En route to Broadway, the TV series about backstage shenanigans and Marilyn Monroe has been rejiggered, with the same great songs but a whole new plot.

The long-gestating production about the making of a Marilyn Monroe musical succeeds where NBC's much-maligned series failed.

On the surface, "Smash" is a new backstage musical about the making of the fictional Broadway musical "Bombshell: The Marilyn Monroe Story,” but for diehard fans of the cult-classic TV show "Smash," this is the culmination of a years-in-the-making journey,