NBC's 'Smash': A Musical Treat, A Dramatic Triumph... And a Gift

February 6, 2012 1:45 AM

There are lots of professional reasons I can give you to watch Monday's premiere of Smash, NBC's new drama series about the making of a Broadway musical -- starting with its creators, its cast, its premise, its clever twists, and its equally clever music and lyrics. But there's also a personal reason, which I'll save for last...

But for starters, there's the very first, utterly perfect opening scene of Smash, which premieres Monday at 10 p.m. ET on NBC.

Katharine McPhee, playing wannabe Broadway singer Karen Cartwright, is singing -- in a solo spotlight, presumably on stage -- the opening lines of "Over the Rainbow." It's a beautiful moment, a beautiful voice, and it leaves you spellbound.

Until, that is, the spell is broken, unexpectedly and jarringly, by the sound of a cell phone.

Suddenly, the comforting, embracing semi-darkness is replaced by the harsh, unforgiving light of an audition room -- and the harsher, even less forgiving, dismissive look of the casting director who has interrupted the audition's flow, and darkened Karen's rainbow, by answering a cell phone.

So not long after Karen sings "Dreams that you dare to dream really do come true," she's been thanked, dismissed, and ushered out the door. Ouch.

Next up: a veteran Broadway chorus member named Ivy Lynn, played by Megan Hilty, who enters with lots of attitude, confidence, and cleavage.

Instantly, we have a battle on our hands -- and a wonderful new show at our doorstep.

Theresa Rebeck, whose resume includes credits from both Broadway (the current Seminar) and TV (as a writer on, among other series, NYPD Blue, Brooklyn Bridge and Dream On), is playful enough -- and smart enough -- to steep Smash in various levels of subtext and homage.

That opening song choice, I suspect, was no accident. Not only is it Judy Garland's signature number, but "Over the Rainbow" also was a song sung by McPhee when she was one of the two finalists on Season 5 of American Idol -- the season, and the show, in which she lost, ultimately, to Taylor Hicks.

That was in 2006. Now, six years later, to launch Smash, she's singing the same song -- and, at the very start of her new prime-time TV showcase, having the rug pulled out from under her just as brutally. So you really, really root for her Karen character, right from the start.

Except that Megan Hilty, who enters next and struts her stuff as Ivy, has an endearing Broadway baby story as well: being one of the replacement Glindas in Wicked, then starring as Doralee (the Dolly Parton part) in Broadway's 9 to 5: The Musical. So she has her backstory, and her fans, as well. And when the two of them get callbacks for a proposed new musical, on the life of Marilyn Monroe, there are reasons to root for both.

But if you're expecting a mere musical showdown -- a Team Karen vs. Team Ivy sort of thing -- Smash is much more ambitious than that. It won't take very long before the leading role of Marilyn is awarded, but that's only the beginning of the workshops, the drama, and the surprise twists and turns.

Smash, which was conceived as an idea by Steven Spielberg, begins with a very high ambition: Explore and dramatize, in a scripted weekly TV series, the act of creating a musical. As TV concepts go, it sounds simple. But in practice, it's about as simple as filming a story about a killer shark -- in the days before CGI.

One of the best conceits about Smash is that when the singers are singing songs from the proposed Marilyn musical, or when the composers are watching the dancers and singers go through their initial paces, their imagination kicks in, and we cut between the reality of the rehearsal and the fantasies of the performers and onlookers.

It's not a finished product -- not what the eventual Broadway show will turn out to be, should it turn out at all -- but it's heightened from the rehearsal "reality," so we see costumes, and better lighting, and even a few stage props and scenery elements. And to do that, these songs not only have to be written, and choreographed, but performed twice, in both rough and slick versions.

This requires the actual creative team members to be several steps ahead of their on-screen counterparts. Michael Mayer has directed the pilot, and Joshua Bergasse has choreographed the numbers, long before Jack Davenport gets to play Derek Wills, the tyrannical director-choreographer.

