Author Archive
 

 

THE SKED SEASON PREMIERE REVIEW: “Game of Thrones”

  GAME OF THRONES:  Sunday 9PM on HBO That ineffable “It” that HBO referred to in the classic “It’s Not TV.  It’s HBO” ad campaign is now remarkably widespread, from FX to AMC, from Sh...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED SEASON FINALE REVIEW: “The Walking Dead”

  The biters and the Governor took their toll on the humans who remained in Season 3 of THE WALKING DEAD, but the show’s potentially most damaging casualty may have been at AMC’s own hand, when it decided to ge...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED SERIES PREMIERE REVIEW: “Mr. Selfridge”

  MR. SELFRIDGE:  Sunday 9PM on PBS To get the obvious over with quickly, MR. SELFRIDGE, PBS’s attempt to find a partner for its blockbuster hit Downton Abbey, isn’t in that show’s league.  Instead it&#...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

BEHIND THE WEEKEND BOXOFFICE – 3/31/13

  OPENINGS:  As usual with new arrivals, the eager studios behind GI JOE: RETALIATION (Paramount/MGM) have claimed a low Sunday decline (2d lowest in the Top 10), so the $41.2M weekend and $51.7M opening 4 days could slip...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

EARLY WEEKEND BOXOFFICE REPORT – 3/30/13

  Based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, Saturday was a step down from Good Friday’s boxoffice–and Easter Sunday is likely to be sharply worse.  GI JOE: RETALIATION (Paramount/MGM) fell from $15.5M to $15.2...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SHOWBUZZDAILY REVIEW: “G.I. Joe: Retaliation”

  G.I. JOE: RETALIATION:  Not Even For Free – Endlessly Dumb Exercise In Boom-Boom Action There’s a difference between making a movie for 11-year old boys and having a script that seems to have been written by...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED SERIES PREMIERE REVIEW: “Orphan Black”

  ORPHAN BLACK:  Saturday 9PM on BBCAmerica – Potential DVR Alert BBCAmerica’s second foray into original scripted drama, ORPHAN BLACK, while less inherently prestigious than Copper–lacking as it does th...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

BEHIND THE FRIDAY BOXOFFICE – 3/29/13

  For the studios, a Good Friday that generally lived up to its name. OPENINGS:  GI JOE: RETALIATION (Paramount/MGM) had a very solid second day, rising 48% for a $15.5M Friday.  That’s still only 2/3 of the $22.2M...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED’S FRIDAY NETWORK SCORECARD – 3/29/31

  The endings aren’t going to be happy. ABC:  No one showed up for the last-ditch Friday run of HAPPY ENDINGS, which only managed 0.9/0.7 in its 2 half-hours, probably sealing its fate.  (It’s a sign of where...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY THURSDAY BOXOFFICE: “G.I. Joe” Starts Shooting

  Thursday openings are hard to gauge, because there aren’t very many of them, and most of them are designed to extend long holiday weekends.  Here’s what we do know about the $10.5M opening day for GI JOE: RE...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED’S THURSDAY NETWORK SCORECARD – 3/28/13

American Idol has gone seriously out of tune. FOX:  How to describe the depths of last night’s 2.7 rating for AMERICAN IDOL?  It was the lowest rated regular episode of the series ever, including its first season, when ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED SEASON FINALE REVIEW: “Raising Hope”

  Greg Garcia has made a successful niche for himself on network television as poet of the lower-middle-class, small-town, gently surrealist sitcom, first with My Name Is Earl and now with RAISING HOPE.  The only problem ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED SEASON FINALE REVIEW: “The Neighbors”

  I’m not sure when THE NEIGHBORS started winning me over.  I dismissed the pilot as an overbroad, gimmicky, mostly witless rehash of 3d Rock From the Sun, but as quickly as an October episode where Zabvronian alien...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED SEASON FINALE REVIEW: “Whitney”

  Whatever one may say about WHITNEY and whether it’s a sitcom that deserves to reach a Season 3, it’s clear that NBC and its producers (including star Whitney Cummings herself) heard the complaints about the...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED’S WEDNESDAY NETWORK SCORECARD – 3/27/13

Even without The Voice as an excuse, most networks headed downward. FOX:  AMERICAN IDOL continued to plunge, down half a ratings point to 3.1, which happens to be just 0.1 ahead of X Factor’s average last fall. ABC:...
by Mitch Salem