Pilot Reports

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Premiere Review: “Scream Queens”

Posted September 21, 2016 by Mitch Salem

  SCREAM QUEENS:  Tuesday 9PM on FOX There didn’t seem to be a pressing need for a second season of SCREAM QUEENS.  The ratings for Season 1 were meager, even in the young female demo the show was courting, and the reviews were worse.  But FOX as a whole had bigger flops to cancel, plus […]

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Articles

THE SKED’S PILOT + 1 REVIEW: “Grimm”

Posted November 5, 2011 by Mitch Salem

> 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 […]

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Reviews

THE SKED SEASON FINALE REVIEW: “Vikings”

Posted April 29, 2013 by Mitch Salem

  History Channel has been on quite a streak in its last two seasons.  Its first foray into scripted television, the miniseries Hatfields & McCoys, was a surprise smash hit, as was this year’s follow-up The Bible.  This season the network stepped into the continuing series world with VIKINGS, and while not at the same […]

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Pilot + 1

THE SKED Pilot + 1 Review: “Surviving Jack”

Posted April 4, 2014 by Mitch Salem

  SURVIVING JACK:  Thursday 9:30PM on FOX Previously… on SURVIVING JACK:  In the 1990s, Frankie Dunleavy (Connor Buckley) chafes under but also learns valuable life lessons from his disciplinarian father Jack (Christopher Meloni), who’s taking a larger role raising Frankie and his sister Rachel (Claudie Lee) while their mother Joanne (Rachael Harris) is resuming her […]

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Midseason Premiere

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Premiere Review: “Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments”

Posted January 13, 2016 by Mitch Salem

  SHADOWHUNTERS: THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS:  Tuesday 9PM on Freeform – If Nothing Else Is On… Fans of mediocre YA fantasy adventure may remember SHADOWHUNTERS: THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS from its last incarnation, as a 2013 feature film based on Cassandra Claire’s novels.  That was supposed to kick off a franchise, but the movie flopped, and the […]

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Other

SHOWBUZZDAILY Miniseries Premiere Review: “Ascension”

Posted December 16, 2014 by Mitch Salem

  ASCENSION:  Mon-Wed 9PM on Syfy In the post-Battlestar Galactica era, Syfy has barely even seemed to be trying.  It’s rather sad:  at a point when nearly every network–even CBS!–has at least one substantial piece of inventory in the science-fiction/fantasy genre, Syfy has been filling its air with tame programmers like Eureka and Haven, or […]

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Pilot Reports

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Premiere Review: “Ten Days In the Valley”

Posted October 2, 2017 by Mitch Salem

  TEN DAYS IN THE VALLEY:  Sunday 10PM on ABC – Potential DVR Alert TEN DAYS IN THE VALLEY is very ABC, in a good way.  Created by Tassie Cameron, who co-created the network’s longtime summer hit Rookie Blue, it’s a purportedly closed-end mystery soap, about a successful TV-producer mother whose 8-year old daughter goes […]

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Reviews

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Finale Review: “Finding Carter”

Posted December 16, 2015 by Mitch Salem

  In its second season, MTV’s FINDING CARTER made a disappointingly dim argument for sustaining itself beyond its initial premise.  The series remains well-acted, and it has its emotionally pursuasive moments, but its season was swallowed up by plot contrivances and melodrama. Melodrama has always been part of Finding Carter‘s DNA.  It began with the […]

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