The Blacklist

Judging from the pilot, NBC’s new crime show The Blacklist has the potential to be a well-crafted thriller, but will contribute very little to the genre. I’ll start with the negatives first. I watched the pilot with my dad, and we could tell in the first five minutes what would happen in the last five minutes: the innocent child would be saved, the bad guy would die a dramatic death, and the criminal mastermind and gorgeous rookie would continue as tenuous team to episode two. We even predicted the twist that creator Jon Bokenkamp is probably saving for the later in the season: that cunning criminal mastermind Raymond “Red” Reddington (James Spader) is really the long-lost father of the beautiful and driven young FBI agent Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone). But we may not be 100 percent on target: the cliffhanger at the end of the pilot caught us both off-guard. 

What’s really striking, though, is the staging. And I am going to call it that even though this is TV because the way that episode director Joe Carnahan blocked it was very similar to how a stage director would set his characters to establish positions of dominance. Of particular note was the central position that Red occupied, such as kneeling on the seal in the center of the FBI foyer with the entire focus of the rest of the ensemble on him, or sitting in the board room centered once again by the FBI seal on the projector behind him as well as by the other characters in the scene. I also loved the staging of episode antagonist Ranko Zamani’s (Jamie Jackson) inevitable death.

Long story short, the writing and acting is compelling and entertaining, but doesn’t break in barriers or contribute anything new to the genre. Carnahan’s directing was intriguing in its use of theatrical techniques, but that seemed to be a one-off gig for him. What will define this show are entertaining formulas that have been tried and true since at least the early 90s with Silence of the Lambs. I think it’ll be a fun but forgettable show.