Reviews

THE SKED’S SEASON PREMIERE REVIEW: “Hart of Dixie”

Posted October 3, 2012 by Mitch Salem

  HART OF DIXIE:  Tuesday 8PM on CW WHERE WE WERE:  The bedroom of Dr. Zoe Hart (Rachel Bilson) in Bluebell, Alabama, where the New York transfer was finally getting some action after an entire season of dithering.  On what was supposed to be the wedding night of George Tucker (Scott Porter), for whom Zoe […]

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Midseason Premiere

THE SKED Season Premiere Review: “The Following”

Posted January 19, 2014 by Mitch Salem

  THE FOLLOWING:  Monday 9PM on FOX (starting Jan 27) The blood-drenched, increasingly grandiose literary pretensions of THE FOLLOWING grew tiresome by the end of last season’s run.  It seemed like very good news that in the season finale, Edgar Allen Poe scholar, brutal serial killer and unaccountably irresistible cult leader Joe Carroll (James Purefoy) […]

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Pilot + 1

THE SKED Pilot + 1 Review: “Rake”

Posted January 31, 2014 by Mitch Salem

  RAKE:  Thursday 9PM on FOX Previously… on RAKE:  Keegan Deane (Greg Kinnear) is an LA lawyer whose life is a wreck.  Between tax evasion issues and a gambling habit, he’s lost his house and has to live with his best friend Ben (John Ortiz) and Ben’s wife, ADA Scarlet (Necar Zadegan), he has no […]

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Articles

THE SKED FALL TRAILER REVIEW: NBC’s “Chicago Fire”

Posted May 14, 2012 by Mitch Salem

    CHICAGO FIRE:  WEDNESDAY 10PM on NBC WHAT IT’S SAYING:  Backdraft, not Rescue Me.  Big fires, sweeping, heroic music, a stalwart band of brothers (and the occasional sister) uniting despite their personal strife to save the people of Chicago. WHAT IT’S REALLY SAYING:  Even though it’s from Dick Wolf, not a pure Law & […]

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Reviews

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Premiere: “Girls”

Posted February 13, 2017 by Mitch Salem

  GIRLS:  Sunday 10PM on HBO As HBO’s GIRLS begins its 6th and final season, it somehow feels older than it actually is.  That’s the way it is with television now:  the revolutionary can become the familiar in a blink.  It had already felt, with the arrival of half-hours like Atlanta, Better Things and Insecure, […]

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Midseason Finale

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Finale Review: “The Magicians”

Posted April 12, 2016 by Mitch Salem

  Season 1 of THE MAGICIANS had plenty of flaws, but lack of ambition wasn’t one of them.  In a way unseen on Syfy since the days of Battlestar Galactica, The Magicians wanted to be about everything:  Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, Doctor Who, the very concept of the supernatural as escapist entertainment, the […]

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Reviews

THE SKED Series Finale Review: “True Blood”

Posted August 25, 2014 by Mitch Salem

  Before the final 2 weeks of its run, the word no one would ever have dreamed of attaching to TRUE BLOOD was “subdued”; it was the guilty pleasure HBO series that was loaded with sex and violence and got great ratings, but without the class of, say, Game of Thrones, and with no serious […]

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Reviews

THE SKED Season Finale Review: “Banshee”

Posted March 15, 2014 by Mitch Salem

  Was this the season that Cinemax’s comparatively low-rent BANSHEE surpassed Justified?  In the subgenre of cop show pulp, the FX series has been the unquestioned class entry, with its distinguished Elmore Leonard auspices and elegantly violent plotting and dialogue.  But with a few episodes to go this season, Justified has felt a bit desultory, […]

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