Author Archive
 

 

THE SKED Season Premiere Review: “Mad Men”

  MAD MEN:  Sunday 10PM on AMC Fresh episodes of MAD MEN will likely still be airing more than a year from now, so all the obituaries for the series that have been appearing lately run the risk of sounding like “Gen...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

EARLY WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: “Rio 2″” Flies Lower on Saturday, Falls Behind “Captain America 2″”

  RIO 2 (20th/Blue Sky) appears to be losing altitude, according to preliminary box office numbers at Deadline.  The sequel reportedly climbed 30-34% on its second day of release, from $11.9M on Friday to $16M or less.  ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED Review: “Saturday Night Live” with Seth Rogen

  It seemed that with experienced SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE host Seth Rogen returning to the show for his third visit tonight, SNL had a fair chance of continuing its mini-streak of worthwhile episodes after the Louis C.K. and A...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED NETWORK SCORECARD – 4/11/14

  FOX:  The season premiere episodes of KITCHEN NIGHTMARES ran at 1.2/1.1, far better in the 9PM hour than sitcoms have done for FOX all season.  They were also up from last season’s 0.9 premiere. ABC:  The night ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED Season Finale Review: “Suits”

  The short back “half” of SUITS’ Season 3 was surprisingly intense.  With only 6 episodes in play, the show stepped away from its usual super-complex litigations where everyone double-bluffs and triple-...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

EARLY FRIDAY BOX OFFICE: “Rio 2″” Wins Battle of Sequels

  RIO 2 (20th) has leaped out to a Friday lead, according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, one that it should be able to sustain for the weekend.  The Rio sequel has $11.5M on Friday, about 10% ahead of the first Rio&#...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

UPDATED: THE SKED CABLE/NETWORK SCORECARD – 4/10/14

  UPDATE:  Lots of adjustments, but none of them over 0.1, with AMERICAN IDOL, THE BIG BANG THEORY, GREY’S ANATOMY, SHARK TANK and COMMUNITY up (narrowly avoiding series lows in some cases), and THE MILLERS and ELEM...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED: Stephen Colbert Is the New Dave

  Jon Stewart is becoming positively Lorne Michaels-ian in his influence over comedy culture far beyond his own show.  It was announced today, to no one’s great surprise, that his colleague and protege Stephen Colbe...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

UPDATED: THE SKED CABLE/NETWORK SCORECARD – 4/9/14

  AFTERNOON UPDATE:  SVU’s 0.1 upward adjustment meant that it, too, beat AMERICAN IDOL on Wednesday.  MIXOLOGY also came up 0.1, as did each of the reruns that preceded it on ABC. WEDNESDAY CABLE:  A very slow ni...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED Season Finale Review: “Justified”

  Graham Yost has done an exceptionally smart job of expanding upon Elmore Leonard’s original fiction and showrunning FX’s JUSTIFIED over the past five years, and he knows, as the song says, when to fold em.  ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

UPDATED: THE SKED CABLE/NETWORK SCORECARD – 4/6/14

  UPDATE:  ONCE UPON A TIME gained 0.2 in final numbers, increasing its lead over RESURRECTION even though the latter inched up 0.1 (still down 0.2 from the previous week).  Also up 0.1:  AMERICAN HOME BUILDERS and AMERICA&...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

UPDATED: THE SKED CABLE/NETWORK SCORECARD – 4/7/14

  AFTERNOON UPDATE:  The NCAA FINALS adjusted up to 7.2 in final numbers, but that was still significantly down from last year’s 8.4.  What time zone adjustment giveth it also taketh away, and that BIG BANG THEORY reru...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED Season Finale Review: “House of Lies”

  In its third season, HOUSE OF LIES tried to have more substance than it did in previous years, and part of the time it worked.  The end of Season 2 had scattered the cast, with Marty Kaan (Don Cheadle) forming his own c...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED Season Premiere Review: “Veep”

  VEEP:  Sunday 10:30PM on HBO VEEP, television’s most scintillatingly vicious comedy, returned with a relatively mild Season 3 premiere by its standards.  Largely that was because the script, written by Supervisin...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

NIELSENWAR: “Game of Thrones” Premiere and Other Early Sunday Cable Numbers

  It was a dull week for the broadcast networks, with little variation from the week before.  CBS had the advantage, thanks to the series finale of How I Met Your Mother, giving it a 2.16 average in 18-49s for the week (5...
by Mitch Salem