Author Archive
 

 

THE SKED Season Premiere Review: “Elementary”

  ELEMENTARY:  Thursday 10PM on CBS For those of us mildly obsessed with BBC’s superlative Sherlock, it may have been unwise for CBS’s ELEMENTARY (which all concerned agree is not, legally, a knock-off) to bri...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED’S MONDAY NETWORK SCORECARD – 6/17/13

  Things picked up for The Voice as it neared its belated season’s end.   NBC:  THE VOICE was up 0.2 in preliminary numbers to 3.5 with its final Monday telecast of the season, and may rise more when final ratings ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

The Sked: PROMO WATCH — Update through February 19

>Over halfway through the February ratings sweep, the broadcast networks continue to exhibit very different strategies in allocating their precious on-air promotion time to market and launch new programs as well as supporting t...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED’S FRIDAY NETWORK SCORECARD – 3/16/12

> Basketball. CBS:  On a night when the other networks mostly didn’t choose to compete, some enormous upsets in the NCAA TOURNAMENT gave CBS a slam-dunk victory for the night with a (preliminary) 2.2, way higher than...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED REVIEW: “Saturday Night Live” with Kerry Washington

  For Jay Pharoah and Kenan Thompson–but especially Pharoah–this week must have felt like alternate-universe SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, because with Kerry Washington as host, suddenly he was the show’s featured...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Finale Review: “Supergirl”

  SUPERGIRL undertook a journey this season more unusual than its own heroine’s passage from Krypton to Earth, transferring from CBS to CW.  It suffered little if any damage in the process–other than in the ra...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY FILM REVIEW: “R.I.P.D.”

  R.I.P.D.:  Not Even For Free – No Life After Death For This One Ryan Reynolds plays a dead man in the new R.I.P.D., and thus it makes sense that his character would be frustrated and depressed for much of its leng...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

Behind the US/Worldwide Weekend Box Office – 11.18.2018

  OPENINGS:  FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD (Warners) opened at $62.2M in the US, down 16% from the first Beasts.  In addition, it was more front-loaded, with a 16% Saturday drop compared to 12%.  Exit poll...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

EARLY FRIDAY BOX OFFICE: “Halloween” Bloodthirsty, “The Hate U Give” Soft, “A Star Is Born” Stays Strong

  A piece of beloved genre IP that gets rave reviews is hard to beat, and the newest iteration of HALLOWEEN (Blumhouse/Miramax/Universal) is headed toward a huge opening.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline put Friday at $33...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SHOWBUZZDAILY REVIEW: “The Adventures of Tintin”

  THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN:  Worth A Ticket – The Return of Steven Spielberg   Remember how lousy the last Indiana Jones movie was?  Remember watching it and wondering sadly what had become of Steven Spielberg...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

EARLY FRIDAY BOX OFFICE: “The Last Jedi” Conquers The Cosmos, “Ferdinand” Meek, “Shape of Water” Expands

  STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI (Lucasfilm/Disney) was expected to be gigantic, but not quite as huge as 2015’s The Force Awakens, which benefited from a decade of pent-up expectations.  That’s exactly where itR...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED Series Premiere Review: “Backpackers”

  BACKPACKERS:  Monday 8:30PM on CW – Change the Channel BACKPACKERS feels like a student film project, although it isn’t one.  Instead, it’s another example of the walls coming down between entertainme...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

EARLY FRIDAY BOX OFFICE: “Nightcrawler” Says Boo!

  Halloween is a terrifying holiday for studios and theatre owners, because the young adult audience that both count on have better things to do that night–and it’s particularly bad when the holiday falls on a ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED: New “Office” Boss?

> One of the big questions marks over the Fall Thursday schedule has been NBC’s need to replace Steve Carell as the lead in THE OFFICE.  Reports are that James Spader, who brought his funny/creepy vibe to the show...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED PILOT REPORT: NBC’s “Grimm”

> Disclaimer:  Network pilots now in circulation are not necessarily in the form that will air in the Fall.  Pilots are often reedited and rescored, and in some cases even recast or reshot.  So these critiques sh...
by Mitch Salem