Finally finished watching it last night (wife fell asleep Sunday night, so we had to stop). Overall I give it a B. The good stuff: “I’ve Heard It Both Ways” tango with Shawn/Lassiter was good, Woody’s song was excellent, the rest were merely OK. It was good to see an actual serious theatre person (Anthony Rapp) cast as the writer, and having Barry Bostwick was also solid. Ally Sheedy was great again.
Overall, though, I was disappointed. There were a few laugh out loud jokes, but not as many as usual and certainly not enough for two hours. The songs were not memorable enough - even the “big” numbers felt mediocre. The whole thing left me feeling “meh.”
I’m glad they gave it a shot, though. It’s the right show for this kind of thing, and hey, nobody’s perfect.
One reference I noticed: When they were first tracking the writer after his escape and arguing which way he went, Shawn says “I think he went straight…into the woods.” I wonder if there were other musical titles worked into the script that I didn’t notice?
Sorry to bump a thread just as it’s getting to sleep, but I finally watched the episode.
Decent. I liked the plot, and would have enjoyed it as a standard episode. I zoned out on a few of the songs, but don’t think I really missed anything.
I think they missed a great opportunity to do a spoken word version of the opening sequence. It could have been classic.