> See A Word About Busted Pilots For those who like Six Degrees of Separation-ish linkages:  the protagonist of ABC’s busted pilot GRACE is Michael Grace, an aging, womanizing choreographer who bears some resemblance to Bob Fosse–or at least to Joe Gideon, the center of Fosse’s semiautographical All That Jazz.  The actor playing Grace is […]

> “Busted” pilots, for those who don’t know, are simply the ones not ordered by their commissioning networks to series.  We’re going to start taking a look at some of last year’s busted pilots here at THE SKED, so it’s worth saying a couple of things about them. First, not all busted pilots are terrible.  […]

  The final scene of ALMOST HUMAN‘s season typified what a behind-the-scenes mess the entire run had been.  The occasion was a sequence where human police detective circa 2048 John Kennex (Karl Urban) and his cyborg partner Dorian (Michael Ealy) expressed their appreciation for one another, Dorian because Kennex had spoken on his behalf at […]

> After a full season, it’s still not clear just what HOUSE OF LIES is. The season finale, written and directed by series creator Matthew Carnahan, centered on what became the show’s main storyline in the latter part of its run:  the attempted takeover of the management consulting firm that employs Marty Kaan (Don Cheadle) […]

  A lot can happen between the creation of a TV pilot in the spring and the production of episodes for the regular season: a writing/producing team is hired, audience focus groups weigh in, networks and studios (which may have had their own turnover) give plenty of notes, helpful and otherwise, and critics begin to […]

    The dirty little secret at the heart of 30 ROCK has always been that it doesn’t really have one–a heart, that is.  That doesn’t make the show any less brilliantly written or superbly performed, but it explains why despite all its massive acclaim and zillions of awards, in 6 years on the air […]

> A lot can happen between the creation of a TV pilot in the spring and production of episodes for the regular season:  a writing/producing team is hired, audience focus groups weigh in, networks and studios (which may have had their own turnover in the off-season) give plenty of notes, both helpful and otherwise, and […]

  MIXOLOGY:  Wednesday 9:30PM on ABC – Worth A Look MIXOLOGY is the most ambitious of ABC’s new comedies, although “ambitious” in this case means resembling one of those omnibus rom-com movies that simultaneously tell half a dozen stories, all turning out to be tangentially related to each other.  At its best, that subgenre is […]