Robert Bianco

USA TODAY

After Wednesday's news that NBC is planning Jesus Christ Superstar Live for Easter 2018, it's worth taking a look at all of the live musicals network TV has staged since the trend began in 2013.

NBC's Hairspray Live! was the least-watched yet of the five musicals aired on the major networks in recent years. But it was tops in USA TODAY TV critic Robert Bianco's book. A ranking, including excerpts from reviews:

1. Hairspray (NBC, 12/7/16, 9.1 million same-day viewers)

Hairspray returned as a live TV event in all its toe-tapping, hand-clapping, cross-dressing, beehived glory. Brimming with great songs by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, opened up and spread out by directors Alex Rudzinski and Kenny Leon, this latest live NBC musical from Craig Zadan and Neil Meron was their best, most entertaining work yet. (But it) was more than exuberant fun. With a message about accepting ourselves and each other while celebrating and embracing our diversity, this Hairspray felt more relevant — and maybe even important — than ever.

2. The Wiz (NBC, 12/3/15, 11.5 million viewers)

Pulsing with life and fun, sparked by energetic dances and colorful costumes, and driven by Charles Smalls' still-sturdy score, NBC's The Wiz was charmed from start to finish. And were that not enough, viewers got to witness the launch of a scintillating new performer in Shanice Williams, the young college student who may just have sung her way to stardom as Dorothy.

3. Grease (Fox, 1/31/16, 12.2 million viewers)

A Broadway musical that originally spoofed our rose-tinted-glasses view of the '50s has turned into a nostalgic wallow, leaving the show with an odd mix of tones — and in this particular version, a book that sometimes seemed to get lost between songs and inside jokes. (It was) kinetically staged and inventively shot by Thomas Kail, the director of the brilliant Broadway sensation Hamilton, who spread the show across multiple stages and filled every musical number with flash and surprise. Yet it was often so flatly acted, those musical numbers came as a much-needed relief.

4. The Sound of Music (NBC, 12/5/13, 18.6 million viewers)

As her multiple Grammys and her legion of country music fans will attest, the quality of Carrie Underwood's singing voice is not the problem. It's that she doesn't know how to use that voice to sing in character, or what to do with her face when she's trying. For the most part, the strength of the songs and of her own vocal talents pulled her through when she was singing. It was the speaking that did her in: The eyes went blank, the voice went flat, and Maria turned to wood.

5. Peter Pan (NBC, 12/4/14, 9.2 million viewers)

An oddly ponderous, disconnected, disjointed and jerky mess. If it had been a Broadway show, it would have gotten the hook (pun intended). It wasn't the small things that broke the spell — ungraceful wire work, clunky transitions, a Tinkerbell that was as annoying as a mosquito and sounded like a wind chime, a tea cup that fell from Peter's head and some technical glitches. Peter Pan simply never flew.