Similarly, songwriters Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman (Hairspray) have to come up with the music and lyrics for a Marilyn musical, so we can watch as the fictional composers on Smash -- Debra Messing as Julia Houston and Christian Borle as Tom Levitt -- can do the same. And as the producer, we have the delightful Anjelica Huston as Eileen Rand, one of many nuanced, driven characters surrounding the musical within this musical drama.

It's all very much a let's-put-on-a-show story, with as much emphasis on the hardships of raising money in a tight economy, and on the sexual and other volatile shenanigans in and around a Broadway company, as on the production itself. But the creative process is vey much front and center, too -- not only how things are done, but why.

In these respects, Smash is much closer to a modern remake of Gold Diggers of 1933 than an instant rehash of Glee. It's also canny and tasteful enough to make New York City as much a character in Smash as it is in Law & Order.

When a character on Smash walks under the awning of Sardi's, or is enveloped by Times Square, you know you're not on the backlot of Hollywood somewhere. And that verisimilitude, no less than the writing, direction, music and performances, makes Smash crackle with energy.

I've previewed four episodes of Smash, enough to know it really knows what it's doing and where it's going. It wouldn't surprise me at all if, in 2013, there were a real, full-length Marilyn: The Musical either on our TV sets, or on Broadway.

It especially wouldn't surprise me since two of the executive producers of Smash are Neil Meron and Craig Zadan, whose credits include the current Broadway revival of How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying, the Oscar-winning film version of Chicago, and a string of excellent musicals mounted for TV, starting with Bette Midler in Gypsy.

(To hear my recent interview with Meron and Zadan on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross, click HERE.)

There are enough soap opera elements in Smash -- a divorce proceeding here, a baby adoption there, unsupportive parents over there -- to make it sort of a TV hybrid: part musical, part making-of-a-musical, part soapy drama. And, in the hands of these particular artists, all the elements work.

McPhee is a much better actress than her credits would suggest, Hilty captures Marilyn's breathy singing voice with spooky precision, and Messing and Huston run away with every scene in which they appear. There are fine male performances here, too, but Smash belongs to the women.

Oh, and finally -- the personal reason for me loving Smash so much? In high school, I was part of a performing arts troupe at Ft. Lauderdale's Nova High School -- very Glee-ish, except we mounted musicals and variety shows. And, except for one horrific exception, I was backstage all the way, as a lighting designer and stage manager.

But the start-to-finish process of putting on a show -- I never forgot that, and never lost sight of what a joy, and a rarity, it is to create something out of nothing. And, when it's such a collaborative effort and it all comes together, what a gift that is.

So take it from me: Smash is a gift.

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Super Bowl Musical Mania: Madonna at Halftime, 'The Voice' Afterward, 'Smash' The Next Day

February 3, 2012 7:00 AM

Each network has a different approach to programming the post-Super Bowl slot, with varying results.

Two years ago, CBS used its post-Super Bowl slot to launch a new reality series, Undercover Boss. It was renewed, and still continues, so that game plan worked.

Last year, Fox used its ultra-valuable time slot after Super Bowl XLV to expose new viewers to an existing hit: its high-school comedy-drama-musical mashup, Glee, complete with a football-team zombie dance to Michael Jackson's "Thriller."

That was at the midpoint of what turned out to be a dismally unfocused sophomore season for Glee. And earlier this week, Glee presented a special episode with a Michael Jackson theme -- so, no lessons learned there.

For 2012, NBC has the Super Bowl, and is playing it safe -- and musically -- both at halftime and afterward.

At halftime, it's giving the musical spotlight to Madonna, who's far from the first AARP member to take center stage at the 50-year-line on TV's biggest annual event. But the others have been male -- and for Madonna, it's the biggest move in a calculated career revival, which also included the unveiling of a music video on Thursday's American Idol.

(Remember music videos, kids? They were what MTV used to play, from time to time, before settling on pregnant teens and Snooki.)

After Super Bowl XLVI, though, is where the real action is. That's when NBC presents the second-season premiere of The Voice, its reality-show competition featuring Christina Aguilera and three other popular singers.

As I noted a year ago, any program that follows a Super Bowl inherits one of television's very biggest audiences -- but one which is, by that time, mostly inebriated or stoned, either partying or sulking (depending upon team loyalty), and not exactly paying attention.

