Smash Chat
Episode #19 – Hot Mess

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by Mitchel Clow
@MitchClow

Posted on 4:48 pm,
June 25, 2012

Jennifer Hudson! The Tony Awards! A new (straight) male character! All that and more are subject to Mitch and Jess’s approval in this iteration of Smash Chat!

We start of the show by analyzing the story arc of Karen in season 1.
Karen has a surprising 3/4′s lead over Ivy on Smash’s facebook’s poll as to whom should play Marilyn, based solely off of 1×02 “Callbacks.”
Will Karen finally gain the guts she needs after ditching Dev next season?
American Idol alum Jennifer Hudson was announced as having a multiple episode arc in season 2.
Our first cast member out of the three new characters has been revealed: “Newsies” star Jeremy Jordan will play Danny!
Christian Borel, the actor for Tom, won a Tony for his role of Black Stache in “Peter and the Starcatcher”! List of other nominees and winners
We have a few awesome responses from the Smash production team on why we have to wait until early 2013 for season 2.
It was revealed that Karen was meant to win the role of Marilyn in an early draft of the pilot.
We read off a few tweets from our lovely and adoring fans!
Make sure to tweet and follow us @smash_chat for news on when we’re recording new episodes, along with news breaks! [note-Mitch has changed his twitter handle to @MitchClow]

This episode's hosts: Jessica Chapman, Mitchel Clow

Jeff Dodge

Come to me if you ever need to know things about American Idol, because I have to correct some things you mentioned about Idol when talking about Jennifer Hudson.

Jennifer Hudson was on season 3, and came in 7th place

Katharine McPhee was on season 5 (runner-up to Taylor Hicks)

As someone who watches and follows American Idol religiously, I feel like I have to correct you, so I hope you don’t take it the wrong way when I correct you on these things. :)
Guest

I was thrilled to hear Jessica say she quit watcher American Idol in protest after Fantasia won in season three–I did exactly the same thing (although that was the only season I’d watched). I still can’t believe that happened, haha. So relieved to know I’m not the only one :-)
- Jeff Dodge
  
  I think it’s a little ridiculous to quit the show just because of one winner. Because of that, you’ve missed out on some of the best singers to ever come on Idol in the years after that. I haven’t always been happy with all of the winners (I’m looking at you, Kris Allen), but every year there’s always singers I can root for. Yes, I want the right person to win, but I’m also watching for the great music.
  - Guest
    
    I hear you, but I really only watched the last five or six episodes of that season, so I was never really invested in it. I don’t really watch any other reality/competition shows either, and this was before I had a DVR, so the whole two-night thing took up too much of my prime-time TV watching anyway! Haha.
    - Jeff Dodge
      
      OK, if you never watched it on a constant basis, then that makes more sense.
http://twitter.com/ducadiposa Gianmarco Segato

I’m with Jessica all the way with regards to her feelings about Karen’s character. I think the show benefitted, and needed someone like her, i.e. a newbie, trying to make it on Bwy, with little experience of how to handle the personalities, the rivalries etc. Obviously that kind of character makes a nice contrast with the more experienced, slightly jaded Ivy. However, the mistake I think they made was, as you’ve pointed out not only on this podcast but during the season as well, not to give us enough hard evidence of Karen’s knock-em-dead talent. Not saying that McPhee isn’t a great singer, and for the most part, not a bad actress either BUT we’re talking MM here! Ivy was just soooo much more suited to that particular role in so many ways (dramatically, vocally, physically and so on). I love your point Jessica that we only really saw Karen’s Marilyn potential (with a couple of minor exceptions) when Derek was having his gold-haloed fantasies! None of this ruins the show for me at all…the overall quality of it is so high that I can sort of overlook what to me appears as the gaping hole at the centre of “Bombshell” – and we know who that is!
Looking forward to your discussion of Ivy and then I hope, Julia and Tom. It will be very interesting to see where Debra Messing’s storyline goes without hubby (and son? any word on whether that actor is coming back?) Keep up the good work guys…it’s tough to keep the momentum going during the hot summer and with no new epidsodes to take inspiration from!
- Mitchel Clow
  
  Good point on Leo (Julia’s son)-not sure if he’ll be back, but I think I’ve read that he isn’t going to be. At least I think we can assume that he won’t, since Frank won’t be around anymore.
  
  My concern is that it’s going to feel like a huge dropoff without all of these characters in the next season-hopefully it’s done tastefully!
Jenny

Just had a chance to listen to the podcast. My biggest problem with Karen was that I felt like from day 1 I was SUPPOSE to root for her. She was an underdog because I was told she was suppose to be an underdog yet I never felt her to be an underdog. It just didn’t feel organic with the character. On paper it should have because she was the girl without experience, small naive town girl just trying to get her big break. But it just never came across the screen and don’t know if it was because of the actual story or the actress. I actually felt Ivy more of an underdog because she had all of the pressure of living up to a certain set of expectations both put on her and ones she put on herself. It is one thing that has turned me off to AI. The last few seasons from day 1 I feel like they are telling me who I should love because they are just “great” yet I feel like I understand why they are so great.

Smash Chat Episode #19 – Hot Mess

Smash Chat
Episode #19 – Hot Mess