Smash or Not Quite Glee w/a Casting Couch

    If only to keep the Glee kids employed sometime in the future I hope Smash sticks around a couple of seasons.  Still I wasn’t sure how much I would enjoy this show.  Sure I’m a fan of Glee but when the singing wears I can look out the window awhile and wait for the singing to stop and the drama to start.  I was expecting Fame and pleased to note how little time I spent looking out the window.
    This is an all around solid show in the same vein as Studio 60 and Slings and Arrows(recognizes he’s name dropping a show canceled before its second season and a Canadian dramedy that Americans didn’t watch) It’s a behind the scenes look at how Broadway works.  Where’s Mickey Rooney (checks to see if Mickey Rooney is dead planned reference might be in poor taste if he is.  forgets especially profane Mickey Rooney reference.  proceeds with standard Mickey Rooney reference) and the Barn when you need him.  I’m still waiting for that special episode of Glee where they perform the songs of the Little Rascals and Friends. (realizes you’re on the internet and you can search these references.  proceeds to drop the obscure reference bomb)  “Love Bug” gots some legs for an obscure song no one’s heard of, but Barber of Seville would likely be completely lost to the smartphone and tablet generation.  Ostensibly about the nuts and bolts of Broadway we get to watch how something like Miss Saigon is staged from initial idea to debut performance.
    We have Debra Messing and Some Guy(decides not to find out name of Some Guy and others. insists you focus on two more memorable names); they are the creative force behind the future phenomon Marilyn.  Yeah it’s lite and I really would rather watch a Bugsy Malone revival before shelling out a hundy to watch a live musical about Marilyn Monroe, but that’s the premise.  Thankfully Debra Messing is not the shrill idiot I remember from Will&Grace and Ned&Stacy.  We get the movie Debra Messing who is a bright and vibrant actress who despite having impeccable comic timing doesn’t have to spout one liner after one liner; I’m excited she gets to play smart for a change.  From a suggestion to a song the episode progresses where we meet the money.
    Anjelica Huston is a treasure and it is a crime that she isn’t forced to slave on network television for our amusement.  She snaps into her first scene like a shark and owns every moment she’s onscreen.  I might say something like she steals the show but she’s no child or animated character.  A professional actor can gracefully allow others to share their scenes without upstaging anyone.  This she does without any apparent effort.  The rest of the cast is adequate but I’m not going to ask too see more from Some English Guy when I can have Huston or Messing paint pictures in my mind.
    Given that this show’s got some things going for it let’s talk about the central problem of this effort.  It’s simple and fundamental and it can’t be fixed.  If it gets picked up for next season it’s going to need about 23 episodes for a season.  This show has great veteran actors good enough that we’ll watch them eating sandwiches for a while if the writers need some filler, but I can’t see this going that long.  How many episodes of Messing and Huston casting Marilyn will we want to watch?  I can say four but that’s only because the two actresses  vying for that role Some Blonde American and Brunette Ingenue are amazing singers and they’re easy on the eyes to boot.  If you like the unpfront ample and backside beeping Some Blonde American will do it for you.  If you’d like to watch fresh eyed innocence slowly corrupt to fame, Brunette Ingenue has that covered.  But how many episodes of this can we watch?  I hate having to sit through at least 3 filler shows on Glee before they get to Sectionals.  It’s not working on that fundamental level and there isn’t an easy fix to it.  I’m half a mind to hope that this show doesn’t get picked up for a full season.  I’d rather see 12 episodes as a midseason replacement next year.  Or the better idea would be to split the season in half and do one in Spring and one in Fall/Winter.  I love the idea of Smash doing a hip hop revival of White Christmas/Holiday Inn.  Granted there are some writing fixes.  Introduce a new character here or there, that’s at least two episodes done; if the guest actor is big enough schedule that arc for sweeps week.  You can extend it further by including plots that take place after the show opens.  You can throw wrenches at them; every wrench is an episode but after a couple of them we’re going to wise up to it.  And these writing fixes basically disembowel the elegance of the show itself.  It’s about a Broadway show from idea to stage.  It’s a very simple premise that deserves perfect execution.  That said I have hopes for this show; but then I had hopes for the Lakers Dream Team of Kobe, Shaq, and Malone.  Three Hall of Famers questing for a title only to fail due to fundamental personality differences.  Let’s hope Smash figures out a more effective solution than Phil Jackson did.

