Author Archive
 

 

THE SKED SEASON FINALE REVIEW: “Grimm”

  The second season of NBC’s GRIMM was considerably more satisfying than its first, although it did show the strain of trying to establish a series mythology.  The season’s final episode (really, last weekR...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED SEASON FINALE REVIEW: “Rectify”

  When people say that an original film or television series has the feel of a novel, it’s usually meant as a high compliment.  (The Wire is probably the definitive example of this in television.)  But Sundance Cha...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED’s Fall TV Ratings Predictions – Tuesday

  Our soothsaying group of former NBC head of Scheduling Mitch Metcalf, longtime head of NBC Current Programming Ted Frank and myself is continuing to set out instant, perhaps foolhardy predictions of what next fall’...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED’S MONDAY NETWORK SCORECARD – 5/20/13

  Viewers have started to exit the season before it’s even ended, as neither premieres nor finales excited anyone last night. NBC:  THE VOICE, as usual, won the night for NBC, but with its lowest-rated Monday episod...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED SEASON FINALE REVIEW: “Bates Motel”

  The first season of BATES MOTEL pulled one of the season’s more interesting sleights of hand.  In theory a prequel to Psycho, more often than not it used the source material as pretext for a quite different kind o...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED SERIES PREMIERE REVIEW: “The Goodwin Games”

  THE GOODWIN GAMES:  Monday 8:30PM on FOX – If Nothing Else Is On… Note:  we reviewed the original pilot for this show back in August.  Since then, however, it underwent fairly significant recasting and res...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED SERIES PREMIERE REVIEW: “Motive”

  MOTIVE:  Thursday 9PM on ABC – Change the Channel It’s a paradoxical truth that when TV’s “summer” begins, cable networks get adventurous and creative, and the US broadcast networks get gen...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED SERIES FINALE REVIEW: “The Big C: Hereafter”

  Even though death is part of the daily menu of our television and movies, dying–lingering, fatal illness–is much rarer.  We prefer our deaths to be mere starting points for police investigations, or the bypr...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED’s Fall TV Ratings Predictions – Monday

  The Upfronts are over, which means the real Upfronts are about to begin–that is, the networks’ advance sale of advertising time (usually about 80% of the season’s total) for the Fall 2013 TV season.  A...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED’S SUNDAY NETWORK SCORECARD – 5/19/13

Live awards shows have been surging in the DVR age, and last night it happened again. ABC:  The BILLBOARD MUSIC AWARDS blew away the competition with a 3.6 (peaking at 3.9 in the 9-9:30PM half-hour), the show’s highest r...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED SEASON FINALE REVIEW: “Mr. Selfridge”

  Think of MR. SELFRIDGE as the methadone to Downton Abbey‘s pure heroin.  It’s not remotely the real thing, but it serves to feed the craving through these many months until Downton returns in January 2014. ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

BEHIND THE WEEKEND BOXOFFICE – 5/19/13

  OPENINGS:  In order for STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS (Paramount) to hit its $70.6M weekend studio estimate (and $84.1M over 4+ days), it will need to have the best Sunday hold in the top 10 by a substantial margin.  Paramo...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED SEASON FINALE REVIEW: SNL with Ben Affleck

  In contrast to last week’s Kristin Wiig-fest, tonight’s season finale of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE didn’t give victory laps to all the franchise characters Bill Hader and Fred Armisen have contributed to the ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

BEHIND THE FRIDAY BOXOFFICE – 5/17/13

  OPENINGS:  STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS (Paramount) is the first underperformer of the summer, and there will be plenty of harrumphing and speculation about why that is.  With Sunday likely to be much weaker than last week...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED’S FRIDAY NETWORK SCORECARD – 5/17/13

  Only one show last night topped a 1.5 rating. ABC:  An 8PM SHARK TANK only managed a 1.2, but the 9PM season finale zoomed up to a 1.9, easily the highest-rated show of the night (but down a tick from last week).  2d h...
by Mitch Salem