Like commercials during the game itself, a post-Super Bowl offering must grab the eye first, because you can't assume the ears are listening. Humor sells well. Action sells better. Usually, sex sells best.

The Voice is just the reverse. Its opening round depends on listening, not watching -- and, in fact, not watching is its central gimmick. The judges listen in tall swivel chairs, their backs to the contestants, and turn to face them only if sold by the power of their vocals.

But The Voice is a smart gambit in the post-Super Bowl slot, for two reasons.

One, it was NBC's only hit -- a surprise one, arriving in late summer -- of an otherwise dismal year. The Playboy Club was closer to the network's norm. Compared to that, The Voice shines like a supernova.

It's the sort of TV show a Super Bowl party can stay tuned to watch, and give partygoers the chance to talk about and enjoy in a communal setting. And NBC needs to remind people that The Voice is back, and nothing does that like airing its season premiere after the Super Bowl.

Two, the season premiere actually is a two-parter -- one that continues Monday, providing a high-profile lead-in to NBC's newest series, Smash. That show, like The Voice, is filled with music. But Smash is scripted, and is about a season-long effort to create and mount a Broadway musical on the life of Marilyn Monroe.

NBC needs a hit like Ron Paul needs delegates -- and Smash, following The Voice, just could be the one-two punch NBC needs. If so, this Super Bowl showcase will be one of the smartest uses of that highly visible platform in years.

(The rest of this column ran previously in this space, but still applies. Besides, it gives me another opportunity to run the Jennifer Garner picture.)

The ultimate post-Super Bowl offering may have been in 2003, when ABC presented a special episode of its series Alias, starring Jennifer Garner as a beautiful spy. For the Super Bowl crowd, this particular episode opened aboard a private jet, with Garner's Sydney going undercover as an escort, entertaining a rich client by sporting a whip and wearing nothing but panties, a bra and a stern expression.

Over the years, there have been more misses than hits in programming after the Super Bowl. The first game in 1967, before it was even called a Super Bowl, was followed on CBS by an episode of Lassie. The first truly successful use of the post-Bowl slot was in 1983, when NBC launched The A-Team.

Since then, the Super Bowl has provided a launching pad to a few great TV series (ABC's The Wonder Years in 1988, NBC's Homicide: Life on the Street in 1993), but has spawned just as many instant flops (NBC's Brothers and Sisters sitcom in 1979, CBS's Grand Slam sitcom in 1990).

Mostly, what the time slot has done right is draw bigger audiences to already successful shows, as with the 1996 NBC "Super-Sized" episode of Friends and Fox's 2008 episode of House.

It worked for House four years ago -- and ought to work just as well for The Voice this weekend.

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Today on NPR's 'Fresh Air,' I'll Be a 'Smash' -- Interviewing Producers Behind That New NBC Series

February 2, 2012 9:32 AM

I'm really, really impressed by NBC's Smash, the new making-of-a-musical drama series -- NOT a reality show -- that premieres Monday. I'll have a full review of that series then -- but for now, please check out Thursday's Fresh Air with Terry Gross on NPR, on which I interview two of the show's executive producers, Craig Zadan and Neil Meron.

They're the guys whose musical TV lineage goes all the back to CBS's Gypsy, with Bette Midler, almost 20 years ago, and whose more current credits include winning the Oscar-winning movie version of Chicago and the current roadway hit revival of How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying.

After about 5 p.m. ET Thursday, you can hear my interview with them on the Fresh Air website HERE.

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Once On 'X Factor,' Paula Abdul Is Now an Ex-'Factor'

February 1, 2012 2:30 PM

In reality-TV terms, it would be like Donald Trump turning to his own son on NBC's The Apprentice and dismissing him with a curt "You're fired": Simon Cowell has delivered several pink slips regarding his Fox series The X Factor, effectively X-ing out not only stiff-as-a-surfboard host Steve Jones and wishy-washy judge Nicole Scherzinger, but his American Idol crony Paula Adbul as well.

Which proves at least two things...

One, Cowell is an astute enough businessman to make and steal headlines even as NBC's rival music-competition series The Voice is days away from its season premiere.

