And The Blacklist is certainly delivering a lot of it, to my delight. It's got down to a science all the different ways to bring on the real-life-able creepies--my favorite is the shots where people are actively in Agent Keen's house, setting up surveillance, and are able to avoid detection by staying right in the tail end of the character's eye sight. Sure, it leaves me huddled in the corner of my apartment for the rest of the day, but it's masterfully done all the same. The pièce de résistance for this series so far is Keen's husband--I feel so unsafe in every scene he's in, it's spectacular. He's so goofy-glassed and harmless, but the piling evidence against him gets me all jumpy. I can't wait to have his full villain revealed in some magnificently evil way. I hope they don't wimp out and make him a pawn who married her for the job but fell for her afterwards. That would be more predictable and therefore less interesting.
Now, for a couple of sticking points that don't ruin the show for me, but could use some improvement:
Spader. First off, I could really do without Jamesy boy ever referencing the "G spot" again. Ever. Yeeech. No, I'm not that freaked out by sex, I'm freaked out by Spader knowing anything about sex. It's a visceral thing. But speaking of visceral--Spader so far is almost too bloodless of a character. I've reference before his superb acting skills, and those go untarnished. However, the writing of his character could use some tweaks. His character is grounded in an unflappable calm in the face of inhumanity, with the idea that he is the master chessman who remains unperturbed because he is already five moves ahead. All of this is great, but if they let it stagnate there without adding some dimension to the why behind his Spader-ness, the show will not achieve true greatness. In the end, I'm going to need to care about Spader, rather than just think about him. I'm cool with the caring being completely against my moral code, but it still needs to happen, and for that to get going we'll need the writing of him to be a little more loose.
Housing. I know a little bit about DC prices. And that's an awful nice place for a low-ranking FBI agent and a school teacher to be living in. I'm just sayin--Mulder didn't even get a bedroom. Think more realistically, guys.
The Angry Impotent Alpha Male. Aka Agent Ressler. This is a writing trope that drives me nuts. The tech guys need to hack into something unhackable, they're typing their curiously strong fingers as lightning speed, telling the agent in charge that they need 90 seconds to complete the download. The agent's response? Bellowing "We don't have 90 seconds!!" . . . Helpful, boss. I get that they're trying to evoke urgency and demonstrate that so-and-so is an actiony, get-to-it kind of guy, but in the end he's just being an ass and ignoramus to the technicians who work for him. Write better, guys. Write better.