3 out of 5

Created by: Jon Bokenkamp

covers season 1

The Blacklist is an amazing show.  Inventive, truly creepy killers, exciting twists, great characters that cover a wide spectrum of tough, touching, funny, cold and etc. so that you’re treated to a much richer emotional palette than you usually get in a thriller.  Megan Boone takes a couple episodes to prove herself as a tough-as-nails profiler (who apparently becomes a master of hand-to-hand combat at some point…), but once the show decides to sidestep the initial pitch of her being a beginner, we’re fully invested in her ride, partnered with James Spader’s Red Reddington, a notorious fugitive who’s agreed to work with Boone’s Agent Elizabeth Keen to track down a list of equally notorious fugitives dubbed ‘The Blacklist.’  So why only three stars?  Despite being incredibly entertaining, and definitely eliciting several ‘how will they get out of THIS pickle?’ responses, I couldn’t get past a certain disconnect with the show during the entire season.  It hides it behind its momentum, but the focus is certainly a little confused: does it want to be an episodic procedural?  A cliffhanger-ridden twisty-turner?  Are we getting to know the team, or are they cannon fodder to support Red’s winky games?  And ‘Blacklist’ tries to have all of these things happen.  Because it often opts for less words vs. over-explanations, it never notably distracts, but while I could definitely get down with the gist of most episodes, when I realized I didn’t really remember any character names beyond our two leads, it was a hint that that sense of linearity while maintaining a mixture of styles – something that Person of Interest has excelled at – was lacking.  The show just seems to randomly decide it wants to be something else, and then that’s what you’re watching for an hour, starring characters you recognize from last week.  Spader is Spader throughout, head always cocked and the same intonation, which I found a little grating, but overall he was a good choice for a character who needs to effect a weird blend of whimsy and threatening.  Production values and editing are top notch – the show doesn’t go in for a big effect unless it can afford it, and the fight scenes and firefights are always followable and feel appropriately sudden and brutal.  As season 1 wrapped up and “everything was connected,” it again gives that strange feeling of exciting and uneven, but I was thoroughly entertained, and thus the sleight of hand that kept me from caring all that much about these flaws while any given episode was on must be praised.  We’ll see how long they can maintain the teeter-totter act.