Posts Tagged ‘serialized drama’
 

 

THE SKED Season Premiere Review: “Grey’s Anatomy”

  GREY’S ANATOMY:  Thursday 9PM on ABC In the miracle season of 2004-05, ABC launched three smash hits:  Desperate Housewives, Lost and GREY’S ANATOMY.  Ten seasons later, the only one still around is Grey&#...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED Pilot + 1 Review: “Power”

  POWER:  Saturday 9PM on Starz Previously… on POWER:  James “Ghost” St. Patrick (Omari Hardwick) is secretly one of New York’s most successful narcotics distributors, as well as the owner of the ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED Summer Finale Review: “Chasing Life”

  CHASING LIFE, which aired its not-quite-half season finale tonight, could better have been titled What Not To Do If You Get Cancer.  That, in itself, isn’t a criticism:  a story about a narcissistic idiot who get...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Finale Review: “Boardwalk Empire”

  BOARDWALK EMPIRE was, from its start, HBO at its best and most frustrating.  The show was sumptuously produced, on a scale that no other small-screen purveyor of content could match, famously including the recreation of...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED Season Premiere Review: “Downton Abbey”

  DOWNTON ABBEY:  Sunday 9PM on PBS In its fourth season as the most successful regular series in PBS history, DOWNTON ABBEY operates as smoothly as a well-staffed ancestral estate.  Even though the larger subject of the...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

NIELSENWAR 2014-15 Trailer Review: “Secrets and Lies”

  SECRETS AND LIES:  Midseason TBD on ABC THE FACTS:  Another ABC murder soap, this one starring Ryan Phillippe as a man who finds the body of a neighbor’s child in the woods, KaDee Strickland as his wife, and Juli...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED Season Finale Review: “Penny Dreadful”

  If nothing else, this first half of 2014 has been marked as The Year of Eva Green.  Green will probably never be a mainstream Hollywood star–there’s something too feral and broken about her for wide audience...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Finale Review: “Finding Carter”

  FINDING CARTER was the surprise of the summer TV season,.  Hailing from the wilds of MTV, a network rarely known for its dramatic chops, the series, created by Emily Silver and show-run by Terri Minsky, has told a compe...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Pilot + 1 Review: “The Royals”

  THE ROYALS:  Sunday 10PM on E! Previously… on THE ROYALS:  The (fictional) British monarchy is a mess.  The Prince of Wales has died in mysterious circumstances, and the next in line to the crown is now his brot...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED FALL FINALE REVIEW: “Revolution”

  One of the many ways in which broadcast networks have started to resemble their cable counterparts is in the structure of a series season.  For years, cable has aired its shows, especially serialized series, in clearly-...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED Season Premiere Review: “Game of Thrones”

  GAME OF THRONES:  Sunday 9PM on HBO GAME OF THRONES is such an assured, expert piece of work that it’s easy to forget how many rules of conventional TV storytelling it routinely violates.  It’s not just the...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

THE SKED Season Premiere Review: “Mistresses”

  MISTRESSES:  Monday 10PM on ABC Tonight’s season premiere of last summer’s guilty pleasure MISTRESSES referenced the old line about not fixing what ain’t broken, which was odd, because under showrunner...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED Season Finale Review: “The Night Shift”

  For scripted network shows, a summer season is like a dog year, far more weighty than the regular kind.  The mortality rate is so high that just getting a renewal is a considerable feat, and a show like Rookie Blue, ext...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Premiere Review: “Parenthood”

  PARENTHOOD:  Thursday 10PM on NBC It’s something of a miracle that PARENTHOOD, with its marginal-or-worse ratings, low concept and large, expensive cast, even survived to a 6th season on NBC.  Much of its luck ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Finale Review: “Grey’s Anatomy”

  GREY’S ANATOMY is no longer Shonda Rhimes’ brightest, shiniest toy, but in a way her skills as a producer are most evident in the way that her first hit hums along, now in its 2d decade on the air.  ThatR...
by Mitch Salem