LITTLE ROCK — It’s an American Idol alumnae reunion when Smash returns to the NBC schedule at 8 p.m. today. We last saw our hoofers and singers on May 14, so it has been a while.
It’s a two-episode treat (“On Broadway/The Fallout”) featuring guest star Jennifer Hudson as a mentor to Smash regular Katharine McPhee.
Idol fans already know, but these two are a couple of the more successful American Idol “losers.”
The 31-year-old Hudson finished a distant seventh in Season 3 of American Idol. Quick - who won that season?
You get 100 points if you answered Fantasia Barrino. Bonus round: Who was the runner-up?
Hudson didn’t go home and sulk. She went on to score a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for 2006’s Dreamgirls and her first album in 2008 won a Grammy and went gold.
And, of course, there’s a whole lot less of Hudson these days since she became a spokesman for Weight Watchers.
McPhee, 28, was in Season 5 of Idol in 2006, finishing runner-up to Taylor Hicks.Who? Yeah, I know.
That’s the season that produced successful “losers” Chris Daughtry and Kellie Pickler and also featured Arkansan Patrick Hall of Gravette. Hall made it to the Top 24 before being voted out too soon.
Since 2006 you may have caught McPhee exercising her acting chops on the big screen in The House Bunny with Anna Faris and Emma Stone, or in Shark Night 3D. No? That’s OK. In the latter she gets eaten by sharks, but she looked great in her bikini.
There’s not much call for bikinis in Smash, but McPhee does get her glam on while combining her acting ability with her impressive vocal skills in the musical prime time soap opera.
You don’t have to be a big Broadway connoisseur to appreciate the drama. Smash has all the requisite component parts - success, disappointment, scheming, heroes, villains, romance and a plucky ingenue from Iowa trying to make her mark on the Great White Way.
At the heart of the show is the effort to create a Broadway musical titled Bombshell based on the life of Marilyn Monroe. The ensemble,which includes Debra Messing, Jack Davenport, Megan Hilty and Anjelica Huston, is notable.
In the new season, the Bombshell creative team is getting closer to their dream of a Broadway opening. The musical’s trial run in Boston last season went well (finally), pleasing producer Eileen Rand (Huston), the writing team of Tom Levitt (Christian Borle) and Julia Houston (Messing), director Derek Wills (Davenport) and the last-minute star of the production Karen Cartwright (McPhee).
But Bombshell comes to New York with a boatload of baggage.
Can Eileen continue to mix business and pleasure with her shadowy inamorato, Nick (Thorsten Kaye)? Will Julia’s marriage to Frank (Brian d’Arcy James) survive her infidelity? Will Ivy Lynn (Hilty) recover from the shame of losing the starring role to Karen and then sleeping with Karen’s fiance just to spite her?
Also this season, a promising rock musical is in the wings and just may become Bombshell’s biggest rival on Broadway.
Hudson is just the latest in a string of impressive guest stars on Smash. Last season saw appearances by Uma Thurman, Nick Jonas and Bernadette Peters.
Hudson will appear in several episodes as Veronica Moore, a Tony Award-winning star who affects the lives of Karen and Ivy. Other guest stars in Season 2 include Sean Hayes (Will & Grace) as musical star Terrence Falls. He becomes an irritant to Ivy and others.
Jesse L. Martin (Law & Order) will play Scott Nichols, the artistic director of a nonprofit off-Broadway theater, and Harvey Fierstein (La Cage aux Folles) will make a cameo appearance.
If you sampled Smash last season and weren’t impressed, try it again. The series has been fine-tuned for its second year. A number of regular secondary characters that weren’t working out have been eliminated, and creator and executive producer Theresa Rebeck was replaced as show runner halfway through the first season.
Joshua Safran is now running the show. He told the Los Angeles Times that the series “hasn’t changed all that much. Many of the elements that people loved about Smash are still there. It’s bigger, has more music, is younger.”
And now for your bonus round answer from above: Diana DeGarmo came in second.
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Style, Pages 32 on 02/05/2013