Midseason Premiere

SHOWBUZZDAILY Miniseries Premiere Review: “The X-Files”

Posted January 24, 2016 by Mitch Salem

  THE X-FILES:  Monday 8PM on FOX With its densely serialized mythology and mostly pre-internet rabidly enthusiastic fans, THE X-FILES was a key signpost on the road to today’s pop culture.  By the time it left the air in 2002, though, it was limping badly, with David Duchovny barely participating and ratings that were low, […]

Full Story »

Pilot Reports

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Premiere Review: “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert”

Posted September 8, 2015 by Mitch Salem

  The world of television may have undergone a revolution over the past decade, but it hasn’t hit the continent of late-night network talk shows, which have introduced variations from their 1950s-era formats, but little meaningful change.  There is, every time, the (middle-aged white) guy who does a topical monologue, the desk (or pre-taped) piece, […]

Full Story »

Pilot Reports

PREMIERING TONIGHT: THE SKED’S PILOT REPORT: “Family Tools”

Posted May 1, 2013 by Mitch Salem

  FAMILY TOOLS –  Wednesday 8:30PM on ABC – Change the Channel   J.K. Simmons is one of our national character actor treasures, but he tests the bounds of our willingness to follow him anywhere with FAMILY TOOLS, which is getting a last-minute run starting tonight. Tools is sitcom with a capital “sit.”  The rollicking […]

Full Story »

Pilot Reports

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Premiere Review: “Notorious”

Posted September 22, 2016 by Mitch Salem

  NOTORIOUS:  Thursday 9PM on ABC – Change the Channel Any viewer apt to complain about the over-the-top melodrama of Scandal should be forced to watch the pilot for Notorious, a supposed “drama” so consistently idiotic that it’s closer in tone to the self-mocking theatrics of Jane the Virgin.  As it happens, Notorious is filling […]

Full Story »

Pilot Reports

THE SKED PILOT REVIEW: ‘Hunted”

Posted October 20, 2012 by Mitch Salem

  HUNTED:  Friday 10PM on Cinemax – Potential DVR Alert On the same night that coincidentally brought the season premiere of Nikita, we have a new series that treads similar ground, both centering on gorgeous, betrayed spies, although the tones of the two shows are very different.  In HUNTED, set and produced in Britain but […]

Full Story »

Pilot Reports

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Premiere Review: “Doubt”

Posted February 15, 2017 by Mitch Salem

  DOUBT:  Wednesday 10PM on CBS – If Nothing Else Is On… As highly prized as the talents of Shonda Rhimes are, it takes the continuing line of her failed imitators to remind us just how difficult it is to duplicate her touch.  Conviction and Notorious are two tries that went splat earlier this season, […]

Full Story »

Pilot Reports

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Premiere Review: “Zoo”

Posted June 30, 2015 by Mitch Salem

  ZOO:  Tuesday 9PM on CBS – Change the Channel Of all the broadcast networks, CBS is the biggest fan of branding.  It has its procedural hours during the regular season, its working-class half-hours (which are either multi-camera or feel like they could be), and more recently, its summer sci-fi thrillers.  Under the Dome begat […]

Full Story »

Pilot Reports

THE SKED SERIES PREMIERE REVIEW: “King & Maxwell”

Posted June 11, 2013 by Mitch Salem

  KING & MAXWELL:  Monday 10PM on TNT – Change the Channel Jon Tenney and Rebecca Romijn are an attractive, appealing pair of series leads, but they’re not enough to make the markedly sub-par new procedural KING & MAXWELL worth watching.  Even by TNT’s usually unadventurous summer standards, this is a show that never should […]

Full Story »