Carrie Underwood and Stephen Moyer toplined the three-hour NBC production, which featured a cavernous set and familiar songs. 
 
 It's easy to remember a musical for its songs. That is, after all, what makes a musical different from every other kind of narrative: The characters will shout to the rafters in full throat, revealing things they just can't speak, because the music gives them leave to lay themselves bare. 
 
 And the songs in The Sound of Music are sublime. Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II knew their way around a tune and these numbers -- from "My Favorite Things" to "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" to the indefatigable "Do-Re-Mi" -- have endured since the Broadway production bowed in 1959 for good reason. But the story lives in the hearts of audiences because of Robert Wise's 1965 film adaptation starring Julie Andrews as Maria, the would-be nun trying to quench her yearning heart, and Christopher Plummer as Captain Von Trapp, the stoic Austrian unwilling to reignite his. Andrews' undeniable empathy and Plummer's prickly sensuality sold that love story to a generation, who've since passed it down to every other. 
 
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 With their live adaptation of the Broadway musical, NBC took a big swing for the fences. They spent a reported $9 million on the production and its cavernous set, which had to house the Austrian countryside, the interior of the Nonnberg Abbey, the Von Trapp estate and the arena where the Von Trapp Family Singers stage their final performance (draped in probably one too many Nazi flags). They engaged Craig Zadan and Neil Meron -- of NBC's calamitous Smash -- to produce. They got Audra McDonald to bring her pipes. They found a clutch of children who didn't have (too much) of that child-performer pomp. And they got Carrie Underwood and Stephen Moyer to play the lovers. And, well, whoops. 
 
 Because while Underwood can deliver the songs -- I'm sure that anyone with the desire to plunge themselves into the American Idol ringer has been singing those songs for most of her life -- she doesn't acquit herself so well when it comes to carrying the emotional weight of the production. And perhaps it was unfair to ask so much of Underwood, to have to make Maria's journey in three scant hours -- whereas Andrews had weeks of production -- while enduring costume changes and remembering choreography and trying not to look at the prompter and not step on anyone's lines or feet. Underwood nails the look of a virginal almost-nun, but goes no deeper than that. Blank stares and placid smiles. 
 
 STORY: 'Sound of Music' Live: 5 Standout Moments 
 
 Moyer is a better singer than Russell Crowe, I'll give him that. But he's no Hugh Jackman. Or Neil Patrick Harris. Or Taye Diggs. Or even Nathan Fillion. His attempt at conveying an emotional hollowness just reads as mild constipation, his furrowed eyes and pursed lips doing all the work. He doesn't look stoic, he just looks clenched. 
 
 The production itself came off without a hitch -- no easy feat with so many moving parts and opportunities for blown lines or stumble down staircases (oh, how I wished for a staircase stumble to lighten the three hours). The supporting cast was strong: Laura Benanti was appropriately sultry as Elsa Von Hottie, while Christian Borle was appropriately hammy as Max Detweiler and someone should find a way to have McDonald sing audiences into every commercial break. And while the camerawork -- by directors Rob Ashford and Beth McCarthy-Miller (who directed 30 Rock's live episodes) -- made everything still feel a little stagebound, the storytelling was clear. 
 
 And yet, without Underwood and Moyer selling us on this legendary love story, The Sound of Music Live plays like very expensive karaoke. ||||| Broadway on TV 
 
 Was Carrie Underwood a good Maria? No. Was NBC’s decision to do a live staging of ‘The Sound of Music’ a good one? Maybe not. Was it fun anyway? Actually, kinda. 
 
 The poor hills. They finally come alive, only to experience a rotating flurry of emotions so dizzying it's as if the indefatigable Carrie Underwood started spinning on them at the beginning of NBC's The Sound of Music Live! and didn't stop for the entire three-hour broadcast. And, honestly, the country singer tackled her turn as Maria with such grating gusto she'd probably had done just that if she was asked to. 
 
 The experience of watching The Sound of Music Live! was a bit of an exhausting one. Not a bad one. Not a good one. But one that took energy. 
 
 There was weathering the crippling outrage over the project's mere existence—the nerve of staging a production without Julie Andrews in the lead!—that could very well have grounded the whole affair had NBC not been so bullish on it. Then came the hopefulness, a quick prayer to worn-out Sound of Music VHS tapes we all watched growing up that the production wouldn't be a train wreck. The quick sigh of relief came at the sound of the nuns prettily singing the opening song, only to be followed by the gut-punch suffocation of every breath when, all-of-a-sudden, Carrie Underwood was frolicking manically in a fake forest wearing Austrian drag. Nothing, really, can prepare one for that. 
 
 The roller coaster of emotions never really ceased. Are your eyes tired? It's from a combination of excessive cringing and sustained weeping. So much of the broadcast was hard to watch, not so much the fault of the actors as the actually quite subpar show being performed and the whole idea of the live telecast itself. And just as much of it was shockingly moving, thanks in Alps-sized part to the glorious talents of Tony-winners Audra MacDonald and Laura Benanti in scene-stealing supporting roles. 
 