And two, Cowell is an astute judge not only of musical talent, but of what's wrong with The X Factor...

He's also mentioned, according to reports, that perhaps the show's glitz factor should be toned down a bit, in terms of its set and lighting overkill. And that the caliber of talent could be better.

God points all around. But take away the talent (which wasn't good enough), the production values (which were way too distracting and overdone), the host (who was a British Ken doll), and the female judges (who, at various points in the competition, refused to judge, even to the point of tears), and what's left?

Simon Cowell. Oh, and fellow judge L.A. Reid.

That's a proper, drastic house-cleaning -- but it's about the only way The X Factor could hope to get any attention right now.

The Voice is returning for Season 2 right after the Super Bowl, expecting to open the year with mammoth audience numbers.

American Idol, which Cowell left to prepare for the launch of his next series, is now down double digits in audience percentage so far this season.

And The X Factor? It's scrambling -- for attention, and, starting now, for replacements.

But Cowell is an astute businessman, so I'm betting he'll up the ante for his own Season 2. If The Voice made it so big with Christina Aguilera, Cee-Lo Green, Adam Levine and Blake Shelton, expect Cowell to counter with someone bigger than a former Pussycat Doll.

That may not be enough, but at least it's a start. Whoever is chosen to be a judge, though, must understand and accept one critical component of the judge:

They're there to judge.

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I'm Braying for Assistance: Help Me Rename This TV Donkey

January 30, 2012 11:15 AM

Hanging art in a museum is nothing unusual, but the way New York's Guggenheim Museum hung the collected works of Maurizio Cattelan for a recent exhibit certainly qualified as odd.

All of his pieces, in a display appropriately titled All, were hung from the ceiling of the museum's seven-story rotunda.

There were 128 pieces in all -- or, if you like, in All. And out of all those weird works -- the pope hit by a meteorite, the chess set pitting good vs. evil, the tiny elevators -- one of them spoke to me the most.

It was a stuffed donkey, with an old TV set tied to its saddle.

Perhaps, for a television critic burdened with too much to do and see, it's the perfect metaphor.

Yes, I realize, that makes me an ass. And also means I'm a beast of burden of my own choosing. And so on.

I get it.

But what I don't get is the title Cattalan gave to this particular 1998 piece -- a media commentary whose own working media, as a work of art, are taxidermied donkey, television, rope, saddle, and blanket. (Budding artists and media critics, don't try this at home.)

The title of the work, according to the exhibition booklet, is:

If a Tree Falls in the Forest and There Is No One Around It, Does It Make a Sound?

Great piece of art. Lousy title.

So what should it be called?

For starters, how about:

Mule Never Get Rich.

Dumb Beast, Smart TV.

TV Worth Carrying.

Okay, so those aren't great titles, either. Some, I admit, may even be ass-inine.

I presume you could do better. So go ahead and try . . .

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Good 'Luck': HBO Brings David Milch, and Other Thoroughbreds, to a New TV Series

January 27, 2012 8:45 AM

David Milch. Michael Mann. Dustin Hoffman. Nick Nolte. HBO's Luck, which premieres Sunday night at 9 ET, claims all of those defiantly individual artists and more, working towards a common goal: to produce an involved, multi-layered, intriguing show about the world of horse racing. At that goal, they cross the finish line impressively -- but not in record time.

It takes a while to define, understand and warm up to the characters and conflicts in Luck -- but it's worth the effort, and the commitment. By episode three, all the pieces are in place, and Luck really begins to pay off...

HBO's Deadwood, Milch's career-best TV creation, remains unsurpassed, by him and by most others. But Luck, in its first season (HBO, unusually and proudly, provided all nine Season 1 hours for preview), manages to pull off three things that Deadwood managed so masterfully.

One, Luck presents so many compelling characters, embodied by so many talented actors, that you become satisfied watching no matter who is, or isn't, on screen at the time.

Two, it covers the entire spread of perspectives, from the corporate owners in the luxury boxes to the horse trainers in the stalls, from the jockeys on the saddles to the gamblers in the stands. Like Deadwood, which saw that town from so many perspectives -- saloon owners, hookers, doctors, lawmen, mine workers, and so on -- Luck gains it strength by pivoting around a single point. In Deadwood, it was the town. In Luck, it's the track.

