The Ensemblist

“On Broadway” premiered on February 3rd, 2013. It was written by new showrunner Joshua Safran, and directed by Michael Morris, who had also directed the season 1 finale. The episode unfortunately did not premiere to as wide an audience as the season 1 premiere or even the season 1 finale; the viewership came in at 4.48 million, about 1.5 million fewer than the finale and almost 7 million fewer than the pilot. Wow...

“The Fallout” premiered on February 5th, 2013, immediately after the premiere episode. (Aww, remember those two-hour premieres that networks used to do back in the day, Mo?) It was written by Julie Rottenberg & Elisa Zuritsky, whose previous work we saw in the season 1 episodes “Let’s Be Bad” and “The Movie Star,” and was directed by Craig Zisk. Now, here’s a weird thing: viewership for this episode was 4.45 million, down from 4.48 in the previous episode WHICH WAS AN HOUR AGO...

“The Dramaturg” premiered on February 19th, 2013. It was written by Larry Shaw, and directed by Bryan Goluboff, both newcomers to Smash as of season 2. The viewership was 3.29 million viewers, which was 1.16 million down from the previous episode two weeks prior...

“The Song” premiered on February 26th, 2013. It was written by Bathsheba Doran, and directed by Michael Morris, whose work we last saw in the season two premiere. The viewership was down a quarter-million from last week, amounting to 3.04 million viewers tuning in on premiere night. We had five featured songs in this episode, with only one pop cover this week! Yay! That cover was Billy Joel’s “Everybody Loves You Now” sung by Andy Mientus and Jennifer Hudson...

“The Read-Through” premiered on March 5, 2013. It was written by Liz Tuccillo, and directed by David Petrarca, both in their Smash debuts. The episode premiered to a viewership of 2.68 million this week, down .36 mil from the previous episode. We didn’t have a whole lot of music this week, despite hearing the read-throughs of two different shows...

“The Fringe” premiered on March 12, 2013. It was written by Julia Brownell, and directed by Dan Lerner, two more newcomers to the Smash family. The viewership was up this week! Up 220,000 from the previous episode, “The Fringe” was seen by 2.9 million viewers. We saw three songs and a reprise this week: one of which was a cover of “This Will Be Our Year” by The Zombies, sung by the Hit List cast...

“Musical Chairs” premiered on March 19th, 2013. It was written by Becky Mode, and was directed by Broadway’s very own, Casey Nicholaw! The viewership was down again from the previous week, by about a quarter-million viewers, amounting to a total of 2.66 million...

The role of Marilyn’s mother, Gladys, has finally been cast and rather than going with Patti LuPone, Eileen and Tom have gone with someone a little closer to home: Ivy’s mother: The Broadway star Leigh Conroy is stepping out of retirement to play the role only she could play! Ivy can only feign excitement about the casting, as her relationship with Leigh is filled with competition...

“The Parents” premiered on April 2nd, 2013, so Happy belated April Fools? It was written by Jordon Nardino, and directed by Tricia Brock, both new to the Smash family. The viewership fell again this week, this time by 70,000 viewers, for a total of 2.98 million...

“The Surprise Party” premiered on April 6, 2013. It was written by Julie Rottenberg & Elisa Zuritsky, whose work was last week in the second episode of the second season, “The Fallout,” and it was directed by S. J. Clarkson. The viewership dipped again this week, this time by 1.1 million, bringing the total viewers to 1.88 million. We had three featured songs this week: two originals and one cover.....