 Listen, it takes a lot of effort to twirl energetically on a mountaintop and make it look good. The effort it took to put on The Sound of Music Live! radiated off the screen, draining the energy of the viewers who watched. But, occasionally, it even turned into, as Maria would sing, something good. 
 
 Sadly, it wasn't until she sang "Something Good" that Underwood's tireless guile finally succeeded in winning over the audience. Her performance of the song had confidence (now's a good time to lament that "I Have Confidence," a song added just to the film version of The Sound of Music, was not featured in this production) that took the American Idol winner nearly the entire show to properly build. Naturally, Underwood sounded astounding, as alive as those damned hills, every time she was asked to stand on top of things and belt. But whether it was because of nerves or lack of experience, her acting was painfully lifeless and amateur throughout the first two thirds of the lengthy ordeal. The singer, it seems, is a proud graduate of the school of "If I don't blink, they'll think I'm acting!" 
 
 To say that Underwood was no Julie Andrews is one of life's greatest certainties, and maybe it's not fair to compare the two stars. But the truth is that millions of people tuned in Thursday night to do just that, compare Underwood to Andrews… and then throw her off an Alps cliff when she didn't measure up. Underwood's performance, however, really just underlined what a tricky role Maria is to pull off, and how astounding it is that Andrews managed to do it. Andrews skipped through the role with the ceaseless ebullience of a baby deer in spring, imbuing that effervescence in everything from a mountaintop spin to yodeling with wooden puppets to a romance with grouchy Christopher Plummer. Girl was brave. Remember that boyish bob? 
 
 Underwood was like a deer, too. But one in headlights. 
 
 Because of that, one can't really tell if it was a brilliant or boneheaded idea to surround her with a supporting cast of such talented actors. First of all, this telecast featured some of the best singing nuns since Whoopi Goldberg was Back in the Habit. That roller coaster of emotions we were talking about earlier? We were rocketed through some prolific loop-de-loops just two bars into Audra MacDonald's rendition of "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" as Mother Abbess. If you didn't shed a tear during that epic performance, you might be an Underwood. I mean a robot. Heck, even Underwood was full-on ugly crying during the performance, likely betraying the inner monologue: "Audra MacDonald is belting this song in my ear and I will never find such happiness again." 
 
 Then there's the radiant Laura Benanti as Captain Von Trapp's (Vampire Bill himself, Stephen Moyer) hope-to-be fiancé, Elsa Schraeder. Along with Smash and Broadway alum Christian Borle, she can now be certified as an expert spelunker, for the feats of mining she did to surface errant bits of comedy from the overly earnest script the cast was working with. When Elsa breaks up with Von Trapp and sulks off stage near the end, you hate to see her go. Though Benanti looks good while she leaves. Her costuming was flawless. 
 
 (Sidebar conspiracy theory: the wardrobe department was out to sabotage Underwood. Take the party scene. Every guest is outfitted in exquisite ball gowns and tuxedos. Underwood is wearing an oversized milkmaid's dress, frumpier than the milkmaid's dress she wore in the previous scene… but not as frumpy as the one she put on for the next one. So much frump!) 
 
 So, yes, the cast did work exceptionally hard, none more than Underwood, to give her the credit she truly deserves, to sell the material. The material, however, is The Sound of Music. And it's not even The Sound of the Music movie, it's the stage show. And The Sound of Music stage show is a bit whack. 
 
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 It's a musical where, essentially, three songs are sung six times each at various points throughout the show and you're expected not to get bored of them. It's a show with two major conflicts. In one, a father is upset that his children's clothes are made out of curtains. In the other, the Nazis are invading Austria. They are given the same weight. It's a show where a Mother Superior at an abbey sings an epically moving ballad to a scared young nun, and you later realize that she was just telling the nun to go out there, sex herself up a little, and break up a pending marriage. The Sound of Music: The Story of Maria, the Hussy Nun. 
 
 Worse for fans of the movie who may not have even realized that it was also a stage production, there are loads of differences between the stage show and the film, especially in what are now iconic scenes. Maria sings "My Favorite Things" in the abbey to Mother Abbess, not to the children. Love the yodeling puppets from the "Lonely Goatherd" scene? They're not there, because Maria now sings it with the children in her bedroom, sans props. And there's no synchronized bench hopping at all in the choreography of "I Am Sixteen (Going on Seventeen)." It's a tragedy. 
 
 The mood of the whole piece was weird, too. Though it was performed live, it was shot as if it was a movie, on what must be the biggest soundstage of all time—the set was massive. So you never saw a proscenium, stage curtains, or an audience. Laugh lines didn't receive laughter. Vamping for applause after a song never actually had applause to vamp to. The hybrid nature of the project ended up zapping the energy from both worlds—film and live theater—rather than combining them. ||||| Joining all the other things to make one's spirits sink at this time of year – dark mornings, low temperatures, Susan Boyle's inevitable Christmas album – is Thursday night's live NBC production of the Sound of Music starring Carrie Underwood. In Times Square, there's a huge poster of her in Austrian drag, teeth blazing like strip lighting, a look on her face that seems to say, "Hey! Come join me in the casual destruction of a staple of the American songbook!" As if that corner of New York couldn't get more depressing. 
 