And three, it looks as good as it sounds. Milch, and the writers working under him, haven't tried to duplicate the puffed-up Shakespearean cadences of Deadwood, but have found their own language in the clipped poetry of the track. And under Mann's direction (literally, for the premiere episode), the images, like the four-legged animals competing on the oval, are majestic.

That's one thing I really enjoy watching in Luck, by the way. There are scenes where various characters have to interact with the horses -- petting them, talking to them, bathing and training them -- and those scenes are like improv. The horses act, and their human co-stars react -- or the other way around. But the horses, in close-up, make it all seem more real somehow.

(For a full review of Luck, and a clip featuring Dustin Hoffman, listen to Friday's Fresh Air with Terry Gross on NPR -- or, after about 5 p.m. ET Friday, visit the website HERE.)

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It's Worth Eavesdropping on David Steinberg's 'Inside Comedy' Conversations

January 26, 2012 1:45 PM

As host of the new Showtime series Inside Comedy, David Steinberg doesn't get much respect from Don Rickles in the opening show -- and that's funny. But he does get lots of respect, with equally amusing results, from Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Steve Carell, Jane Lynch, Billy Crystal, Martin Short, Brad Garrett and Larry David. And that's just in the first five installments of this very welcome, very entertaining, arguably important 10-part TV show...

Inside Comedy premieres Thursday night at 11 ET on Showtime, and differs from Steinberg's last talk show with fellow comics, TV Land's Sit Down Comedy with David Steinberg, in one significant respect: this time, there's no studio audience.

That doesn't mean the comics don't reach for time-tested stories or easy laughs, and often you can hear the TV crew, and what must have been a very small quorum of friends and associates, laughing uproariously at what Steinberg brings out of his guests. But it's the chemistry, between subject and questioner, that makes all of this possible.

When Chris Rock, for example, talks of testing new comedy material by going to Palm Beach and performing it before an elderly Jewish audience, Steinberg understands instantly that Rock does it because if it works there, it'll be smash once Rock gets before a younger, more ethnically diverse audience. And it's that understanding that prompts Rock to follow up with a delightful, sports-related simile:

"It's like swinging two bats in the on-deck circle," he tells Steinberg. They both laugh -- and chances are, at home, you will too.

These are conversations, not interviews, and are better because of it.

Steinberg's comedy career began at Second City, and his impish comic "sermonettes" proved one of the factors in CBS firing the Smothers Brothers in the late Sixties. When Seinfeld, on the premiere show, talks about why he thinks of Don Rickles as a pure entertainer with an amazing amount of energy, Steinberg not only gets it, but amplifies upon it.

Similarly, when Martin Short talks about fellow SCTV cast member John Candy, Steinberg recalls directing Candy in the movie whose eventual title was Going Berserk.

And with Larry David, whom Steinberg has directed in many episodes of HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm, the stories -- and the honest comments -- Steinberg gets out of Larry David are laugh-out-loud funny. Even David himself laughs out loud at some of them, not quite believing what he's saying or admitting.

Larry David's mom made him take a postal worker's exam just in case his standup comedy career didn't work. And that was after he graduated from college.

Steinberg and Steve Carell are two of the executive producers of Inside Comedy, and their approach is brilliantly simple -- and simply brilliant. Just two comics at a time, sitting around talking -- about their comedy influences, their biggest on-stage mistakes, and, when applicable, playing in front of U.S. Presidents.

I've seen the first half of this season's outings of Inside Comedy, and can't wait to see the rest. Coming up: Mel Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Robin Williams, Tim Conway, Kathy Griffin and others.

As a guest list, that's no laughing matter. But in Steinberg's hands, and as shown on Inside Comedy, it is.

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Reach Out and 'Touch' Kiefer Sutherland's New Fox TV Series

January 25, 2012 10:45 AM

When Kiefer Sutherland ended his run on Fox's 24 -- and much of the time, as CTU loner Jack Bauer, he was indeed running -- he wasn't expected to return to TV very quickly.

