Smash
NBC | Release Date: February 6, 2012
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
72
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 55 Critic Reviews
Positive:
39
Mixed:
16
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Los Angeles TimesMary McNamaraFeb 6, 2012
Season 1 Review: Smash is a triumph. Read full review
100
NewsdayVerne GayFeb 6, 2012
Season 1 Review: I've seen four episodes; they're all good. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleDavid WiegandFeb 1, 2012
Season 1 Review: [It's so] good you can't help wondering why no one thought of it before, a compelling mix of credible real-life melodrama with a fictionalized approximation of what it takes to get a Broadway show from the idea stage to opening night. Read full review
100
People WeeklyTom GliattoJan 30, 2012
Season 1 Review: NBC hasn't had a show this impressive since the first season of Heroes. [6 Feb 2012, p.39]
91
Uncle BarkyEd BarkFeb 3, 2012
Season 1 Review: The real joys of Smash are its performances and production numbers, some fantasized, others part of the bare bones auditioning process. Read full review
90
Denver PostJoanne OstrowFeb 6, 2012
Season 1 Review: The cast, from Katharine McPhee and Megan Hilty to Debra Messing and Angelica Huston, is superb. The subject matter is a carefully blended mix of artistic and accessible. Read full review
90
Philadelphia Daily NewsEllen GrayFeb 6, 2012
Season 1 Review: They're fully realized characters, not freakishly talented pawns, and their stories--and choices--reflect a real-life awareness I only wish "Glee" could muster. Read full review
90
The New YorkerEmily NussbaumFeb 6, 2012
Season 1 Review: Smash does a very satisfying job of merging the pleasures of "American Idol" and commercial Broadway, placing the "hummable melody" dead center and prioritizing fun over absolute authenticity. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalDorothy RabinowitzFeb 6, 2012
Season 1 Review: The cast is crowded and uniformly splendid. There's little about this captivating fusion of music, dance and potent storytelling of which the same couldn't be said. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterTim GoodmanFeb 2, 2012
Season 1 Review: Smash is excellent, a bar-raiser for broadcast networks. Read full review
90
The Huffington PostMaureen RyanFeb 1, 2012
Season 1 Review: Smash elegantly and energetically draws you into the orbit of a dozen dreamers and schemers at various stages in their Great White Way careers, and, like a true pro, the show makes it all look easy. Read full review
88
RedEyeCurt WagnerFeb 6, 2012
Season 1 Review: Smash tries mightily and mostly succeeds. Read full review
88
USA TodayRobert BiancoFeb 6, 2012
Season 1 Review: Unless you're allergic to musicals in general and Broadway in particular, you should find that a compelling central story, a strong cast, an out-of-the-procedural-mold premise and some rousing, roof-raising numbers more than compensate for any lingering problems. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyKen TuckerJan 30, 2012
Season 1 Review: Smash is often enjoyable. [3/10 Feb 2012, p.101]
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Matt Zoller SeitzFeb 5, 2013
Season 2 Review: Smash got the memo from viewers. I don’t think they read all of it, necessarily, but at least they got it, and they’ve changed just enough to raise the series from a C+ to a B. So: progress. Read full review
80
Miami HeraldGlenn GarvinFeb 6, 2012
Season 1 Review: Smash doesn't dabble in sociology: It's pure greasepaint melodrama. Sneer all you want, but if you sneak in a secret smile now and then, that's OK, too. Read full review
80
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob OwenFeb 6, 2012
Season 1 Review: An entertaining drama that sucks you in and gets your toes tapping during several musical numbers. Read full review
80
TV Guide MagazineMatt RoushFeb 6, 2012
Season 1 Review: The first few episodes after tonight's sensational pilot struggle to find the right balance between the musical and the dramatic, but by the fourth hour, as the new leading lady makes things difficult for the also-ran during the tense rehearsal process, Smash finds its footing. Read full review
80
VarietyBrian LowryFeb 2, 2012
Season 1 Review: Though clunky in places, at its best the series captures the essence of what the movie version of "A Chorus Line" didn't, providing an illuminating window into the creative process. Read full review
75
New York PostLinda StasiFeb 5, 2013
Season 2 Review: New season, more promise. Good start. But seriously? Fewer plot-lines would be even better. Read full review
75
USA TodayRobert BiancoFeb 5, 2013
Season 2 Review: In total, the changes have led to a show that is much better, and is on much more solid footing, than it once was. Read full review
75
NewsdayVerne GayFeb 4, 2013
Season 2 Review: A partially successful reboot, with less music, more story. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleDavid WiegandJan 31, 2013
Season 2 Review: The inevitable and believable intersection of "old" and "new" musical theater adds real life and renewed potential to Smash. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyKen TuckerJan 30, 2013
Season 2 Review: Like the Marilyn Monroe musical it's trying to mount, the drama treads familiar ground in a quirky, high-stepping way that you can't resist watching. Read full review
75
New York PostLinda StasiFeb 6, 2012
Season 1 Review: The cover songs are great and McPhee does a fine job with them, but the original tunes are very much of the overdone show-tune variety. Read full review
75
HitfixAlan SepinwallFeb 3, 2012
Season 1 Review: The show as a whole moves briskly and confidently. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesLori RacklJan 30, 2012
Season 1 Review: The stereotypes slow down in subsequent episodes, which grew more entertaining with each of the four I watched. Read full review
70
TimeJames PoniewozikFeb 5, 2013
Season 2 Review: If what you want from Smash is what the pilot promised--a consistent, network-TV equivalent of mainstream Broadway--season 2 takes the first steps toward being that. The story feels better focused and, with help now from new cast member Jennifer Hudson, the show’s musical moments can deliver the passion and concentrated dream-power the scripts haven’t. Read full review