 Well, kind of. As we know in our hearts – come on, dig deep – the Sound of Music is basically terrible: too long, too pious, too laboured in its point-making. Julie Andrews rescued the movie with a sort of weapons-grade gladness , her performance turning on that rare ability to present risible material with absolute conviction. Underwood will, no doubt, sell it for all that she's worth, but there are certain things one doesn't look to winners of American Idol to deliver and guilelessness is one of them. 
 
 Neither is acting. Being in a musical isn't just a singing job, which is how Christopher Plummer, a veteran stage actor who started his career in productions of Ibsen, Shakespeare and Euripides, found himself cast as Captain von Trapp, something he has grumbled about ever since. He called it the "Sound of Mucus" and delivered his lines in a tone so sardonic, only Andrews' superior fire power could neutralize them. The clash of her absolute sincerity with his sly knowing style is part of what converted the show into kitsch, wherein lies its real worth. 
 
 The other part, of course, is the songs, so slick and convincing that large numbers of people still think Edelweiss is the Austrian national anthem. Poor Austrians. (Up to a point). I went on the native-baiting Sound of Music tour in Salzburg, once, and watched as the baffled and mildly hostile locals strained to look away as hordes of British, American and Australian visitors trudged around town, re-enacting key scenes from the film while screaming. 
 
 This kind of fanaticism is inspired as much by indoctrination as by any real value in the show. For most of us, repeated forced viewing since childhood has made the Sound of Music as familiar as a comfort blanket, a constant against which to measure our own progress. As I get older, for example, I find myself increasingly sympathising with the Baroness. Who hasn't been there? Labouring to impress in a power suit when the guy's undeclared taste is for novitiates? 
 
 Part of the comfort of the show is its naked didacticism: the nuns' moral surety; the lessons in European history. Who can resist Liesl's executive summary of Lebensraum: 
 
 Some people think we ought to be German. They're very mad at those who don't think so. 
 
 Or the mythology that now surrounds the production? That day in Salzburg, our tour guide, who had been doing the tour twice-daily for eight years, presented the material with the detachment of one who has long ago retreated to a place where no one can reach her. Until a few years ago, she explained, you could go inside the actual gazebo where Liesl and Rolf frolicked, until an 80-year-old woman jumped off the bench while re-enacting I Am 16 Going On 17 and broke her hip. A lawsuit ensued. Now you could only view it from the outside. At the time, this struck us with the force of a genuine sadness. 
 
 However much one mocks it, there is something enduringly and weirdly irresistible about the Sound of Music, although if I watch NBC on Thursday night, it won't be because of that. Where Andrews found a little quietness and subtlety in the score, Underwood, judging by the teasers, will go at it with the pop-eyed mania of someone performing for Simon Cowell. No, I'll be watching because it's live; something will go wrong.
– Before last night's live production of The Sound of Music on NBC, Emma Brockes summed up everything that was certainly going to be wrong with it in the Guardian: The original, beloved though it may be, "is basically terrible: too long, too pious, too labored in its point-making." But Julie Andrews managed to find "a little quietness and subtlety in the score," whereas "Underwood, judging by the teasers, will go at it with the pop-eyed mania of someone performing for Simon Cowell," Brockes writes. "There are certain things one doesn't look to winners of American Idol to deliver and guilelessness is one of them." So how did it actually end up? Most reviewers seem to agree Brockes was right: In Time, Charlotte Alter sums things up with her headline: "How Do You Solve A Problem Like Carrie Underwood?" She deems the show "so cringe-worthy that it was at least fun to watch" and rounds up nine things that went wrong, including Stephen Moyer, who played Captain Von Trapp: His "accent was sometimes German and sometimes English, which was weird because Underwood’s accent was always Southern." She also offers up suggestions for actors who would have done a better job than Underwood, including Morgan Freeman. On the Daily Beast, Kevin Fallon feels basically the same way: "Was Carrie Underwood a good Maria? No. Was NBC's decision to do a live staging of The Sound of Music a good one? Maybe not. Was it fun anyway? Actually, kinda," he writes. "To say that Underwood was no Julie Andrews is one of life's greatest certainties, and maybe it's not fair to compare the two stars. But the truth is that millions of people tuned in Thursday night to do just that, compare Underwood to Andrews ... and then throw her off an Alps cliff when she didn't measure up." As for the production itself, it "came off without a hitch," writes Marc Bernardin at the Hollywood Reporter. That's "no easy feat with so many moving parts and opportunities for blown lines or staircase stumbles (oh, how I wished for a staircase stumble to lighten the three hours)." And the non-Underwood cast, with the exception of a constipated-looking Moyer, was very strong.