Author Archive
 

 

EARLY WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: “Divergent” Holds Well, “Muppets” Still Soft

  We won’t have confirmed Saturday numbers for several more hours (or final figures until Monday), but based on preliminary grosses at Deadline, DIVERGENT (Summit/Lionsgate) held surprisingly well on its second day o...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

Behind the Weekend Box Office – 3/23/14

  OPENINGS:  DIVERGENT (Summit/Lionsgate) had an unusual trajectory for a YA movie, with a relatively unimpressive start but then much less of a Saturday drop than others in its genre.  The result was a $56M weekend (the...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED Pilot + 1 Review: “Crisis”

  CRISIS:  Sunday 10PM on NBC Previously… on CRISIS:  On its way to a field trip in New York, a class of students from a Washington DC private school are kidnapped by a large and well-organized group of captors, an...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED Season Finale Review: “Girls”

  Throughout its third season, reactions to GIRLS seemed to depend to a large extent on the particular vision of the series that viewers had.  Season 3 of Lena Dunham’s show was notably less conceptual and experimen...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

UPDATED: THE SKED CABLE/NETWORK SCORECARD – 3/21/14

  UPDATE:  The NCAA TOURNAMENT games on CBS adjusted to 1.0/1.3.  HART OF DIXIE lost 0.1 in final numbers, lessening its chances of survival.  SHARK TANK and 20/20 went up 0.1. FRIDAY CABLE:  The NCAA TOURNAMENT primet...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

NIELSENWAR: On “The Good Wife” and The Business of Plot Twists

  {Note:  SPOILERS will follow the weekly and season-to-date ratings below.} None of the networks are anywhere a 2 rating at this point of the season, with CBS on top last week thanks to its Mon-Wed line-up and less than ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED Season Finale Review: “The Fosters”

  THE FOSTERS seemed sturdier in the first half of its season than in its second.  Series creators Brad Bredeweg and Peter Paige loaded up so strenuously on sudsy, often ham-handed melodrama that it’s threatened to ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

UPDATED: THE SKED CABLE/NETWORK SCORECARD – 3/23/14

  UPDATE:  The big change came early in the evening, as 60 MINUTES adjusted down 0.6 to 2.0, reflecting the deduction of the time zone viewers who were actually watching NCAA TOURNAMENT coverage.  That overrun rose 0.1 to 4....
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

UPDATED: THE SKED CABLE/NETWORK SCORECARD – 3/24/14

  AFTERNOON UPDATE:  As expected, once the 10:01PM start was factored in, THE VOICE went up 0.1 and THE BLACKLIST went down the same.  HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER also climbed 0.1, as did both ABC shows, while INTELLIGENCE was dow...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED Season Finale Review: “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”

  BROOKLYN NINE-NINE kicked off the beginning of the end of the 2013-14 network television season tonight, the first full-season series to reach its finale, so it’s time to start making some summarizing judgments abo...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

UPDATED: THE SKED CABLE/NETWORK SCORECARD – 3/25/14

  AFTERNOON UPDATE:  The usual scattered 0.1 moves, although the notable one was the one that didn’t happen:  although THE VOICE did go up 0.1 as expected, ABOUT A BOY didn’t lose any of its number.  Also up:  ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED: NBC Summer Schedule

  NBC has announced an unusually robust slate of scripted programming for summer 2014–although, since 3 of the shows were originally ordered for airing during the regular season and didn’t make it onto the sche...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED Series Finale Review: “Psych”

  It was a somewhat underpopulated 8th and final season for PSYCH.  Maggie Lawson, the show’s female lead Juliet O’Hara, was off shooting Back In the Game most of the time, and Kirsten Nelson’s Chief Vic...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

UPDATED: THE SKED CABLE/NETWORK SCORECARD – 3/26/14

  AFTERNOON UPDATE:  As usual, AMERICAN IDOL went up 0.1 in final numbers.  Also slightly up:  MODERN FAMILY and SUBURGATORY.  But MIXOLOGY fell another 0.1, hurting its chances for survival.  The CSI rerun also slipped 0...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED Pilot Review: “Surviving Jack”

  SURVIVING JACK:  Thursday 9:30PM on FOX – Change the Channel SURVIVING JACK is a Mortifying Parent Sitcom, which isn’t much of a surprise, since it originated with Justin Halpern, who wrote the book that bec...
by Mitch Salem