Rubbernecking

There is no measurable metric by which Smash can be called a good TV show.  It’s filled with contrived melodrama, flimsy characters, meandering storylines, hackneyed romances, and every Broadway cliché in the book, all wrapped around a so-so musical whose development seems like the writers learned all they did about putting on a show from Little Rascals shorts.

Then why do I keep watching it?

Okay, I’ll admit, the propensity the show has for showing us Katharine McPhee and Megan Hilty in dance tights is certainly appealing.  Hilty, especially, has what in the popular vernacular is known as “it going on.”  But I’m an adult male with an internet connection; I can certainly track down cheesecake photos of TV stars without actually subjecting myself to the shows in which they appear.

And as far into the season as we are now, it can’t be some faint, lingering hope that the show is going to get better. If anything, it’s ramped up the camp as the episodes have gone on; as I type this, we’ve just been offered a Bollywood number set in an Indian restaurant featuring — wait for it — the one Indian cast member on the show. It’s like they’ve decided to keep doing the most awful things because it’s all they’re really good at.   And far be it from us to look away from a good train wreck.

Because in the end, we’re rubbernecking.  We’re looking at the cars strewn on the side of the road, tsking to ourselves about how terrible it is, all the while driving more and more slowly so we can take a really good look.  If the William Hungs and The Rooms of the world have shown us anything, it’s that we’ll gladly embrace the terrible. Partly out of a sense of schadenfreude, partly as a way to feel better about ourselves.

And yes, partly to see hot chicks in leotards.

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