Author Archive
 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Film Review: “How To Train Your Dragon 2″”

  HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2:  Worth A Ticket – Bigger Isn’t Always Better, But Still Good Enough Like a lot of sequels animated and not, HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 has been conceived on a much more spectacula...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED Season Premiere Review: “Graceland”

  GRACELAND:  Wednesday 10PM on USA GRACELAND is USA’s attempt to meld its jokey procedural sensibility (and that of series creator Jeff Eastin, who previously created White Collar for the network) to the kind of hi...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED Season Finale Review: “The 100″”

  Season 1 of CW’s THE 100 worked better than logic suggested it should, considering that it was basically a thrift shop of plotlines and tropes from other, more ambitious fantasies, some aimed at teens (The Hunger G...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED Season Finale Review: “Faking It”

  MTV’s FAKING IT did a surprisingly deft job of sustaining its limited premise over 8 half-hour episodes–until, at least, the last 30 seconds of the season fell victim to a bad case of Season Finale-itis, reac...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

UPDATED: THE SKED CABLE/NETWORK MONDAY SCORECARD – 6/9/14

  NETWORK UPDATE:  The HILLARY CLINTON: PUBLIC AND PRIVATE special went up 0.1 in final numbers, as did its BACHELORETTE clip show lead-in, and so did MASTERCHEF.  The new WHOSE LINE IS IT ANYWAY, however, lost 0.1. MONDAY C...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

UPDATED: THE SKED CABLE/NETWORK SUNDAY SCORECARD – 6/8/14

NETWORK UPDATE:  The time-zone adjusted rating for Game 2 of the NBA FINALS climbed to 6.0.  As expected, the primetime JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE and NBA COUNTDOWN dropped heavily, from 2.2/2.3 to 1.1/1.3. SATURDAY CABLE:  StarzR...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED Series Premiere Review: “Murder In the First”

  MURDER IN THE FIRST:  Monday 10PM on TNT – If Nothing Else Is On… Steven Bochco practically invented modern television with Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue, so even though it’s been a while since his g...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED Season Premiere Review: “Major Crimes”

  MAJOR CRIMES:  Monday 9PM on TNT MAJOR CRIMES returned for its third season tonight with a grim but unremarkable hour.  The episode, written by Co-Executive Producer Michael Alaimo and directed by David McWhirter, tipp...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

UPDATED: THE SKED CABLE/NETWORK FRIDAY SCORECARD – 6/6/14

  NETWORK UPDATE:  DATELINE slipped 0.1 from its early number, but CROSSBONES held steady.  On ABC, both WHAT WOULD YOU DO? and the SHARK TANK rerun rose 0.1.  FRIDAY CABLE:  WWE (Syfy) was on top with 0.8, up 0.2 from...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED Series Premiere Review: “Chasing Life”

  CHASING LIFE:  Tuesday 9PM on ABCFamily – Change the Channel ABCFamily is launching all its summer shows over the next week or two, so it appears to be luck rather than careful planning that’s resulted in it...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED Season Finale Review: “Turn”

  TURN seemed to have its finger on a fascinating footnote to American history, telling the story of colonial undercover spies during the Revolutionary War under the direction of George Washington, but it’s never suc...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED Pilot + 1 Review: “Halt and Catch Fire”

  HALT AND CATCH FIRE:  Sunday 10PM on AMC Previously… on HALT AND CATCH FIRE:  In 1983 Texas, the enigmatic, charismatic Joe MacMillan (Lee Pace) comes to sleepy Cardiff Electric and manipulates the company into g...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

Behind the Weekend US/International Box Office – 6/8/14

  International Box Office Note:  This is the last weekend before the World Cup begins diverting much of the planet’s attention (except, of course, in the US) away from movies for the next month.  That’s expe...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

EARLY WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: “Fault In Our Stars” Plunges on Saturday, “Edge of Tomorrow” Flat

  THE FAULT IN OUR STARS (20th) was unable to attract ticket buyers beyond its core of young female fans, and according to preliminary numbers at Deadline and elsewhere, the result was a mammoth Friday-to-Saturday drop of ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED Season Premiere Review: “Orange Is the New Black” (Episodes 1-3)

  One of the ways the emergence of Netflix as an important programming platform has changed the way we regard “television” is in its obliteration of the concept of a series “season” as something tha...
by Mitch Salem