Jennifer Hudson takes center stage at 'Smash'

NBC's "Smash" - somewhat maligned last season, somewhat praised, and somewhat reconfigured for the sophomore season, starting Feb. 4 - has (as you're probably aware) added a major newcomer, Jennifer Hudson. But producers yesterday told TV writers in Pasadena, for the winter portion of the Press Tour, that she'll appear in three of the first four episodes.

  And to that end, check out the new promo/tease below. Lots of Hudson and some suggestions that "Smash" will head off in a different direction for the second, though nothing radical as best I can tell. New showrunner Josh Safran says the show will be more distinticly musical, in that it will embrace more numbers and more of that big brassy Broadway feel; the old rivalriy between Kat McPhee's and Megan Hilty's characters continues (of course; how could it not); plus, the series will get a little more deeply into the inside world of the Broadway world - the backstage of the backstage, I supppose. 

  But Hudson's the big news here, as the promo clearly establishes...