Alcatraz or Maybe I'd Rather Watch Castle

    If this were Castle the heroes of this show would have saved one more life in the second episode.  You know these shows...after the chase begins and the clock starts they’re scrambling to solve the puzzle that allows them to catch the killer/mastermind/villain before he can kill again.  They’ll reach him just a bit late and blood spills but not as much as the time before, but the villain escapes them until the last 15 minutes.  Then in the last five minutes there’s a coda, someone says we could have done more.  If they were smarter or quicker all these people wouldn’t have died.  Then the smart ass one says if they hadn’t had been as smart or as quick as they actually were then that poor little girl/boy/coed would have died too.  Then everyone recognizes how human these characters really are.  The makers of Alcaltraz totally failed to lived up to that established cliche.  This show is so very odd.

I’ll admit to being a fan of Lost.  It raises my expectations for this odd odd show.  I wasn’t one of those rabid myth junkies, so I won’t be up in arms and on the streets if I fail to see a single polar bear.  I just don’t understand how people got so into the myth of that show.  I was happy enough to see an engaging story about uncommon characters in harrowing situations.  At times this show follows formula so very well I have to wonder if they’ve been stealing from the slush pile they keep at Criminal Minds, but when they fail to hit a few expected twists I have to wonder about intent.  This show seems so carefully created, I have to wonder exactly what they are doing.  They assemble an amazing ensemble to support a painfully forgettable lead actress...forgive the cliche but I am getting ahead of myself.

Sam Neil and Jorge Garcia wear their characters like latex catsuits.  Neil is especially adept at portraying an incredibly complex character who is at turns the only hope to save us from killers from the past and in other scenes a menacing sadist who would sooner kill you than have to put you into his after action report.  He walks that fine line so well I’m not sure if my confusion is intentional or not.  As for Garcia, he may not have a role so finely drawn as Sam Neil, he does have one that is equally deep and actually far more essential to the whole show.  He is our proxy in that universe.  The quiet everyman who save for coincidence and strange circumstance is pulled into situations none of us could face with such courage and calm.  Feckful and alert he’s a sidekick who might smile if any accused him of it.

Parminder Nagra and the two villains are hits.  Villains are essential to a show like this and they played their parts incredibly well.  There is no question they have done some terrible deeds, but I challenge anyone to not feel some sympathy for them.  A family man sent to Alcaltraz for stealing food for his child kills the guard who tormented him for so long.  A lost orphan whose only goal is peace kills to soothe the madness of the world around him.  I’m not saying I want to live next to them or anything, but I don’t think they should be shut away from the world forever.  At least do them the simple courtesy of killing them.  And I save the best performance for last, I remember her running a soccer field next to Keira Knightley and tending to the wounds of the injured on ER, Nagra for such a small role left me speechless.  In hindsight I should have realized how central her character might prove to be in Alcaltraz Mythology at the end of episode 2.  Forgive me I was distracted by other things.  Frankly for that one last scene alone I’m ready to watch next week.

This show is a mystery.  So many fine performances and then the lead actress who I won’t bother even to identify by name; one google search and I can accuse her by name of acting as if she were simply a Law & Order detective mysteriously transported to an alternate San Francisco.  If she were on the X-Files her performance would suffice for one of those nameless agents in the background.  I do believe that she could play the hell out of that luckless red shirt who dies in the last half hour to remind us that Chris Carter is keeping it real.  She’s missing something.  I want to say she’s just isn’t as engaging as Evangine Lilly from Lost, but what I really want to say is she’s a hopeless hack who will be the death of this show.  I can only hope this is just some strange context thing; everything else is so good that the one bad thing is so very infuriating.  I also want to hope that this is all intentional and that this character will click into place and this actress will be earning her salary soon enough.  Okay I get it I might be as bad as any given rabid myth junkie maybe I understand that a bit better now.

Just one more bit now and I’m done.  One funny thing I note is that you turn Alcaltraz escapees into demons and you have the premise to Reaper.  You change Alcaltraz escapees to cursed objects and you find yourself watching the classic series “Friday the 13th”.  I hope this is intentional.  I hope it says something about formula television and how you can do quite a few things by establishing expectations then either missing or completely changing them suddenly.  I’ll stick around for a couple of more episodes but frankly I don’t see how this show can but fail to disappoint me. I cross my fingers and hope that these people who created Lost are the geniuses that critics and fanboys accuse them of being.   Too much like Lost and I’ll be disappointed that you just didn’t give me one more season of Lost.  If it tries too hard to be conventionally good then I’ll just wait an hour and watch Castle.  That show doesn’t make me think this hard and I like that show just fine.