- Written by Jon Bokenkamp
- Directed by Joe Carnahan
Catch ‘The Blacklist’ on NBC 10/9c and catchup at NBC.com
BEWARE OF SPOILERS!
My second pilot for the 2013/14 season was always going to be ‘The Blacklist’. I hadn’t heard of the show until I was in San Diego during the summer and saw it advertised on the side of every other bus.
The premise of ‘The Blacklist’ revolves around Raymond ‘Red’ Reddington (Spader) who, at the beginning of this episode, is high on the FBI’s ‘most wanted’ list. Reddington turns himself in to FBI headquarters in Washington, DC drip feeds the agents information regarding another wanted felon presumed dead. Reddington tells the listening agents that he shares their agenda to catch the worlds most dangerous criminals but he will co-operate only by speaking to rookie FBI profiler Elizabeth Keen (Boone).
This episode is generic pilot-fare. Much of the episode is spent setting up the characters, their world and the mythology of the series. That’s not to say it’s a bad pilot, it just didn’t grab me in quite the way I expected.
Spader makes an interesting, charismatic lead in Reddington. His character has the most interesting story to tell and hopefully his backstory, particularly during his missing years and the creation of the list, will be spun out across the series. There are some great character quirks written in to Reddington but as yet there’s nothing to set him apart from other FBI/Crime procedural characters of this ilk.
Boone makes the most of her character throughout the pilot but Special Agent Keen is the weaker of the two leads. The mystery surrounding her husband will hopefully help propel her character from derivative to intriguing but for now she remains and insightful but somewhat two dimensional.
There’s a good cast of secondary characters fronted by Harry Lennix who comes across much like his character in ‘Dollhouse’ which I have to say gave me a little geek happy moment. What the pilot does do well is create an FBI team who feel like they’ve been working together for some time – apart from Boone, only on her first day – and who are all equally believable in their roles.
There’s a sense of immediacy to the story in the pilot which can be lacking in other shows of this nature. This is clearly not a run of the mill crime procedural but what the show needs to do over the next few episodes is decide how far from the procedural format they are willing to stray in order to follow the path their mythology is crying out for. A good conspiracy show needs to stray from being predictable which thankfully this pilot is not.
The characters are well written; the plot is well thought out and executed, there’s some interesting sets and with no reliance on special effects the budget for the show is well spent in making sure it appears to be a slick, well made production.
I’ll be back for episode two and I recommend you give this show a chance. This may feel like a slightly generic pilot but it also feels like a show that when given time to develop properly will catch on with audiences.
6/10
