Author Archive
 

 

THE SKED SEASON FINALE REVIEW: “Nikita”

  With its endless governmental and quasi-governmental conspiracies and its sci-fi technology, NIKITA has always flirted with sheer silliness, and in its Season 3 finale the show went all the way.  Its ratings have also f...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED SEASON FINALE REVIEW: “Elementary”

  ELEMENTARY is a very classy, enjoyable network procedural that has the misfortune of existing at the same time as the altogether more dazzling BBC/PBS Sherlock, which has the same premise:  Sherlock Holmes as a modern-d...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THURSDAY BOXOFFICE: “Star Trek” Doesn’t Go So Boldly

  The Hollywood Reporter has the Thursday boxoffice for STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS (Paramount) at $13.5M, which given the strong reviews and general hype would be a tad disappointing.  Comparisons with the 2009 Star Trek ar...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

UPDATED: THE SKED’S THURSDAY NETWORK SCORECARD – 5/16/13

  Last night’s festival of season/series finales was also a riot of off-hour running times, and there will be more than the usual number of afternoon adjustments once final numbers are on.  The analysis below featur...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED SEASON FINALE REVIEW: “Scandal”

  The people on SCANDAL just can’t talk fast enough.  There’s so much invective they need to get out of their mouths, so much self-justification and passionate, furious strategizing, so much spin, that the wor...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED SEASON FINALE REVIEW: “The Vampire Diaries”

  I get it:  teen vampires, ick.  THE VAMPIRE DIARIES is never going to win a major Emmy–it’s never even going to win a Golden Globe.  But there isn’t a long-running show on television that hums along ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED SEASON FINALE REVIEW: “Beauty & the Beast”

  It helps, when watching CW’s BEAUTY & THE BEAST, not to think too much about “Beauty and the Beast”.  Not the 1987 TV show, and certainly not the movies and other adaptations of the story.  Jay Ry...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED SEASON FINALE REVIEW: “Grey’s Anatomy”

  As hard as it is to create a compelling, successful television series, it’s much harder to keep one going year after year, after cast changes and writer changes and timeslot changes and network management changes a...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED SERIES FINALE REVIEW: “The Office”

  Has any great television series ever had the protracted, agonizing death of THE OFFICE?  We’re used to shows that stay on the air past their prime, and to those with disappointing or even disastrous finale episode...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY MOVIE REVIEW: “Star Trek: Into Darkness”

  STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS:  Worth A Ticket – Another Satisfying Trip On the Enterprise J.J. Abrams and his Bad Robot cohorts, writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, did a bang-up job rejuvenating the Star Trek fra...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED 2013 UPFRONTS: CW Promo – “Star-Crossed”

  The final bit of Upfronts material released by CW is a brief clip from its midseason series STAR-CROSSED, about an alien and a human in love. A group of nervous, ostracized teens (presumably the aliens) are bused into a ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED 2013 UPFRONTS: CW Promo – “The 100”

  We have a short clip from CW’s midseason series THE 100, about a group of teens returning to a post-apocalyptic Earth. Our heroine, it seems, is Octavia, the rebellious standout in the (as usual for CW, very pretty...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED 2013 UPFRONTS: CW Promos – “Reign”

  CW has released a :30 promo and a little more than a minute of REIGN, the teen Mary, Queen of Scots soap that will have the showcase spot on its schedule next fall, Thursday 9PM after The Vampire Diaries.  Here’s ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED 2013 UPFRONTS: CW Promo – “The Tomorrow People”

  CW has released a mix of promos and short clips from its new series, which don’t do much more than provide the premises and a brief taste of the pilots.  Strong caution should be used in making any judgments from ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED PILOT REVIEW: “The Originals”

  Planted spin-off pilots are almost always awkward, and THE ORIGINALS, which aired as an episode of The Vampire Diaries, was no exception.  The timing of Originals was particularly odd in the Vampire universe, because it...
by Mitch Salem