Bombshell was a Smash

I am no TV connoisseur, but I do tend to watch a lot of it and I tend to be quite critical of it—though I do have a soft spot for good singing and good story telling.  Having watched NBC’s Smash from the start, I fell in love right away.  Katherine McPhee is the fresh-faced star of the show who is not only absolutely gorgeous, but is an extremely talented singer and actress that makes her impossible not to root for.  Another reason I started watching was because of the nature of the show: a fictional drama set around creating a hit Broadway musical loosely based on Marilyn Monroe’s life, called Bombshell.

 

Essentially, Smash is a more mature version of Glee, as it follows the personal dilemmas of the actors and provides the behind-the-scenes atmosphere of a hostile production environment.  The British director played by Jack Davenport behaves more like a misogynist dictator, yet manages to charm and sleep with two of the three Marilyns in the show.  The relationships and friendships between the characters develop, grow and change in ways more natural and realistic ways than in many other TV dramas, yet are just as interesting to watch because of the great acting--especially by Deborah Messing.

 

The struggling-actress plot line never gets old for me and, as a former dancer, I can remember feeling the anxiety of preparing for a show and rehearsing before a competition.  The parallel struggles fought between the real Marilyn Monroe and the actresses playing Marilyn (Karen and frenemy Ivy) add another layer of interest and made me feel sympathetic for both characters.  On top of that, McPhee’s on screen boyfriend Dev is a very handsome Indian-American with an English accent who treats her like gold and supports her no matter how crazy her life gets—a rare depiction of a good boyfriend character on a modern television show (er, save for the third-last episode, that is...).

Usually, too much corny singing will throw me off any musical be it in a play, television show or movie format.  But Smash has just enough singing, dancing and dramatic plot twists to leave me counting the days until the season two premiere in the fall of 2013.