The Blacklist
The Blacklist
The Blacklist#1
Posted: 9/23/13 at 10:57pmWell I for one like it and will be coming back for more next week. Anyone else?
The Blacklist#2
Posted: 9/23/13 at 11:10pm
That was really good! I loved the Silence of the Lambs influence. Excellent writing, fast paced, a real thriller!
I'll definitely watch next week.
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/18/04
The Blacklist#2
Posted: 9/23/13 at 11:11pm
I have my 'season pass' set for it.
Love James Spader.
The Blacklist#3
Posted: 9/23/13 at 11:23pmExactly Jane, I loved the fast pace off it all and really excited to see Reddington's and Elizabeth's relationship play out.
The Blacklist#4
Posted: 9/23/13 at 11:45pmI'm watching it now and enjoying, I guess. But it's not really a SILENCE OF THE LAMBS "influence". It's a blatant rip off.
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/19/08
The Blacklist#5
Posted: 9/23/13 at 11:48pmI loved it!!!!! There were many gasp/cover my eyes moments! Love James Spader.
The Blacklist#6
Posted: 9/24/13 at 10:55amEven though the over-arcing plot is nothing new, it's at least executed well enough for me to be curious how they play it out. And the machinations within the case-of-the-week surprised me as they happened, though they are pretty illogical in the light of day. There's a lot of slight of hand that a better show would explore, but I'm happy if it lets James Spader devour every fabric in every five-star hotel room his character gets stay in around the world.
The Blacklist#7
Posted: 9/24/13 at 1:16pm
I liked it well enough- definitely more than hostages.
I really, really wanted Spader to say, "Well, hello Clarice" when they first met. At least it would have been a wink towards the material they obviously owe a debt to.
It was very over the top, but nothing attempted to be realistic so I wasn't sitting there saying, "This would never happen- that's totally implausible!"
I liked the lead actress, but she didn't fit the character as written. When the director asked her to profile herself (let's give the audience some exposition!) she said that others perceive her as a bitch, she's narcissistic and full of herself. The thing is she wasn't any of those things. She was playful with her husband, caring and relatable to the girl and wasn't disrespectful or hotheaded towards her superiors.
I couldn't help but think of Diane Kruger's character on The Bridge and wondered what this show would be like if that character was the female lead. Imagine how different that scene in the car trading the pin and the bracelet would have been!
Spader was very good and his performance alone will keep me watching. He has a larger than life presence that is perfect for the world the writers have created.
Also, did anyone see the similarities with the Alias pilot in that female lead begins a new career in intelligence to come home and find her loved one attacked. (When Elizabeth found that box under the floor I thought of Emily Van Camp's revenge box too!)
The Blacklist#8
Posted: 9/24/13 at 1:26pmI was hoping one of the FBI people would throw semen on her when she was walking in to see him.
The Blacklist#9
Posted: 9/24/13 at 1:51pm
Ha! It would have fit right in with that scene. Her dramatic walk down those stairs and then the way his cage retracted had me giggling. Then she sits down in the most perfect golden lighting even found in an old warehouse!
Blacklist was like the fun version of what Hannibal turned out to be last spring.
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/29/05
The Blacklist#10
Posted: 9/24/13 at 2:16pm
Derivative of so many things they should have called it "I Know What You Watched Last Summer" And gone for broke and made it funny.
Updated On: 9/24/13 at 02:16 PM
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/13/04
The Blacklist#11
Posted: 9/24/13 at 5:02pm
Just watched the pilot and immediately set my DVR to record the rest of the series. I liked it quite a bit. It's everything HOSTAGES isn't; over-the-top fun, surprising, involving, and fast-paced. The actors are excellent, though I agree with Whizzer that the lead girl (great as she is) is miscast. I don't buy her as a hardass b*tch for one second. But we'll see how her character and performance unfold for the rest of the season. Miscast though she is, she and Spader are truly fantastic and have great chemistry.
It's hardly original (Jordan hit the nail on the head in calling it a blatant SILENCE OF THE LAMBS rip-off) but it made for a fast hour of TV, it had a bunch of interesting twists, and it doesn't take itself too seriously. I look forward to seeing where the show goes and I'm glad it got such strong ratings.
