Pretty sure its a wig.
I wouldn’t go quite that far, but Blacklist is clearly a tier 3 show.
I think this is the classic case of a show that was of pretty good quality and was popular and so got picked up for renewal late in the game. Because of the idiotic way network tv still does things, it had to rush to provide more episodes. A guy getting randomly hit by a passing bus as your intro? Really?
I’m disappointed, but not really surprised. I wish American TV would pay more attention to the BBC model.
-xtien
So … put Steve Coogan in everything?
If Armando Iannucci comes along with him, absolutely!
-xtien
“A-ha!”
I’m just catching up on the last couple of episodes and…what to my wondering eyes should appear? Jennifer Ehle! So much better.
-xtien
“I don’t know. It just felt so right in the moment.”
Wife and I just caught up on Blacklist last night. I was a little worried about the last few episodes because I’d seen some posts mention the writing going downhill quick, but I didn’t really see it. It may not be quite up to what some of the earlier episodes may have done, but not terrible. I continue to be pleasantly surprised at how they don’t seem to care about dragging out mysteries at all. Guess I’ll throw these in a spoiler tag.
Stuff
Other shows would have drawn out the whole thing with Tom, and is he what he says he is or isn’t he? But Blacklist plants that seed and settles it in the course of what, 8 or 9 episodes?
And I’m really thankful they’re generally quick to resolve stuff because I don’t know how much I can stand Liz and Tom starting at each other playing the “you don’t know that I know” game. That stuff is awkward.
Really agreed. As I’ve gotten older, my tolerance for TV shows that air 22 episodes in a season has gone way down. We don’t really watch BBC stuff here other than Sherlock and Downton Abbey, but there’s definitely an appeal to shorter seasons. Sherlock is a bit too short, but I’d be plenty happy to see seasons closer to 10 episodes.
My problem with the show is just the huge leaps they take in figuring out who the bad guy is.
“There is a pizza box with a black olive in it. The file on Jason Smith says he likes black olives on his pizza. Jason Smith is the kidnapper and he’s keeping the girl in an abandoned warehouse that he used to visit at a kid before he moved to Boston!”
Procedural shows tend to make “amazing” conclusions (Castle is famous for this too), but Blacklist takes it to another level that leaves me saying “Wow, seriously?”
The cast is what keeps me in the show. The writing is sub-par, in my opinion, but the actors take ownership of the script to make it enjoyable to watch.
Unfortunately, if deductive reasoning were presented in a realistic fashion, it would take them an entire season to get where they get to in one episode. They have basically 45 minutes to work with so like all procedurals they make fantastic leaps of logic. It definitely could be better but I cant give the writers too much grief considering the constraints they are under. Sadly, its the nature of the beast.
You guys think too much.
I’ve just started watching in the last week. James Spader. Tom Noonan. I don’t care if they’re doing kabuki Nutcracker Suite. I’m watching.
It’s a dumb action/adventure TV spy show, and it knows on some level that it’s a dumb action/adventure TV spy show. And knowing that, it executes that vision perfectly.
In fact, this show is better than dreck like Homeland. Homeland never figured out what it wanted to be. This show knew from the second episode. Instead of being realistic, it’s too busy being awesome.
2nd Season-
I’m still a couple of episodes behind (just finished Dr. Louis Creel), and I’m seeing a lot of what I’ll call “skip-to-the-end” intuitive leaps in the show which would usually require more groundwork. It’s like the writers have gotten lazy. I also don’t really care for Paul Reubens that much. He’s ok in his role, but it was done better last year. Essentially, it feels to me like the writing isn’t as good as last year, and the Monster-of-the-week pieces are getting pretty poor. Hopefully it picks up, or it’s going to die a slow death. It’s not quite on a Heroes trajectory, but it looks like a possible future…
Whatever episode involved the cult and super deadly virus outbreak. Might be the one after Dr. Kreel. Anyway, Blacklist started off really fun but a little dumb early on. After that last one, the show is so astronomically stupid at times that whatever fun might still be there is completely sucked out of the show. Just the dumbest “the writers room didn’t bother to think about anything they wrote down for 10 seconds to realize how dumb it was” kind of stuff. Spader used to make the Blacklist jump to the front of my DVR queue, but I’m not sure I care at all about the show anymore.
