’Blacklist’ more than a crime

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By REBECCA TORSELLO

Television

The Blacklist
Channel 7
8.40pm Monday

THE Blacklist is not just another crime show, with gripping plotlines and intriguing characters which are a breath of fresh air for the genre.
James Spader stars as Raymond Reddington, a criminal mastermind who has evaded capture for years but suddenly walks into the FBI and surrenders. He offers to help them catch criminals on the condition that he only speaks with Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone), a recent graduate from Quantico.
Channel 7 has been marketing this series as James Spader’s The Blacklist, and that would be accurate. His superb acting carries the show at times, leaving the support cast to be taken along for the ride.
Boone pulls her weight, but it is hard to keep up with a seasoned professional like Spader. She has started strong but runs the risk of being Spader’s puppet, and will need to maintain a crisp performance to avoid this.
The premise invites comparisons with the relationship between Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) and Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) in The Silence of the Lambs. Even the scenes where Keen visits Reddington alone as he is tied up, sitting on a chair and in a box are unexpectedly similar.
This is not a bad thing, and Red’s unexplained obsession with Keen provides a good backstory.
The script is lacklustre at times, but the cast work well with it and the suspense is endless. Suspense is the show’s strength and yet maintaining this may be a challenge with the next few episodes likely to make or break the series.
The premise of catching a new criminal every episode may tire quickly, so the show will need to begin focusing on the backstories of Reddington and Keen to keep it enthralling.
– Rebecca Torsello