ABSTRACT
The genre developed a streamlined narrative strategy that combined both in what musicologist Raymond Knapp terms “the marriage trope.” Two television series based in musical milieus premiered in 2012. Smash was about the development of a Broadway musical; Nashville was set in the country music world. The pilot episode of Smash is an extended exercise in parallel scenes, which together introduce the rivalry between the naïve Karen and the experienced Ivy who are competing for the role of Marilyn Monroe in a new Broadway musical called Bombshell. Like Smash, Nashville sets up two female rivals, but their rivalry is complicated by the presence of a third woman who alternately parallels one rival or the other. While Nashville returns to the duet as a symbol of heterosexual romance, the duet moves down a level of structure in the narrative schema, from end-game to distinguishing factor.
