Should The Blacklist be blacklisted?

One of the new and increasingly more popular television programmes from the States is The Blacklist. The plot at first glance may appear to be pretty straightforward with an elusive international criminal called Raymond “Red” Reddington (James Spader) giving himself up to the FBI after twenty years of evasion from the authorities. Red asks only that he be put under the charge of newly made agent, Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone), and in return for his freedom to commit further crimes he will give the names of a series of terrorists and other criminals that are not on FBI’s radar but are certainly on his. Is there more to this than first meets the eye?

There is a running question throughout the first few episodes as to the reason why Red wants to keep Liz Keen alive and why it was he chose her to be his liaison with the good old FBI. SPOILER ALERT: Red has told Keen that it is something to do with her father, but failed to go further into this when pressed for a better answer. My thoughts on the subject are, as they were from the beginning of the season, that Red is in fact her father – in a very Star-Wars-Empire-Darth-Vadar-Luke-Skywalker-no-longer-surprising twist of fate. I do hope this not to be the case as I think the show will lose credibility with its audience, myself in particular, because TV nowadays is crying out for new ideas, not re-used plot turns.

Regardless of this potential pothole, the programme itself is starting to build up momentum and is getting gradually more exciting. I say more exciting due to the fact that the trailer for the very first episode was over five minutes long and told me exactly what was going to take place in that episode so I had needn’t have bothered watching it. Nevertheless, the storylines are getting juicier and the action is becoming increasingly intense, which has made me evermore interested in continuing to watch the show. One thing that I am certainly curious to discover is what exactly Red’s agenda is and what it is that he is really planning. In my mind, I believe that he is working on some form of elaborate master plan to take out his enemies for some bigger endgame; however, with no new season scheduled as of yet, are we going to find out?!

The acting throughout is highly believable and James Spader once again captivates his audience with his excellent portrayal of a highly educated and sophisticated criminal mastermind. To a certain extent Spader’s depiction of Red outshines that of any other members of the cast, though this has been a running occurrence throughout Spader’s career, such as his character of Alan Shore in Boston Legal and Robert California in the US version of The Office. Nonetheless, the acting in this show is first-rate and I have not been left with niggling doubts as to the believability of the actors playing their parts. I can always judge a show by the extent to which I become engrossed in the characters rather than thinking of them as actors playing a character. The Blacklist is certainly not one of those shows whereby my attention is distracted by such thoughts and I am solely focused on trying to figure it all out.

On reflection whilst writing this, I realised how much I am involved with the storylines because otherwise I would not be asking so many questions. The Blacklist was certainly a slow starter, but with perseverance it is fast becoming one of the shows I tune in weekly to catch up on and should not be blacklisted to the vault of failed TV shows. If you are a fan of American TV shows, spy films, action movies and not forgetting one of my all-time favourite actors, James Spader, The Blacklist is definitely a programme you must tune into.