Yet here he is, starring in a new series called Touch, which is unveiled with a sneak preview Wednesday night at 9 ET on Fox.

The pilot is all about establishing the premise and the parameters. What happens next, and whether it delivers on its original potential, will take months to sort out. Because after this special preview, Touch doesn't resurface until March...

Touch is created by Tim Kring, creator of NBC's Heroes. Sutherland stars as Martin, a widower whose wife died on 9/11, and who has raised their 11-year-old son, Jake, alone. And it's a lonely type of single parenting, because Jake, played by David Mazouz, doesn't speak, doesn't like to be touched, is obsessed with numbers, and occasionally runs off to do dangerous and seemingly inexplicable things.

Eventually, though, Martin meets a behavioral expert, played by Danny Glover, who suggests to Martin that his son may actually be gifted, and seeing the world differently than most of us -- but in a way that reveals its patterns, its interlaced connections, and even the future.

For my full review of Touch, go to the Fresh Air website HERE. After about 5 pm. ET Wednesday, you'll be able to hear audio, as well as read the story.

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'Nova' Investigates a Fascinating Mystery -- And the Prime Suspect Is Framed!

January 24, 2012 9:25 AM

The newest installment of the PBS Nova series is the best mystery thriller I've seen on TV this year. It's got forensic scientists trying to identify partial fingerprints and examine photographic evidence, investigators traveling the globe to track down promising leads, experts adamantly offering conflicting testimony -- and enough twists and turns to satisfying the most fervent mystery fan.

The hour, premiering Wednesday night at 9 ET on PBS (check local listings), is called Mystery of a Masterpiece. And the mystery involves a painting that is suspected by some -- but refuted by others -- to be a previously unknown work by Leonardo Da Vinci...

The unsigned work, a portrait of a pony-tailed, well-dressed woman in profile, originally was sold at auction by Christie's for $22,000. It was identified, in the program, as "German School, Early 19th Century." But one of the bidders who lost that day never forgot the painting, and when he eventually got a second chance to acquire it, he did.

And then he began asking questions, and taking the piece to experts. Could it be, as he suspected, an unknown work by Leonardo Da Vinci?

It's an outrageous query, and an even more outrageous claim. Only a dozen or so portraits by the man who painted the Mona Lisa exist in all the museums across the world. To say that this could be another, when no historical record exists of it having been painted or previously displayed, is the longest of long shots.

But Nova is a science show, and there are ways of testing these things -- at least to eliminate the various forgeries and impossibilities. And, as Sherlock Holmes said, when you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth...

Because the canvas in question is made of vellum, which is animal skin, it can be carbon-dated, to determine whether it indeed comes from the 19th century -- which Christie's experts presumed -- or was much older. Da Vinci lived from 1452-1519, so for the mystery painting to possibly be his work, the vellum would have to be much older than the 1800s.

That test takes place in the very early portion of Mystery of a Masterpiece, so it's not spoiling much to say that the test, with "95 percent predictability," dates the canvas within the range of the years 1440 to 1650.

But that means only that the material on which the portrait was painted is old enough.

Next comes a visit with a painter who dabbles in "legal forgeries," recreating masterworks only for his own amusement. He shows how to strip the paint off an existing old canvas and start anew.

At this point, at full steam, the mystery is afoot. David Murdock, the writer-director-producer of this clear and exciting program, presents the three pivot points on which this mystery must rest.

1) Artistically, does the work measure up to, and is it consistent with, other Da Vinci paintings?

2) Scientifically, does it match what we know about the ages of not only the canvas, but the pigments and other elements?

3) Historically, is there any supporting material to put either the subject of the painting, or the painting itself, in perspective?

Tackling those three questions -- in a manner of which Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, would approve -- takes this Nova from New York to Paris, from Switzerland to Poland, and elsewhere. It's no wonder Mystery of a Masterpiece was produced in partnership with National Geographic. A lot of frequent-flyer miles were generated in the making of this program.

And every path leads to another hidden corridor, another puzzle. That's where the real fun is, so I won't give too much away -- but one delicious detail has to do with the braided ponytail sported by the woman in the portrait.

