Author Archive
 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Finale Review: “Covert Affairs”

  In a way, COVERT AFFAIRS typifies the uncertain place where USA Network finds itself these days.  The series began in 2010 as one of USA’s mostly light-hearted “blue-sky” procedurals.  It centered aro...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Finale Review: “Homeland”

  In a way, tonight’s off-key Season 4 finale of HOMELAND was the hour its seriously odd season deserved.  As bipolar as its main character, Season 4 began with misguided attempts to recapture something of the early...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Pilot + 1 Review: “Empire”

  EMPIRE:  Wednesday 9PM on FOX Previously… on EMPIRE:  As he prepares to launch his hip-hop entertainment conglomerate into an even higher financial sphere via an IPO, mogul Lucious Lyon (Terrence Howard) learns t...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

EARLY FRIDAY BOX OFFICE: “SpongeBob” Squeezes “Jupiter” & “Seventh Son” Dry

  A trio of movie fantasies opened on Friday, and only one survived.  In fact, THE SPONGEBOB MOVIE: SPONGE OUT OF WATER (Nickelodeon/Paramount) thrived, outperforming expectations according to preliminary numbers at Deadl...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Premiere Review: “American Crime”

  AMERICAN CRIME:  Thursday 10PM on ABC – Potential DVR Alert Recently, the broadcast networks have started kicking the tires of what we think of as “cable” oriented programming, by which we mean serial...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY “Season” Finale Review: “Hart of Dixie”

  The network is preserving its contractual rights, but the signs are rife that tonight’s HART OF DIXIE was the last we’ll see of the series.  After being banished to Fridays, it was held for midseason, then l...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Finale Review: “Mad Men”

  Matthew Weiner had always cultivated an air of mystery around MAD MEN (those impenetrable promos!), and the show itself has been its share of enigmatic at times, which made many wonder if tonight’s series finale wo...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED REPORT: PREMIERING TONIGHT – NBC’s “Awake”

>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 sho...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Pilot + 1 Review: “The Whispers”

  THE WHISPERS:  Monday 10PM on ABC Previously… on THE WHISPERS:  FBI psychologist Claire Bennigan (Lily Rabe) is put on the case of seemingly normal children who–responding to whispers from an imaginary R...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Premiere Review: “Beauty & The Beast”

  BEAUTY & THE BEAST:  Thursday 8PM on CW BEAUTY & THE BEAST has been demoted about as far as a CW series can go, from its original mid-week, regular season perch to Fridays, and now to summer (after being off the...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

EARLY FRIDAY BOX OFFICE: “Inside Out” Takes The Day, But “Jurassic” Lies In Wait

  INSIDE OUT (Pixar/Disney) is in line for the biggest non-sequel opening in the history of animation.  Preliminary numbers at Deadline have it winning Friday with $32.8M (that includes $3.7M from Thursday night), on its ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Pilot + 1 Review: “Dark Matter”

  DARK MATTER:  Friday 10PM on Syfy Previously… on DARK MATTER:  A half-dozen people (plus an android) wake up in deep space, and find their memories wiped out.  However, their bodies retain sense memories of seri...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Premiere Review: “Ballers”

  BALLERS:  Sunday 9PM on HBO – Change the Channel BALLERS is alarmingly ramshackle by HBO standards.  Of course, it’s got enough A-list lineage to justify it getting on the air several times over, with genui...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Premiere Review: “Under the Dome”

  UNDER THE DOME:  Thursday 10PM on CBS UNDER THE DOME has become increasingly dopey as it’s tried to justify its existence as a continuing drama after being launched as a limited series adaptation of Stephen King&#...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Premiere Review: “Falling Skies”

  FALLING SKIES:  Sunday 10PM on TNT FALLING SKIES had a premise that seemed like it should be able to run indefinitely:  a war against alien invaders fought mostly on the ground, as an allegory of the US Revolutionary W...
by Mitch Salem