There are many differences between a television drama and a television soap, but a pretty big one is how they manage one of the most important aspects of any show: a little thing that I call SENSATION!!! and how the ridiculous drama is injected into the plots. See, television in itself comes with incredulity on a base level, the accepting that this is a twisted mirror version of the real world where a series of crazy things happen to a crazy microcosm of people, and they have to quickly adjust before the next wave of crazy things comes in. But where a crafted television drama—a great one, anyway—can weave in SENSATION!!! into the show’s fabric pretty seamlessly while adding in as many layers of the real world as it can, a soap is typically so self-aware of its existence in a completely different realm that it can inject SENSATION!!! and surprising deceptions and devious murders and sudden bouts of amnesia and plots to kill babies into every storyline, every facet of its being. So to have two shocking affairs, the return of a scorned lover, a pair of relationships on the rocks, a production on the brink of insanity, and to have this all happen between roughly nine people without a single link to where this actually happens on actual Earth…  take a guess: soap or Smash?

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Now camp is something that Smash and soaps share, so it’s been a trip seeing Smash and its SENSATION!!! inch closer and closer to Soapland, and I’ve gotta be honest: as much as I haven’t cared about Dev and his relationship with Karen, I have been slightly curious to see if the show would have the balls to make Dev a cheater. It’s not exactly a big play, but it’s an interesting call nonetheless, to see that this previously dependable guy has ostensibly lost a bit of that credibility the show has stoked every week. Of course, it’s so easily attributed to his frustrations with that damn play, and how Karen’s dreams take over their lives and infringe upon his happiness, because these are the sorts of things that evil-yet-attractive boyfriends go through on television. And in real-life I suppose, but I’d have to think that a real guy wouldn’t date a theater girl without being aware of those repercussions. Dev is apparently dating Karen with no idea that she has to occasionally do things like Sing, Dance, Practice, and Tech.

But where this all first really steps into Soapland is right in between where Dev kisses that slut girl who must stalk him a lot before eventually stopping her, and where he confesses to Karen that he kissed said slutty reporter: he asks Karen to marry him. I’m sorry if I just ruined a moment you really needed to be there for, but it was by far the most insanely absurd moment for Dev and Karen that actually played out well if you ignore the fact that it was a batshit crazy move on the writers’ end of things. Haven’t Dev and Karen been on the rocks for weeks before this? Dev’s guilt driving him to propose shouldn’t even exist as an argument: this is just another crazy thing to throw at the two of them, unnecessary against all of the other un-terrible conflicts they have going on. You know, like that damn play.

And that damn play unleashes a whole ‘nother set of SENSATIONS!!! this week: to absolutely no one’s surprise—and I’m reading reviews where people seemed to be genuinely moved by this occurrence and I just don’t get it—Michael Swift is set to return to Bombshell as Joe DiMaggio after The Guy Who Was Playing Him had a pilot picked up and literally hopped off stage and onto a jet plane. This is all to Julia’s chagrin because Frank has inexplicably moved back into the house and having ol’ Michael Swift back in her life is something she wants zero of, even if it actually is the best thing for everyone. It actually splinters everyone pretty well: it rightfully pisses off Eileen and Derek because Julia is being so stubborn about the whole thing, it pisses off Tom because he has to be the one to tell her but gosh darnit he totally forgot his testicles again, and it pisses off Rebecca because no one thought to tell her for five minutes that she’d just lost her leading man, and her frustration with Derek for being so terrible to her leads to them… wait for it… having sex.

Nope, not kidding. Just scenes after Derek casually mentions that he loves Ivy, which is just enough to send her into flurries of fluttering, Derek is railing Rebecca while Ivy stands on the other side of the door, heartbroken. But the best Ivy really is Scorned Ivy, so after a particularly great rendition of “I’m Going Down”, Ivy finds herself drinking her sorrows away, where we also find—DUN DUN DUN!—Dev, who still looks really pissed off and horny. I don’t think for a second that the show is pulling a red herring, not after everything the show has pulled this week. Dev and Ivy are completely going to do it, or I’m quitting Season 2.

SENSATION!!! is the type of shit that leaves you slack-jawed and astonished, and it’s completely designed to get that reaction, regardless of how many seconds or days it takes for you to realize that wow, that was really stupid. “Tech” is filled to the brim with those moments, and the strange thing is, my anger at how quickly Smash jumped off the deep end made me hold off on reviewing it until I could process it a bit better, and once I did, I ended up deciding it really wasn’t that terrible. While it might have made for what’s physically the best episode of Smash in recent weeks, it wasn’t for all the right reasons. Yet and still, “Tech” gives you an insane amount of reasons to stay tuned: if there are only two episodes left, you might as well go all in, right?

SumOlogy: It was good? I guess? SENSATION!!!

Grade: B

Leftovers

So WAIT: when did Tom and Sam suddenly get this serious? Did we just suddenly forget that Tom’s last boyfriend ever existed? Actually, we must have, because I totally forgot his name. Was it Peter? That being said, I quite enjoyed their story tonight, even if I was a little surprised at how quick Tom was to not defend the guy he was interested in.

Ivy accused Karen of knowing that Derek was banging Rebecca, and I loved it. Except we should have picked up by now that Karen doesn’t know much of anything.

Derek’s birthday totally happened somewhere in the episode, and either Ivy was real mad that Rebecca planned a surprise or real mad that Derek has a birthday.

The OTHER BEST THING ABOUT TECH: There was pretty much ZERO Leo in it!

“Will you marry me?” “I’m in Tech.”

Follow Terron R. Moore on Twitter: @cityfitch

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