Eventually, that hairstyle is tracked down to a particular place and time -- a trendy moment of fashion that is captured in a few other period portraits, and which lasted only a decade, in Milan. Turns out it was the decade of 1482-92, and this long, tight braid fad was in style precisely when Da Vinci was living in Milan. There are even contemporary works by other painters, showing the similar ponytail, presented as evidence.

And so on. Watch the rest, and decide for yourself whether you're persuaded by the amassed evidence. One verdict, however, seems irrefutable: This Nova, in its direct and detailed manner of story-telling, is its own minor masterpiece.

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Phil Ochs Documentary Kicks Off Second Quarter-Century for Superb PBS 'American Masters' Series

January 22, 2012 1:15 PM

Impressively -- and amazingly -- the PBS American Masters series has been examining popular art and profiling gifted artists for a quarter of a century. And now, to start Season 26, it turns it attention to yet another worthy, inspirational figure: talented, tragic folksinger Phil Ochs...

Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune, a 2010 documentary written and directed and co-produced by Kenneth Bowser, premiering Monday at 10 p.m. ET (check local listings) will please and inform those who are fans of his musical canon, and impress and win over those coming to his music, and his story, for the first time.

If you know the work of Phil Ochs, or if you don't, you should watch this program. Anyone not covered by those two categories can feel free to skip it.

Ochs was a contemporary of, and in unavoidable competition with, Bob Dylan when both started out singing their folk songs in Greenwich Village in the early Sixties. Dylan became the king of folk music, then went electric and left overtly political songwriting behind, all in the course of a few years. Ochs held to his original course -- and their two stories ended up very, very differently.

Pete Seeger, one of many interviewed for There But for Fortune, recalls championing both of those young songwriters in their early days in New York.

"I once went up to a little magazine called Broadside," Seeger says, "and I invited both Bob Dylan and Phil Ohs to come up there with me. And I sat back listening to song after song that they'd just written within the last few weeks.

"And I thought to myself, here I am with two of the greatest songwriters in the world. And someday, they'll be famous. But right now, nobody is printing them, except this little mimeographed magazine -- 500 copies!"

Ochs never did achieve the success or fame of Dylan, though such songs as "Draft Dodger Rag," "I Ain't Marching Anymore," and "Crucixifion" had a measurable impact in their time.

Ochs, at one point in his career, had such a good sense of humor about his own pop-culture standing that he released an album called Phil Ochs' Greatest Hits, adorned with a photo of him wearing a gold lame Elvis-style suit.

Ochs thought this was funny, he explained, "since I never had any hits." He even went out on tour wearing the suit, in a proto-Andy Kaufman-type stunt, but many audience members didn't get the joke. "Bring back Phil Ochs!" one audience member screamed at his Carnegie Hall concert -- echoing screams of "Judas!" aimed at Dylan went he went electric.

But those who got Phil Ochs really respected his commitment and his artistry, and gather in this one-hour documentary to explain why.

The roster of fervent Ochs enthusiasts includes not only fellow folk travelers such as Seeger, Joan Baez and Peter Yarrow, but Tom Hayden, Sean Penn and -- especially poignant because of his recent death -- Christopher Hitchens.

Here's a brief clip to suggest why. It's not from the documentary, but this YouTube clip of Ochs singing "I Ain't Marching Anymore," intimately and in the round, presents him well -- and in a complete performance:

There But for Fortune covers Och's musical career, but also his political commitment -- culminating in his outrage at clandestine CIA policies in Chile, which led to him organizing a benefit concert to support the Chilean political refugees stranded and potentially targeted after a military coup that assassinated the country's pacifist leader.

It was a concert that sold out at Madison Square Garden -- and on which Ochs shared the bill with, among others, Bob Dylan.

This American Masters presentation doesn't shy away from Och's bipolar disorder, and the occasional bouts of depression that eventually led to his suicide, at age 35. They're all part of the man's deep, dark history, and his singular, sincere perspective.

Not many television programs, over the decades, have opted to focus on Phil Ochs.

It's not surprising that American Masters has -- or that the series has done it so well.

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