If there’s a problem with Smash it’s that the show doesn’t really avoid cliché. Indeed, it steers right toward every cliché in its path. That’s going to be a dealbreaker for a lot of people, who may be hoping for something more original in its storytelling. But the show is so damned sincere about how much it embraces the clichés of the backstage Broadway story that those inclined to like this sort of thing—and I’m very much one of them—will forgive it some of these excesses.