Do you have a video playback issues?
Please disable AdBlocker in your browser for our website.
Due to a high volume of active users and service overload, we had to decrease the quality of video streaming. Premium users remains with the highest video quality available. Sorry for the inconvinience it may cause. Donate to keep project running.
The first season of the crime thriller TV-series The Blacklist premiered on NBC. For decades, ex-government agent Raymond Red Reddington has been 1 of the FBIs most wanted fugitives. Brokering shadowy deals for criminals across the globe, Red was known by many as The Concierge of Crime. Last season, he mysteriously surrendered to the FBI... but now the FBI works for him as he identifies a 'blacklist' of politicians, mobsters, spies and international terrorists. The world’s most-wanted criminal mysteriously turns himself in and offers to give up everyone he has ever worked with. His only condition is he will only work with a newly-minted FBI agent with whom he seemingly has no connection.
Spader is amusingly smug and hammy, as he manipulates the FBI honchos, Keen, and the criminals who think he's on their team. Even so, there is nothing in the pilot that makes me eager to return.
Neither The Blacklist, nor its star, James Spader, are taking themselves too seriously, thankfully, which makes the show that much more of a pleasure to watch.
Portraying a brilliant criminal mastermind who opens the drama by turning himself in to the FBI, demanding the presence of a specific rookie agent, he (Spader) is effortlessly captivating.
The Blacklist is never going to be anyone's idea of great art, but at least it has a pulpy kind of momentum that may well be worth watching for a while; I will stick around to see whether Spader's performance really is the only dish on the menu.
Yes, it's a preposterous premise, and Boone as well as the character she plays are in over their heads, but if NBC is willing to spend money to make this formula work, it could have a hit on its hands.