Pilot Reports

THE SKED Planted Pilot Review: “CSI: Cyber Crime”

Posted May 1, 2014 by Mitch Salem

  A planted pilot is just what it sounds like:  an episode of an existing TV show temporarily invaded by the elements of a prospective newcomer for an semi-official on-air tryout.  Networks and studios like them because they’re cost-effective, since most of the expenses can rolled into the episodic budget of the series being utilized, […]

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Pilot Reports

THE SKED Series Premiere Review: “Working the Engels”

Posted July 11, 2014 by Mitch Salem

  WORKING THE ENGELS:  Thursday 9:30PM on NBC – Change the Channel As summer sitcoms go, WORKING THE ENGELS makes Undateable look like the return of Seinfeld. It’s an inert pile of unfunny cliches, dysfunctional family division. The contrivance (calling it a “premise” would give it too much dignity) is that Papa Engel, a lawyer, […]

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Pilot Reports

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Premiere Review: “Star”

Posted December 15, 2016 by Mitch Salem

  STAR:  Wednesday 9PM on FOX (returning January 4) – In the Queue The writer/producer/director Lee Daniels makes his home in wild melodrama, and he’s had success at two extremes:  with the almost hallucinatory grittiness of Precious, and the ultra-glitz of Empire.  His new FOX series STAR is an attempt to meld both, and not […]

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Articles

THE SKED PREMIERE REVIEW: “The Firm”

Posted January 9, 2012 by Mitch Salem

> THE FIRM:  Thursdays 10PM on NBC – Change the Channel THE FIRM isn’t NBC’s #1 priority for midseason–that would clearly be Smash.  (In other news, there’s no truth to the rumor that NBC has decided to change its corporate name to “Smash–The Monday After the Super Bowl”.)  But The Firm is the inheritor of […]

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Midseason Premiere

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Premiere Review: “CSI: Cyber”

Posted March 4, 2015 by Mitch Salem

  CSI:  CYBER – Wednesday 10PM on CBS – If Nothing Else Is On… Nobody tunes into a CSI show to be surprised.  The franchise has been spectacularly successful for CBS, and even now, 15 years into its run, the mothership series does a fair number each week (better than Battle Creek, which replaced it […]

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Fall Pilots

THE SKED Fall Pilot Report: FOX’s “Sleepy Hollow”

Posted September 17, 2013 by Mitch Salem

  Read All Our Fall Pilot Reports here. SLEEPY HOLLOW:  Monday 9PM on FOX – If Nothing Else Is On… For what’s supposed to be an original series, SLEEPY HOLLOW feels awfully familiar.  Part of it, of course, is that writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci are doing a spin on the Washington Irving classic […]

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Pilot Reports

PREMIERING TONIGHT: “How To Live With Your Parents (For the Rest of Your Life)” PILOT REVIEW

Posted April 3, 2013 by Mitch Salem

    HOW TO LIVE WITH YOUR PARENTS (FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE):  Wednesday 9:30PM on ABC –  Change the Channel There isn’t much to be said for the exhaustively titled midseason comedy HOW TO LIVE WITH YOUR PARENTS (FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE), but within the subgenre of sitcoms about adults living […]

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Fall Pilots

PREMIERING TONIGHT: THE SKED Pilot Review – ABC’s “The Goldbergs”

Posted September 24, 2013 by Mitch Salem

  Read All Our Fall Pilot Reports here. THE GOLDBERGS:  Tuesday 9PM on ABC – Change the Channel THE GOLDBERGS is startlingly bad.  ABC’s most highly-touted new sitcom of the fall is inspired by series creator Adam F. Goldberg’s memories of growing up in the 1980s, and fragments of his own home videotapes at the […]

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