Anyone following this show?

The plot summary as given in IMDB.

I was really looking forward to this show because of James Spader. He's one of my favorite actors and I missed his wit since Boston Legal ended. His character in this show strongly reminds me of Alan Shore, with a meaner streak.

I watched the first two episodes and it was pretty interesting. Looking forward to see where they take this.

 

You have my attention, acquiring now.

 

I thought it was massively disappointing. The characters all feel flat, bland and unoriginal. It's also annoyingly over the top, to the point where suspension of disbelief has to be taken to a whole new level.

Normally I don't mind when shows go over the top, but this just goes too far, and takes away from my enjoyment of the show. I don't think i'll continue with it unless I read about it getting markedly better.

 

I like it. It doesn't take itself too seriously.

 

I'm watching it. Yeah, the main actress looks bored all the time and the FBI are incompetent, but I'm enjoying it so far. At the very least, each episode is better than the last.

 

It's bad television for the wife and I to enjoy together. It doesn't even pretend that anything in it is even remotely plausible, and everything is completely over the top.

Basically, it's an anime genre show with actors instead of illustration.

 

I watched the first three shows with my wife. After the first one, I thought that it was going to be an entertaining hour each week. After the second one I wasn't so sure. After this last one, I'm pretty much through with it, except that my wife wants to keep watching it, so I will.

Maybe it's just me, but I really don't like watching shows where the main character has absolutely no place in life where there isn't drama. Some angst/drama is okay, Angst and drama over 9000 isn't.

 

I feel that the villains in this are "too smart" and they're trying to make all the federal agencies look like morons while theyre geniuses in comparison, it works, but it kinda makes me need to suspend my disbelief.

If the show is predictable, he's going to be her father.

 

Plot twist, he's her mother.

 

Bumping a bit.

So just watched the latest episode... Its okay.

Honestly I'm not sure where they are taking this series, they have hinted at a lot, but I hope they have it planned, and not just make up shit as it goes like they did with LOST.

James Spader is great, but the female lead... isnt bad, just very vanilla.

 

I love this show simply on the merits of James Spader. That guy is coolest mother fucker in the world.

I also how they give all the villains over the top quasi-badass codenames. The Judge. The Stewmaker. The Alchemist...etc.

They definitely do hint at alot of things and reveal information very slowly.

Some of the plot twists are so obvious that they are unpredictable just by being so predictable.

 

I'm watching it, and I really like it, if mostly for James Spader's badass character. The female lead (I just caught up the last episode and can't even recall her name) is very bland and uninteresting,

Spoiler

but her 'husband' switches face in a way that's very chilling, from bespectacled school teacher to cold, eerie undercover spy. I'm very interested in what's going on with him and the rest of the upcoming war Red warned about.

 

I'm ditching this show. It had so much potential, I loved the premise, but the characters aside from Spader are boring. The lead actress especially, she doesn't have any emotions aside from sad-looking and vaguely confused.

Spoiler

I don't feel anything for the husband. His reveal would be chilling if his loyalties weren't obvious from the very first episode.

The show also drops the ball on fine details. On the most recent episode, the boss guy tortured a confession out of a man, under orders, and at the end of the episode, when the boss guy asks the female lead whether she'll go tell on him, she says, "Nah, no harm done." The man's guilt is irrelevant, the boss guy has broken the law and she's a federal agent. I wouldn't mind so much because it could show how the female lead is getting comfortable with smudging the law because she's being influenced by Spader, but it's treated by the show as the right thing to do. Plus, the boss's friend who ordered the boss guy to torture the man. Giving that order suggests that the boss's friend has done and will torture someone again to get a confession. A confession that may or may not be false. That guy, at least, should be fired.

Also, when Spader left the American government, he "ruined a lot of careers," so he told the boss guy to help this old friend of his that helped with the day's case, only this friend is an Admiral. What a ruined career that guy has.

I guess I had way too many hopes for this show and wanted it to be smarter than it is. If the female lead was good enough, she could have helped Spader drag this show past those faults, but she's just as bad, so I don't see the point of watching this anymore.

 

I agree with a lot of what you said.

But on the point of the "friend" who's career was ruined. Being an Admiral does not mean he is where he wanted to be, he could very well just be a desk jockey where he wanted to be in the chief staff or a fleet admiral. Being the guy in charge of recruits, would be a big let down for someone who was on the fast track.

 

Yeah this show isn´t as good as I hoped. While Reddington is a great and interesting character and even Liz is quite tolerable the plot often fails at being even remotely believable or feels like it is trying to hard to be mysterious. I feel like many of the current threats are a bit over the top/too dangerous. For example the spy/atomic bomb thing was completely unnecessary.
Still Red is currently enough to hold my interest and I have slight hopes that the current developments will lead to Liz becoming a bit more interesting.

PS: I sometimes really wonder why the authors of such showsdon´t spend more time at making the tradecraft of the whole police/secret agent thing more believable. Small stuff like a wig and such things when infiltrating an foreign embassy etc. would make it easier for me to believe in it.

 

Agreed that there are problems, and Spader pretty much carries it all on his own.

The CGI this show uses is shit, but at least it hasn't been used much lately... honestly, when he burned that house down in episode 6 or whatever, I had flashbacks to the old X-Wing CD-Rom.

The fundamental flaw I see is that the heroes are fucking dull. None of them have anything going on - the male partner is hooking back up with his ex, and Parminder Nagra has a daughter. That is precisely all I know about them. The computer expert at least has a personality, but all we really have confirmed is that he's good with money and bad with guns. And the boss was in the Matrix sequels.

The villains, on the other hand, are where all the interesting ideas went. A guy who makes people disappear by fucking dissolving the bodies? A man incapable of feeling pain? A chick who can and does steal anything, anywhere? Movies have been made around characters like these. Decent movies. And they all get flushed off in single episodes.

And the guest stars! Alan Alda, Isabella Rossellini, William Sadler, Wilson from House, Andrew Dice Fucking Clay?

But Lizzie is the main problem. I don't think she's a bad actress, exactly, but I think she plays everything the same way: Completely uncertain. If she appeared to have a backbone on occasion, I'd like her more.

The other problem is that the family life they've given her is very poorly written. If she and hubby could sit down and have an actual fucking conversation, most of the angst-tardation would blow over. Although, with the latest reveal about him, maybe they'll say he was forcing to be this way... who the fuck knows at this point?

I'm going to keep watching specifically because watching James Spader own everyone is a pleasure, and the wife enjoys it, and I like doing things with her (another lesson our heroine could take home with her!)

 

Pretty much. James Spader is the only thing carrying this show at this point. Lizzie's lines and scenes are just painful to watch at this point. Lately they've tried making her have some sort of competence and talent of her own. Given that she's an elite FBI profiler, we should have already seen these, but I'm willing to give the writers a bit of a pass. Spader's character must be a blast to write.

Episodes 14 and 15 were just painful to watch.

 

I really like the concept of "The Judge" but its fallen into the same hole the rest of the show has, its all "Baddie of the week". If they did slightly longer arcs and had things running concurrently, "The Judge" could of been hinted at a few times before becoming a main plot point. But instead it was used and thrown away in 45 minutes of "meh".

 

Double post for new Episode.

I wonder if they are reading viewer feed back, because they are finally developing the evil!hubby arc, and quite well to. Also the main girl... who I cant even remember the name of, had maybe 20 lines this episode, while they are really trying to flesh out the other characters.

I think, maybe, if this show is renewed, it could turn into what most of us hoped it would be.

 

it has been renewed
http://tvline.com/2013/12/03/the-blacklist-renewed-season-2/