little Meta moment.

We all were getting the sense but no one wanted it to end. I think the thing I will be saddest about is this crew and cast was so incredible and so invested. They still are. That team will never come together again — it just doesn’t work that way. No one stopped giving their all or checked out, from the writers to the editors to the crew and the cast. The only thing that happened was budgetarily the Tonys weren’t to the level that previous episodes like opening night of Bombshell. But I still think we made it work. The stage was our stage in Greenpoint and the house was the Marquis.

The opening scene of the last hour where the whole cast sings “Under Pressure” feels a little like a curtain call. Was that the only time they’ve ever all been together?
That was the only time they’ve ever had a song together. They were all together at Table 46 in episode 15. But yeah, “Under Pressure” was an interesting moment because I thought singing “This is our last dance” is pretty cool.

The final number, “Big Finish,” with Karen and Ivy, reminded me of the finale of Chicago with Velma and Roxie.
That’s exactly what Marc and Scott and all of us were going for. It was actually going to be a much more bittersweet song. The initial plot which was shot but cut out of the episode is that Tom and Julia are not writing their speech, the song that’s going to be performed at the Tonys is what they were writing and they couldn’t figure out what to write about. Jimmy was going to come in and give them the idea to write “Big Finish” and that was going to show you the seeds of Julia and Jimmy and Tom working together. But we cut that storyline out because we needed the time and the relevant story for Jimmy is moving on from his past and the same for Julia. So initially, the writing of the song was going to be a little bit more bittersweet and summing up the year. It was going to be more of a valedictory song where now it’s more of a Chicago-y song. It’s great and it was so great to end on the girls together.

I’m still surprised that Ivy came out the winner in all of this because season one she was basically the villain. I know you put her through major character rehab.
We always knew that the real love stories of the season were Derek and Ivy, Jimmy and Karen, and Julia and Tom. In the very beginning of the year when the writers all got together and we had to make the big pitch to the network and the producers, that was always in it. But who was going to win was a closely guarded secret. Only I knew who was going to win the Tonys for a really long time. Then at a certain point I told the writers. We always knew that Bombshell was going to win. The question of whether it was Ivy or Karen, I actually made the decision very early on that Karen wouldn’t win. The question was going to be whether neither of them won or whether Ivy won. For a while, it was going to be maybe Ivy wins supporting and neither of them would win actress, so we went back and forth on it. About halfway through the season, because Ivy had gone through so much in season one and season two, was all about the phoenix from the ashes for her and for everybody. We just knew halfway through it has to be Ivy. She’s just been through too much and that role is so iconic and you’ve seen her deliver it so well.

The only thing that was a last-minute addition was that Derek wasn’t going to win choreography — he was going to win nothing. Then we all talked about it and we all realized it was more realistic that he would win and that people wouldn’t necessarily embrace that but the work would still be respected. Derek’s private demons are what he really needs to deal with, not being snubbed. So that was pretty much the last change that was made before we shot the finale.

I’m still shocked that Julia ended up with Michael Swift.
That was a seed for season 3. That was a season 3 Easter egg. Our goal was to bring him back and do image rehab for his character. That actually wasn’t a series finale decision. She was always going to see Michael Swift and we were going to wonder whether she was going to be with him next year. But the way in which that happened changed. Initially she was going to bump into him at the Tonys and they were going to have an interaction in which she was very happy to see him and he wasn’t happy to see her. So it was going to be a reversal of season one and for season 3 she was going to find out that she had to work with him but he didn’t want anything to do with her and she was still in love with him. But in the end, when we knew it was most likely a series finale, we just kept it to the scene at the door.

So was Patrick (Luke MacFarlane) also going to be in season 3?
Yes. I mean, we obviously didn’t get that far to make a deal with Luke, but our goal was to create a relationship for Tom that was real and lasting and not filled with the baggage of all he had gone through with Sam.

So was Patrick really gay?!
Yes. That makes me nervous because that was my big fear. In the script he said “I’m not gay” and then they kissed. But the actors very much loved the [other way]. But I worry that it reads for the audience that Tom takes advantage of Patrick. No, Patrick is really gay.

I didn’t think he took advantage of him. I just thought maybe that was a cliffhanger for a season 3 story.
We were interested in a season 3 idea of Tom working with this man who he was in love with and [who] was in love with him but who wasn’t out. So he finally found the relationship that worked but there was this huge stumbling block.

What would Eileen’s storyline have been for season 3?
We realized that Ivy would have still been in Bombshell so she would not have been able to do the movie and she would have been pregnant. The idea would have been to still have been following Broadway with Eileen, sort of like a B-story while following the movie on the A-side and watching how Eileen made the jump like some theatrical producers have done into film. But Eileen was going to be our way to still stay in the theater. One of the things we talked about was creating a powerful film producer who was going to be her love interest, sort of a Harvey Weinstein.

Was there any thought that Jennifer Hudson’s Ronnie would come back?
Jennifer’s always doing so many things. The Daisy story would have been Ronnie without the sexual harassment angle. We always knew that Derek’s demons would come back to haunt him but before we broke that story, we talked somewhere around episode 6 or 8 about Ronnie being the one that took over for Anna and won the Tony. If we had done that then we would have made the Diva in lead opposite Karen and Ivy. It would have been Karen and Ivy sort of having this person that they respected and they were close to being the person that was their biggest rival. But we couldn’t get Jennifer back because of scheduling.

And it was always the plan for Kyle to die?
Yes from the pitch that got me the job.

