Smash and the rebirth of Katharine McPhee

If you like watching shows on the Diva Universal channel, then I am sure you must have already come across Smash. This is on the air every Thursday night at 9 and it is the one getting the big promo push these days. I don’t think there is a commercial gap that does not show a number from Smash.

Set in New York, the series is about the production of Bombshell, a Broadway musical about the departed sex symbol Marilyn Monroe. It is quite interesting in that it shows the drama in the intriguing lives of stage people and also quite fun because there are a lot of surprising musical numbers in every episode. You do not know what you will get, a nice cover of Christina Aguilera’s Beautiful, a classic like Over The Rainbow or a new original.

Smash comes at just the right time. That is when you have started thinking that reality competitions and music videos are probably all that television knows about musicals. Also, admit it, wondering whether Jessica Sanchez will be booted off or not has become the most interesting thing about American Idol. That is not good. And of course, I do sometimes shudder thinking about what Aguilera would be wearing in The Voice. Who is her stylist? I cannot bear the sight at times. So, during those times when I get to think that way, I am glad that I have Smash to look forward to.

Produced by Dreamworks Television and Mad Woman in the Attic, the series includes the famous Steven Spielberg among its executive producers. That means that viewers are assured of getting top quality production and A-list performers in the show. There are plenty of these, from Debra Messing of Will And Grace as a Broadway lyricist to Nick Jonas as a rich former child star. The one that keeps you glued to the series week after week though is the lovely Katharine McPhee.

You probably remember McPhee as a very pretty, sweet-voiced American Idol finalist. She was in th

With co-star Megan Hilty as Ivy Lynn, who also longs to play Marilyn

e fifth season during which she made it to the finals where she lost out to Taylor Hicks. She floundered for a while after the contest releasing two albums that were neither here or there.

She did R&B in Katharine McPhee and country ballads in Unbroken before she seemed to have faded out from show business. But now with the lead role in Smash, she has joined the ranks of Idol also-rans that emerged as bigger stars than the winners of the title. Think Jennifer Hudson, Adam Lambert and Chris Daughtry.

McPhee is Karen, an unknown ingénue who after a powerful rendition of Beautiful is now in the running to play Marilyn. There are actually three of them. The other one is the Broadway chorus girl Ivy Lynn, played by Megan Hilty of Wicked. And then there is Uma Thurman as the movie star Rebecca Duvall, whose presence will surely make Bombshell a success. Now Uma is Uma. She sings and dances here, and looks absolutely gorgeous. It is just too bad that she is in the show for only a short while.

Uma, McPhee and Hilty play familiar figures in Broadway legend in Smash. Uma is the big star whom the other artists do not want in the show but who will bring the audience in. McPhee is the new discovery who is expected to make it big. And Hilty is the girl whose mother has prepared her for this break all her life and will do anything to get the role. The characters are cliché but these girls are great in their roles.

Providing more drama are the other stars in the series. Academy Award winner Anjelica Huston as the formidable producer who might lose her power once her husband files for divorce; Messing who cuts a sensitive figure as the writer whose past is now catching up with her; Jack Davenport as the exacting director who must bed the star and stops at nothing to make his shows a success; and many others.

Given the way most TV dramas go, Smash has more than enough qualities to keep viewers glued to their sets. But it has more by way of the wonderfully staged musical numbers. Rehearsals turn into full-blown song-and-dance showstoppers, karaoke times give way to Top 40 favorites and at times, McPhee and Hilty will just burst into song on the street. Yucky? Not at all because, they are in Times Square, Manhattan and Broadway is just a few steps away.