Salon.com > Smash

The Julie Taylor Test: How to tell if a TV actor is bad

Sun, 05 May 2013 21:00:00 +0000

Julie Taylor appeared on all five seasons of the late, great “Friday Night Lights.” The teenage daughter of the show’s main characters, the indelibly decent and charismatic Mr. and Mrs. Coach (or, fine, Eric and Tami Taylor), Julie (Aimee Teegarden) had more screen than almost any of “FNL’s” players except her parents. She wasn’t, at first glance, obviously, abjectly terrible, but she was tremendously opaque and flat: the lackluster nature of her performance was quietly mediocre. Whereas everyone else on that show seemed, almost effortlessly, to embody a real, identifiable, understandable and believable person, Julie never even fully registered, except in rare, fleeting moments.

TV is very kind to bad actors. In a movie, when someone is bland or dull or hammy that’s all they have time to be. On TV, as a bad actor appears again and again, you begin to rationalize the badness, their under-, over-, or just plain wretched acting. Maybe this performance is inexpressive and uncharismatic because the character is inexpressive and uncharismatic. Some people are! Maybe it’s not January Jones who can’t put over emotion of any kind, it’s Betty Draper who is so flat!

Is “The Bible” comfort TV?

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 19:50:00 +0000

The first part of the History Channel’s miniseries “The Bible” was watched by 13.1 million people on Sunday night. This is a huge number, another shiv in the guts of network television. As the New York Times noted, it is double the number of viewers who watched anything on NBC last month, and even more people than watch “The Walking Dead,” another cable show that makes network TV executives drool.

The success of “The Bible” is and is not surprising. That’s a huge audience, and a huge audience for a bad series — plodding, stiff, dull, God-is-a-white-guy-with-sandy-blond-hair kind of bad. But it has been demonstrated before that there is a huge market for religious-based, evangelical-leaning entertainments, of which “The Bible” is clearly one. (Mark Burnett, the producer of “Survivor” and a very canny finder of eyeballs, is one of the series’ producers.) Part of the reason the series is so middling is that it is explicitly constructed not to offend this demographic: It isn’t even serious about all of the crises of faith chronicled in the actual Bible, because that would require elucidating ... crises of faith.

“Smash” goes splat in the ratings

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 17:29:00 +0000

All the retooling was for naught, it seems.

"Smash," the critically derided show that maintained a baseline decent audience last spring (composed of so-called hate-watchers), isn't even fun to hate anymore: Only 4.5 million viewers tuned in to last night's second-season premiere, with a teensy 1.1 rating in the 18-49 demographic.

The series was heavily promoted during last year's Super Bowl and began its life as a promising collaboration between new NBC president Robert Greenblatt and director Steven Spielberg. Show creator and playwright Theresa Rebeck departed last year after a power struggle with the network; new showrunner Joshua Safran (late of "Gossip Girl") gave the season premiere a more professional, less haphazard sheen.

NBC, which spent fall in recovery, buoyed by football, "The Voice" and new hit "Revolution" -- none of which is currently on the air -- can only hope that "The Voice" can work its magic on the schedule when it returns.

Hate-watching “Smash” is one of life’s great pleasures

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 17:56:00 +0000

“Hate-watching” is a not a properly descriptive term: “Hate-watching,” when truly practiced, is a joyful experience. If one truly dislikes a show — finds it boring or offensive — one does not watch at all. Watching, one does not feel a rush of bitchy glee at the ridiculous heights the show scales, the incidental lunacy it achieves. Hate-watching is what happens when you turn into your most judgmental self and start pointing and laughing, but without feeling a twinge of guilt or shame that your time could be better spent. The object of your derision is not unworthy, it's not just some god-awful TV show — it is a god-awful TV show with pretensions and the ability to surprise you, even if it is only with new lows. Hate-watching a show is not the same as loving it, but, as ever, hate and love bear a passing resemblance: They are the feelings reserved for that which you are most passionate about.

The year TV broke out in song

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 20:00:00 +0000

“Nashville” finished up the first part of its season last night with Juliette Barnes dominating a church, Gunnar and Scarlett selling a song, and Rayna Jaymes hesitating to go on tour with her younger rival. (Do it already!) In just eight episodes, “Nashville” has delivered some of the best musical moments on scripted TV this year. So on the occasion of its winter recess — and, also on the occasion of "Suburgatory's" homage to Rebecca Black last night — here is some of the year’s best singing and dancing, from “Mad Men's" "Zou Bisou Bisou” scene to "Happy Endings," with Adam Pally wearing a giant crucifix earring, and of course, because it's a show about a Broadway musical, we have to include a little number from that crazy show called "Smash."

From “Nashville”

“Nashville” has been full of great music, but it’s the duets that have been mesmerizing, more effectively distilling and tracking the characters’ changing emotions than any dialogue. The three best: the first episode’s “If I Didn’t Know Better,” which presaged the inevitable Gunnar-Scarlett puppy-dog love story; the Deacon-Rayna duet “No One Will Ever Love You,” a bit of singing that’s emotionally tantamount to adultery; and Rayna and Juliette’s how-could-I-really-hate-you-when-singing-with-you-is-so-much-fun peace treaty, “Wrong Song.”

“Will & Grace” changed nothing

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 00:10:00 +0000

The strange thing about all the “progress” we’re always hearing about when it comes to gay and lesbian characters on TV? Nothing ever seems to change.

Take the latest dubious example, the new CBS sitcom “Partners,” which premiered last week to deservedly tepid ratings and mostly negative reviews. The giveaway is right there in the tag line: “From the Emmy-winning creators of ‘Will & Grace.’” The series follows gay Louis (Michael Urie) and straight Joe (David Krumholtz), lifelong buds and business partners, whose platonic intimacy is forever getting in the way of their romantic relationships. It’s “Will & Grace” with a gender reassignment — an attempt by creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick to explore what it might mean, in our post-metrosexual era, for two men to find emotional sustenance from a person of the opposite sexual orientation.

“Smash’s” unexpected star

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 16:30:00 +0000

On NBC’s behind the scenes Broadway drama "Smash," two actresses are vying for the lead role — and not just in "Smash's" fictional play-within-the show, "Marilyn: The Musical."

Innocent, Iowan Karen Cartwright has lost, for now, the role of Marilyn Monroe to Ivy Lynn, a huge-voiced buxom blond with Broadway experience. Episode after episode the two women smile at each other as though smiles were knives, trading dirty looks, passive-aggressive niceties, and put-downs delivered in dulcet tones. Karen, envious of Ivy, has tried to outshine her; Ivy, threatened by Karen, has tried to get her kicked out of the show.

While Karen and Ivy have been asserting their dominance, the two real-life actresses who play them — Katharine McPhee, a former "American Idol" contestant given top billing in all of "Smash’s" promotional materials , and Megan Hilty, a Broadway veteran who was not — have been doing the same. The outcome of these two face-offs seems likely to be the same: The second banana is just about to steal the show.