Updated On: 9/24/13 at 05:02 PM
The Blacklist#12
Posted: 9/24/13 at 5:12pm
We watched it last night and loved it. James Spader can do no wrong, so we were kind of biased towards it from the beginning.
Anyone think he's her father? If not, he certainly knew the man.
The Blacklist#13
Posted: 9/24/13 at 5:19pm
Spader must have some link to Elizabeth's past and the fire that gave her that scar.
I assume Spader's wife and daughter are still alive and will make appearances on the show. They could have fun with the casting of the wife.
The Blacklist#14
Posted: 9/24/13 at 5:45pm
SPOILERS
Stupid question time, oy-
I heard Spader say something to the woman that there were things she didn't know about her husband. Now, when she found that trap door on the floor, 1. Did she know it was there? and 2. Were those multiple passports of her husband or her father?
I figured it was her husband who was a spy because that's why they wanted to kill him.
I agree she was miscast. Thought that the second I saw her.
The Blacklist#15
Posted: 9/24/13 at 5:50pm
Jane, My understanding was the trap door and the box were surprises. The passports had pictures of her husband. (As of now we don't know much about Elizabeth's childhood. We do know it wasn't a good one, and Spader implied that she was only adopting a child to make right the mistakes that she experienced.)
Spader seems to know the truth about her husband's secret life and will hold it over her to ensure that she keeps working with him.
The Blacklist#16
Posted: 9/24/13 at 6:38pm
Thanks Whizzer, that's what I thought.
One thing about Spader-he seems to be on everyone's side. That must be even harder for him to keep track of then it is for me!
Broadway Star Joined: 1/31/06
The Blacklist#17
Posted: 9/25/13 at 10:40amI watched this show on demand last night as result of this thread, and I'm really glad I did. Although I'm a big James Spader fan (generally think he can do no wrong... but I do miss his sexiness here), the commercials for the show just didn't grab me at all, and the lead (either the actress or the character - or both - I'm not sure) seemed so vacant and bland, so I watched Hostages instead. So far, I definitely liked this more than Hostages, even though it was equally silly and derivative. I'm interested to see where this goes.
The Blacklist#18
Posted: 9/30/13 at 6:24pm
"and the lead (either the actress or the character - or both - I'm not sure) seemed so vacant and bland, so..."
Meh. I watched it on demand as well. Never once did I feel that the lead or the child was really in danger. Perhaps the mistake I made was watching it after viewing the 'Homeland' season 3 opener. It's not a bad tv series so far, but 'Blacklist' has a sterile staged network tv-like fakeness to it. I'm drawn to grittier cable tv fare these days.
The Blacklist#19
Posted: 10/1/13 at 9:36amSecond episode did not disappoint!
The Blacklist#20
Posted: 10/1/13 at 10:12am
I thought there was a dip in quality with the second episode. I don't the plotting had the cohesiveness that the pilot had.
Spader was still fun and the reason to keep watching. They need to feed us some more backstory, perhaps linking the case of the week with Elizabeth's history.
I'm glad Parminder Nagra joined the cast- now let's hope they give her more to do.
Broadway Star Joined: 6/17/04
The Blacklist#21
Posted: 10/1/13 at 3:00pmWish they had kept Isabella Rossellini's character alive. She would have made a great villain.
The Blacklist#22
Posted: 10/1/13 at 9:32pmDefinitely a dip in quality to me; I quite liked the AV Club's summary of it. "James Spader matches wits with Isabella Rossellini. Meanwhile, the other people on this show are lucky if they even match with the wallpaper."
The Blacklist#23
Posted: 10/2/13 at 5:00pm
I'm going to try to stick it out for a season. After watching the 2nd episode I kept thinking of how much more mileage they could have gotten out of a season-long Spader-Rosselini match-up. The lead still doesn't intrigue me enough to even find out her name. She's a bit bland and seems over-matched in the scenes with Spader, except the dinner scene in Montreal. In that particular scene, there was trace of sexual chemistry between Spader's character and hers that made her seem realistic.
I still don't see the "bitch" in the lead character that was laid out in exposition previously. And some of the other characters read cookie-cutter which is a problem with shows of this genre. I'm hoping the show breaks out of its Hannibal-and-Nikita-lovechild rut soon.
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/19/08
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