I’m right there with you. I watched the first three quarters of the virus cult episode but then had to go do something else and haven’t bothered watching the rest of it. You know something is wrong when Spader doesn’t even make it worthwhile anymore.
Spader does certainly save the end of that episode, but I agree that it was probably the worst I’ve seen to date.
I’m just getting a little bored with “this only works because the FBI is stupid” shows. This most recent episode, for example. A terrorist organization hires one of the most feared assassins to target someone. The FBI brings 40 agents, police and SWAT to the construction site where they believe the assassin is located. At the site they find evidence of who the assassin is targetting…so they only send 2 of the agents in an SUV, no police and no swat (all currently hanging out at the site). Surprise surprise, the 2 agents in the SUV are taken out by 2 people on a motorcycle.
The assassin’s big play also made no sense to me. The motorcyclist and his trusted companion cause the SUV to flip (apparently as planned) and the driver and passenger pass out (as planned) without major injury or dying (as planned). They are then taken to a staged fake hospital so that the assassin can listen in on a phone call of the agents calling headquarters to tell the head FBI guy who the assassin should be targetting. Brilliant! good lord…
Come on, NBC. You have an actor with one of the most amazing television presences ever at your disposal. You have a character that people love. Why can’t you find writers that have an ounce of talent to take advantage of what is, on paper, a slam dunk? Did you hire the writers for The Following or something?
Hmm not much love for this apparently, heck it took me forever to find the thread, with Splinter Cell Blacklist taking search priority.
Anyway overall Season 2 was great, also loved the finale. James Spader can never do wrong in my eyes.
Anyone else still willing to admit they are watching this? :p
Me, Half way through season 2 but finding the bit with the murder and tom sucking just a bit, much prefer the red story lines and she is the weak point of the show imo. Spader is Acer
It’s a guilty pleasure show for us. Still enjoying it. The bad is pretty bad, but Spader is so wonderful I’m able to put it aside and just enjoy his work. Also, whoever the style consultant is for Spader’s wardrobe in the show is fantastic. Gets lots of the little details right.
I’ve watched the finale, but I’m not sure if I’ll be back for another season. For me the show got notably worse after about the first third of the second season. I really like Spader; his performance/delivery has been the one thing that kept me–and many others–watching, but it’s wearing thin. And while a change of dynamics is never a wrong method to keep things fresh, Red being in charge of everything and never blinking first is more fun to watch than Red being in the defense and also vulnerable because as soon as someone threatens Liz he seems cornered. That’s one big Achilles’ heel.
Even after 40 episodes I still don’t care about Liz or her personal quest. It’s Red’s plot thread I’m curious about. Most of the dialogues and monologues not involving Red are cringeworthy, especially when it comes to Tom and Liz. And, apparently, every episode needs to have that part where some schmaltzy rock/pop song plays while we watch some of the characters brood and mope in slow-motion.
As for the season 2 finale:
whoopeedeedoo
Cooper not being lethally ill - did anyone not see that coming from a mile away? And Liz getting a flashback while shooting Connelly was a ridiculous plot device. She’d been firing her gun thousands of times before that. But hey, season finale!
I recently started to watch Agents of SHIELD, and of the two shows involving a woman (Liz/Skye) who just joined some agency (FBI, SHIELD), who is oh-so special for some reason, has to find out the horrible truth about her parents, had a thing with someone who turned out to be a rogue agent (Tom, Sturdly McAgent) who is sorta evil but also actually falls in love with said woman, and has to deal with issues she’s having with her father substitute (Red, Coulson) who is not always telling her the truth though… AoS has been a bit more entertaining and got better over time.
Anyone still watching? Its been a pretty good cloak and dagger kind of season with a lot at stake. Part of the payoff came this last episode where a whole lot of stuff that was in play all comes together with gusto. It was one of the best episodes of the show, especially the way it closed. Anyway I would watch this for Spader alone but the cast is really starting to work well together. Blacklist is a bit over the top but if you can roll with it its a pretty fun ride.