Pilot Reports

THE SKED SERIES PREMIERE REVIEW: “Hit & Miss”

Posted July 12, 2012 by Mitch Salem

  HIT & MISS:  WEDNESDAY 10pm on DirecTV Audience Network – Worth A Look   HIT & MISS is considerably less sensationalistic than its premise and first five minutes might lead you to expect.  By the end of the first episode’s opening credits, we’ve watched Mia (Chloe Sevigny) calmly shoot a man for money, then […]

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Pilot Reports

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Premiere Review: “The Rookie”

Posted October 17, 2018 by Mitch Salem

  THE ROOKIE:  Tuesday 10PM on ABC THE ROOKIE is mostly a standard-issue police procedural, not surprisingly most reminiscent of ABC’s long-running summer series Rookie Blue, but with one big difference:  it’s unmistakably a star vehicle for Nathan Fillion.  He’s one of those actors who seems to have spent his entire adult life starring in […]

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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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Midseason Pilots

THE SKED Pilot Review: “Growing Up Fisher”

Posted February 24, 2014 by Mitch Salem

  GROWING UP FISHER:  Tuesday 9:30PM on NBC – If Nothing Else Is On… We reviewed GROWING UP FISHER last summer based on the pilot that was originally shot, but after the series was ordered, one of the lead performers, Parker Posey, was replaced by Jenna Elfman, which required some reshooting.  But not, as it […]

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Midseason Premiere

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Premiere Review: “Proven Innocent”

Posted February 16, 2019 by Mitch Salem

  PROVEN INNOCENT:  Friday 9PM on FOX PROVEN INNOCENT is even worse than you might expect from a broadcast drama that premieres on a Friday in February.  The creator is David Elliot, whose previous scripts have mostly been action movies (GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra, the Mark Wahlberg vehicle Four Brothers), and the writing […]

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Pilot Reports

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Premiere Review: “The Chi”

Posted January 6, 2018 by Mitch Salem

  THE CHI:  Sunday 10PM on Showtime – More Mean Streets Showtime’s THE CHI is geographically close enough to the Chicago of its veteran hit Shameless that its characters could bump into Gallaghers at any given moment, but series creator Lena Waithe is influenced more by the work of David Simon, and not so much […]

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Pilot Reports

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Premiere Review: “9-1-1”

Posted January 4, 2018 by Mitch Salem

  9-1-1:  Wednesday 9PM on FOX – Surprisingly Unsurprising Saying that FOX’s 9-1-1 is the Ryan Murphy team’s version of a Dick Wolf procedural makes it sound far more subversive and original than it actually is.  In fact, for the most part its opening hour is virtually indistinguishable from one of the cogs in Wolf’s wheel […]

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Pilot Reports

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Premiere Review: “Conviction”

Posted October 4, 2016 by Mitch Salem

  CONVICTION:  Monday 10PM on ABC – Change the Channel It’s routine to refer to a procedural TV series as featuring a “case of the week,” but ABC’s CONVICTION takes it literally.  When former First Daughter and party girl Hayes Morrison (Hayley Atwell) is arrested for cocaine possession and blackmailed by NY’s politically ambitious DA […]

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