'Smash' is a fine new series at last for NBC

But NBC can exhale. "Smash" is just fine -- a bounty of memorable performances and spectacular song-and-dance numbers, or spectacular for TV, anyway. Hilty, Davenport and Huston are uniformly excellent, but McPhee's the surprise. We knew she could sing. Who knew she could act?

The series gets demerits for some broadly drawn stock characters -- the cornfed Iowa Ingenue, the dastardly director, the scheming diva, the hyper-romanticized New York. There's even an overly ambitious fanboy -- "Smash's" own male Eve Harrington. The plot feels conventional, too. But the skills of Davenport, Messing, Borle, the allure of McPhee ... and sheer vitality of some of the music ... more than compensate.

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