70
TV Guide MagazineMatt RoushFeb 5, 2013
Season 2 Review: Smash introduces its winsome ingénue Karen (Katharine McPhee) to a headstrong young songwriter with hip Rent ambitions (rising star Jeremy Jordan, who headlined two real Broadway musicals last year). This subplot, like much of Smash, is cheesy and corny, but works when the impassioned singing starts. Which, for a musical drama about musicals, is what matters most. Read full review
70
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob OwenFeb 4, 2013
Season 2 Review: Judging by three episodes sent for review, the[se] course corrections work. Read full review
70
Boston GlobeDon AucoinFeb 7, 2012
Season 1 Review: The show works much better when it gives us a glimpse into its distinctive milieu. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Matt Zoller SeitzFeb 6, 2012
Season 1 Review: These subplots aren't inherently dull, but they're not as compelling as the sight of a singer belting a new ballad while its authors and their patrons look on. Read full review
70
The New York TimesNeil GenzlingerFeb 6, 2012
Season 1 Review: It's unlikely to achieve television greatness like "M*A*S*H" did, but by Episode 3 it shows signs of becoming an addictive pleasure along the lines of this season's "Revenge." Read full review
70
PopMattersMichael LandweberFeb 6, 2012
Season 1 Review: If Smash lacks the benefit of Aaron Sorkin's hyper-literate and unmistakable dialogue, it follows Studio 60's format, observing the producers, writers, and actors who collaborate on a show, particularly what happens backstage. Read full review
70
Washington PostHank StueverFeb 2, 2012
Season 1 Review: Smash is a case where not bad is plenty good enough. Read full review
67
The Detroit NewsTom LongFeb 1, 2013
Season 2 Review: Maybe this will all become coherent. But then maybe it shouldn't. Sometimes messy is better. Read full review
63
People WeeklyTom GliattoFeb 8, 2013
Season 2 Review: Until, and unless, all the elements fall into place, it's more smush than smash. [18 Feb 2013, p.41]
63
Slant MagazineDaniel GoldbergJan 31, 2013
Season 2 Review: While it's easy to forget the show's shortcomings whenever McPhee or Hilty belt out one of Bombshell's stellar original songs or Jimmy croons a heartfelt power ballad, that's ultimately not enough to absolve the series from failing to let its most tenable narrative take center stage. Read full review
63
Slant MagazinePhillip MaciakFeb 6, 2012
Season 1 Review: [A] starry-eyed, badly acted, occasionally stirring series. Read full review
60
SalonWilla PaskinFeb 5, 2013
Season 2 Review: It is less accidentally ridiculous, and more knowingly, willfully campy, less pretentious, but also, for better and worse, less likely to include a Bollywood dance number. Read full review
60
Philadelphia Daily NewsFeb 5, 2013
Season 2 Review: NBC's Smash returns for its second season Tuesday still a work in progress. But at least there is progress. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesRobert LloydFeb 5, 2013
Season 2 Review: New show runner Joshua Safran has, in any case, declared himself a fan of the show, promising changes more surgical than wholesale, a promise disappointing in its way. Nevertheless, he has trimmed much deadwood. Read full review
60
Denver PostJoanne OstrowFeb 5, 2013
Season 2 Review: Much of the insanity that drove viewers to “hate-watch” the show in its first season has been scrubbed. Competence reigns. The results are mixed. Read full review
60
PopMattersMichael LandweberFeb 5, 2013
Season 2 Review: The problem is that the story in between the songs is still inconsistent and muddled. Read full review
60
Philadelphia InquirerDavid HiltbrandFeb 6, 2012
Season 1 Review: If musical theater gives you goose bumps, congratulations. You just got a front-row seat. If it doesn't enthrall you, Smash will strike you as almost unbearably tedious and pretentious. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsDavid HinckleyFeb 6, 2012
Season 1 Review: You want to like it, because the rough patches stem more from high ambition than from shortcomings. Read full review
60
TimeJames PoniewozikFeb 2, 2012
Season 1 Review: As an actual network drama--for me, the most important test--it relies too much on conventional showbiz plotlines and characters for me to get invested in it. Read full review
50
The Huffington PostMaureen RyanFeb 5, 2013
Season 2 Review: It's oddly disconnected from the idea of art as transformation, the show's characters are thinly drawn and it's usually fairly easy to see where the story is heading. Read full review
50
HitfixAlan SepinwallFeb 5, 2013
Season 2 Review: Even with all the changes in front of and behind the camera, Smash is fundamentally the same show with the same problems. Read full review
50
RedEyeCurt WagnerFeb 5, 2013
Season 2 Review: The addition of Chicago native Hudson is a masterstroke, but with all that other melodrama, Smash remains a hit-or-miss proposition for me. Read full review
50
Boston HeraldMark A. PerigardFeb 5, 2013
Season 2 Review: The musical numbers are competently staged, even if they often play like filler to underscore character montages. The plots mosey between drama and comedy and never hit their marks. Read full review
50
Boston HeraldMark A. PerigardFeb 6, 2012
Season 1 Review: You'll be left tapping your feet all right--wondering impatiently if there's any sparkle under this drudgery. Read full review
40
The New York TimesMike HaleFeb 5, 2013
Season 2 Review: There are not many signs that the show is taking a turn toward anything better--more realism, more audacity, less sentimentality. Read full review
40
VarietyBrian LowryJan 31, 2013
Season 2 Review: Cast changes and additions (a la Jennifer Hudson's new diva) can't obscure a skein whose soapy doings drown out its tunes, and where even the music often comes across as flat. Read full review
40
SlateTroy PattersonFeb 6, 2012
Season 1 Review: The way things are going, I would pay $100 if the purchase exempted me from having to watch any more of the show itself. Read full review
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