What was the last scene you shot for the finale?
Our last two days of production were in the Marquis for the house of the Tonys. So one by one everybody had their last scenes of either winning their awards or their reaction from the audience. So Anjelica’s last scene was her scene with Karen outside. I think Kat was the last one who wrapped, so I’m pretty sure the last thing we shot was when Jack comes down and gets Kat and Krysta out of their seats to go get Daisy. Megan’s last scene was at the back of the house right before that when Derek goes to get Anna and Karen.

Was it emotional?
Oh yeah. As I said, these people loved this show and loved working on it so much. The whole two days was a cavalcade of tears and hugs and crew pictures and applause every time someone wrapped. Megan even came back after she wrapped for Kat’s wrap.

One of my favorite days of the whole year was the night of “Under Pressure” because we shot in [an] empty Times Square from 9pm to 5am. Everybody was in that sequence. We were just hanging out in the lobby of the Marquis. It was also one of the coldest nights of the year. We had recently cut together the production numbers for 15 so I remember showing the cast “Grin and Bare It,” “I’m Not Sorry,” and “The Right Regrets.” It was just lovely. It was like a party that lasted well into the night.

There were so many songs we wanted to do and the DVD will have some numbers. There was a number that was actually cut from the first hour [of the finale], which will be online that night on NBC.com, a cut number of Eileen actually singing an Edith Piaf song in French. Another full version of “I’m Not Sorry” will be on the DVD with Anna and Karen from the downtown production. It was cut from episode 11 for time.

Did you get to tell the Smash vision that you wanted? Are you happy with this?
Yes. I really am. I’m really proud of it. It is very close to the pitch that I came in with. Of course it was a very steep learning curve. I was learning up until the last day, as was everybody. There’s definitely stuff that we would have worked through in season 3 but I’m very proud of the show and I always will be and I’m glad it exists so I got to be a part of it.

Theresa Rebeck was critical of the season. I’m not sure if you read what she wrote.
I did. I saw it. The emails on Buzzfeed? I have the utmost respect for Theresa. She created an incredible world and incredible characters and I’m so honored that I got to play in her sandbox for this whole season. Obviously, any viewer is allowed their opinion and if that’s her opinion. She’s allowed to have it. I disagree with it because I’m very proud of the show, but I’m not gonna say that she can’t have her opinion and I hope one day she and I get together and have a cocktail and a couple laughs.

So what’s next for you?
I’m gonna develop. Gossip Girl was 5 years of my life and we didn’t really get a hiatus because it was so many episodes a year. And Smash was so high-octane, high-energy, and high-stress. So I’m developing. I’m writing a couple features. The remake I wrote of Endless Love for Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage [is] shooting now. My goal is to just keep going. I love TV and I love movies.

source

MrღMrsStinsbatskys · 05-27-2013, 05:46 PM

I would have liked this show better if it was on Showtime because than it would have probably been still on air without getting to picky with ratings and consistently moving it on the schedule.

**airali_glo** · 05-28-2013, 07:30 AM

Yeah, even though I'm pretty sure we would have had more explicit scenes (cable LOVE that stuff, even if most of the times I feel it like useless).

In general I think that a S3 with a musical movie, with Karen as the star of it, would have been great

sadly they cut that agent line, it would have been nice for her, since she didn't win the Tony. But I get why they cut it. Also Eileen story, it seems interesting

Leslie posted on his YT page this video with some moments behind the scenes. At 1:25 you can see them rehearsing BHIC (the Tonys number)

Oh, the cover is sung by Leslie himself

MrღMrsStinsbatskys · 05-28-2013, 12:35 PM

Thanks for the video!

**airali_glo** · 05-28-2013, 02:23 PM

Quote:

Top 20 Canceled TV Shows That Should Be Revived

20. Smash

When it went off the air: Canceled in 2013, with the series finale airing this Sunday, May 26.
Why it was canceled: Ratings is officially to blame, but BuzzFeed’s own Kate Aurthur may have foreshadowed what was to come in her piece, “How “Smash” Became TV’s Biggest Train Wreck.”
Potential it could be revived: There’s been no murmurs of any promise yet, but that may be just because the show is still on the air.

source

MrღMrsStinsbatskys · 05-29-2013, 06:58 AM

They should bring this show back not on NBC but maybe as an online show which they are doing more of recently. Reboosting shows that was canceled are coming back online now.

**airali_glo** · 05-29-2013, 01:05 PM

Or go to Netflix, with all the episodes at the same time (like 9/10). My fear, anyway, would be that to reduce the cost, they'd reduce the musical numbers and the songs and I'm not sure I'd like it.

MrღMrsStinsbatskys · 05-31-2013, 10:48 AM

Netflix would good too!

**airali_glo** · 05-31-2013, 01:31 PM

But I don't really know how it works

MrღMrsStinsbatskys · 06-01-2013, 04:56 PM

I don't use netflix cause it's a little expensive for my liking. But, I would watch it on there if they did bring it back for the internet

**airali_glo** · 06-02-2013, 01:02 PM

I don't know it very well. I know Hulu (that has ads but it's free) only. How does it works? You have to pay or something?

MrღMrsStinsbatskys · 06-03-2013, 12:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by airali_glo (View Post)

I don't know it very well. I know Hulu (that has ads but it's free) only. How does it works? You have to pay or something?

I believe you have to pay for that site.

**airali_glo** · 06-04-2013, 10:31 AM

And I often read that people write shows specifically for Netflix.

I'm curious about Smash Twitter account. It's still active, but I wonder how much it will last, they can't keep using it only to sell Smash stuff from the store and to tell people to watch other NBC shows

NBC has also an actual store in NY. I wonder what happen with the merchandise when a show ends/is canceled.


Fan Forum > Archived Television Shows > Smash > SMASH {News & Media} #2:If something good can come from bad, the past can rest in peace.