Okay, so I will be the first one to admit NBC's "Smash"musical-theatre themed drama is highly flawed and tonally inconsistent. But as someone for whom showtunes provided the soundtrack to my elementary and adolescent years, it's fun to have a chance to nerd out once a week when I see the likes of Bernadette Peters on network TV (or rather, my computer screen. Hulu, baby!). I totally fell to pieces when I watched this mother-daughter ballad last week:
But the main pleasure of "Smash" has been the insider baseball-ness of the whole operation, from last year's behind-the-scenes drama involving showrunner Theresa Rebeck to the irony of Megan Hilty's character on TV being constantly passed over for the part of Marilyn in favor of an "American Idol" star while actual Broadway producers cast her in the revival of Monroe's iconic role in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes."
