Reviews

THE SKED SEASON FINALE REVIEW: “Californication”

Posted April 7, 2013 by Mitch Salem

  In its sixth season, Showtime’s CALIFORNICATION barely tried to achieve forward motion.  Every year, occasional novelist and full-time satyr Hank Moody (David Duchovny) toys with reform (which barely lasts an episode), and amidst his always-busy substance abuse and sexual exploits, he pines for his lost love and ex-wife Karen (Natascha McElhone), the (mostly) level-headed […]

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Reviews

THE SKED Season Finale Review: “The Vampire Diaries”

Posted May 16, 2014 by Mitch Salem

  The fifth season of THE VAMPIRE DIARIES was great fun as usual, although also a bit sloppier than the norm.  That could well be the result of series mastermind Julie Plec having to spread her time between Diaries, the new Originals, and whatever her duties were on The Tomorrow People, of which she was […]

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Reviews

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Finale Review: “Gotham”

Posted June 6, 2017 by Mitch Salem

  No mainstream comic book saga revels in its darkness quite as much as FOX’s GOTHAM.  Its sheer viciousness is particularly impressive since it exists in a universe of broadcast standards and practices that now seems positively antiquated.  Nevertheless, just about every character in the show’s Gotham City is or has been a violent psychopath, […]

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Reviews

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Finale Review: “True Detective”

Posted August 10, 2015 by Mitch Salem

  The idea of applying a deep coat of existential angst to thriller conventions isn’t new–every Sundance Film Festival has at least a couple of examples of the sub-genre, and there are even sub-sub-genres of the form, like Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice and Bleeding Edge, which add surreal humor to the mix.  With 8+ hours […]

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Reviews

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Finale Review: “Arrow”

Posted May 25, 2016 by Mitch Salem

  ARROW had a somewhat unsuper fourth season.  That was partly due to its villain:  Damien Darhk, however enthusiastically played by Neal McDonough, was an all-smirk-all-the-time Big Bad in dapper suits, a Bond-ish villain whose added dimension of magic was very sub-Darth Vader, with much flicking of the wrist to send foes flying into nearby […]

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Reviews

THE SKED Series Finale Review: “Wilfred”

Posted August 14, 2014 by Mitch Salem

  Considering what a deeply strange series WILFRED was–even for the wilds, eventually, of FXX–tonight’s series finale provided a surprising amount of closure.  The more-or-less comedy began as a raunchy riff on “man’s best friend” stories about guys and their dogs, based on an Australian format and starring Jason Gann, who’d co-created and starred in […]

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Reviews

THE SKED MIDSEASON FINALE REVIEW: “Arrow”

Posted December 13, 2012 by Mitch Salem

  ARROW, CW’s successful new superhero action series, has found its own best secret identity as a quasi-soap, a fact imperfectly illustrated by tonight’s midseason finale. The tactic of conveying a comic book saga through soapiness isn’t a crazy one–the Spider-Man franchise, in both its recent incarnations, has been as much romance as spectacle, and […]

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Reviews

THE SKED Season Finale Review: “Glee”

Posted May 14, 2014 by Mitch Salem

  To use an analogy that’s unfortunately apt, GLEE is heading out the door like a Broadway diva who won’t admit that her voice is shot and she can’t remember her lines anymore.  The show probably would have been canceled this season, after a run of ratings that have gone beyond disappointing to flat-out dreadful, […]

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