By Meryl Gottlieb| mg986611@ohiou.edu| @buzzlightmeryl
Smash airs Tuesdays (until April 6 - then it moves to Saturdays) at 10 p.m. on NBC
In mid-March, NBC announced that it was moving Smash to a Saturday night time slot starting April 6. Ouch. Anyone should be able to tell that's a death sentence.
And who could blame the network? The ratings and viewer numbers have been on a steady decline all season long, sinking even lower than the first season's numbers. Entertainment Weekly reported that the March 12 episode earned a 1.4 rating in the 18 to 49 year old demographic and only 4.78 million viewers when it's first season averaged 9.65 million and a 3.4 rating.
I'd say an almost 50% decline was significant enough to cause major changes.
While the show has not been officially canceled yet, I think it's safe to say that possibility may soon become a reality.
The show will finish out its 17 episode season with this arrangement, but don't worry about being cheated by the show possibly ending on a cliffhanger. Both The Huffington Post and TVLine reported that Smash's show runner, Josh Safran, said the season two finale "was constructed as a series finale."
"I don’t want [viewers] to think they are going to be left hanging, because they won’t be,” he said in an article reported by TVLine. “The season has a beginning, middle and an end."
I'm not quite sure how I feel about this. Sure, Smash is terribly written and the actors are terrible, but it's my guiltiest of pleasures. I love to hate-watch the show, honestly. I've come to realize that I love the burning feeling to throw the TV out of my dorm window after every time Katharine McPhee tries to act. I'm going to miss it.
I'm especially going to miss those songs. While the show itself was terrible, the songs were phenomenal because they were performed by incredibly talented singers, namely Megan Hilty and Jeremy Jordan. Smash should only be heard and not seen; that's how it could have been successful.
