YMMV / Smash

• Awesome Music:
  • The big number for Marilyn: The Musical "Let me Be Your Star".
  • "The 20th Century Fox Mambo".
  • "A Thousand And One Nights".
  • The title number "Smash".
  • The appropriately named "Big Finish."
  • "Broadway, Here I Come".
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Karen is understudying for Marilyn and isn't following stage directions properly. Derek gets mad at her, she gets mad at him, and suddenly he sees Marilyn herself instead of her complaining about the musical's problems. This is never explained.
  • Also the Bollywood dance number in "Publicity". Justified: Bollywood dance numbers are usually a BLAM.
• Billing Displacement: Debra Messing is top billed, but the show's real stars are Katharine McPhee and Megan Hilty. Even the poster thinks so (witness their positioning).
  • Additionally, in NBC promos for the show before it aired, "Academy Award Winner Angelica Huston" was often second billed, right after Debra Messing (as she is on the poster above), although a number of other characters are more prominently featured than Ms. Huston's.
    • Incidentally, although the poster gives Megan Hilty and Katharine McPhee a joint "And Introducing" credit, the series itself doesn't.
• Broken Base: It actually came pre-broken, and with the show's active encouragement, as the marketing played up a Team Karen and Team Ivy angle. And sometimes it seems that there's actually a deeper split between fans who hate the other girl/team and those who find both characters likable and both actresses talented.
  • The entirety of the "Hit List," plot line in season 2. Some found its hipper more pop oriented plot as well as it's catchy tunes to be a welcome addition and reignite the initial flame of the Pilot, others found it a detraction from "Bombshell," the show's initial draw of a Marylin Musical, and the new additions to the cast, particularly Jimmy and Kyle to be infuriating spoiled brats, and the overall concept a poor man's "Rent."
• Creator's Pet: Karen, to many. No matter how many times characters on the show say how great she is, a lot of viewers don't understand how a gal with an average pop voice is supposed to be a legitimate threat to Ivy, the seasoned vet with the big Broadway voice. Not to mention Ivy LOOKS the part way more than Karen.
• Designated Hero: As Television Without Pity put it, "It's kind of remarkable that the writers ever thought audiences would find Jimmy Collins appealing. What exactly were we meant to like about this guy? His pathological self-absorption? His casual disregard for the bonds of friendship? His generally lousy attitude? The funny thing is that Jeremy Jordan shows that he has what it takes to be a hissable screen villain. Too bad he's supposed to be a hero."
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • A lot of Derek's behavior towards Karen and Ivy, while already seen as sleazy when it came out, comes off even worse post-#MeToo, since many Broadway actresses have since talked about facing sexual harassment from directors, producers, and other higher-ups, not dissimilar to what Derek does to his leading ladies.
  • The scene from the pilot where Derek invites Karen to his apartment, alone, at 10:30 at night, asking her to prove she can be sexy to get the part, is a particularly strong example. While Karen treats it as an opportunity, stops short of kissing Derek, and is able to leave before things got too far, the fact that Derek even put Karen in that position is seen as much more troubling.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Season 1 the song "Don't Say Yes Until I Finish Talking", performed by Daryl Zanuck (as played by Tom in the rehearsal), features the line "Let's find a role for Nat King Cole". Come season 2, Tom attempts to get his ex Sam a role in Bombshell as Nat King Cole. Doubles as Harsher in Hindsight because Tom's decision to put the song in the show is vetoed by both Eileen and Julia, and he ultimately decides to not put the song in.
  • When the show came out, many couldn't believe pop singer Katherine McPhee as a Broadway actress. She has since starred on Broadway as a replacement Jenna in Waitress.
• Jerkass Woobie: Jimmy.
• Questionable Casting: In-universe example: a co-star of Ivy in Dangerous Liasons tells her casting Terrence Falls as Valmont is like casting Jim Carrey as King Lear, when he shows up it’s pretty clear how absolutely right she is.
  • A real-life example was the casting of Katherine McPhee as the rival to Megan Hilty. While people were in no doubt that McPhee could sing, the notion that her pop-y vocals would ever seriously pose a threat to a genuine Broadway veteran in a Broadway show was nonsensical to a lot of people, to the point where Season 2 was praised in large part for having Karen leave Bombshell to work on the more pop-styled Hit List.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Annaleigh Ashford plays a fellow auditioner in the pilot, and shows up briefly in Season 2.
  • Sam Strickland has gone on to tremendous success as Aaron Burr in Hamilton, among other things.
  • Jimmy and Kyle are now better known in the Arrowverse as Winn Schott and Hartley Rathaway/Pied Piper.
• The Scrappy
  • Leo Houston, Julia's whiney, snot nosed teenage son. He even kept complaining to her mother's writing partner Tom, convinces his boyfriend to help get a drug charge swept under the rug, and kept it from Julia.
  • Michael Swift, he begins an affair with Julia. Sure affairs happen, except he has a loving wife and newborn son. Where Julia is trying to rebuild her marriage he simply doesn't give a damn about his wife.
  • Daisy Parker, sure at first you feel sorry for her, losing her job because Derek slept with her. Then after exploiting her lawsuit to get Ana fired, she immediately goes full on Diva mode, becoming a pain in the ass to the entire cast and crew of Hit List.
  • All of these however can't hold a candle to Jimmy Collins. A talented composer yes, but his attitude and constant whining and demands, who treats his friends like dirt. Even after the many times he gets called out, and half-assedly apologizes, it can be well assumed that he has conveniently forgotten the lesson by the next episode. Only Ellis can claim to be more hated than him, and Ellis was outright intended to be hated, where as it's clear the audience is meant to applaud Jimmy's unearned Divaish personality. Many fans blame him for being the final nail in the coffin that eventually led to the show's cancellation.
• Second Season Downfall: Despite the sweeping changes made to the cast, the show was no better received in season two than season one. Without The Voice around to prop it up, the show collapsed further in the ratings, and eventually got banished to Saturdays, which is a death knell for pretty much any series on any network.
• Signature Scene: Eileen throwing her drink in Jerry's face, which was popular enough that it happened repeatedly in the first season, and was worked into both promotional material and the second season's opening credits (with her tossing the drink at the camera instead).
• Signature Song: "Let Me Be Your Star", which closes out the pilot, is an excellent showcase of both leads' vocal talent and sets up the rivalry that dominates the first season. There's a reason it was a good chunk of the series' trailer as well.
• So Bad, It's Good: Smash has unfortunately become a popular target of "hate-watching".
• Values Dissonance: On more than one occasion, Karen is essentially told that she needs to learn how to become a team member by blending her talents into the ensemble rather than being showy... even though most of the occasions where this happens it's Ivy being an Alpha Bitch diva who messes with Karen because of a combination of insecurity and a feeling that Karen hasn't payed her dues. Ivy and the other members of the cast who pull this have barely ever been called on this (with basically only one exception
  • This is actually Truth in Television - it's practically a requirement for ensemble members (especially in big shows) to be able to "move as one" with their choreography...which essentially means none of them should pull the focus of the audience away from the main action or the star since they'll be the most important thing for the audience to be paying attention to; the ensemble is just there to enhance whatever else is going on. This is also why Ivy initially struggles with being the star, she's spent 10 years deliberately keeping to the background. Ultimately, it's more a case of Deliberate Values Dissonance.