Fall Preview: The Blacklist

Premise

Raymond "Red" Reddington, the FBI's most wanted, has come to the conclusion that he and the FBI now have the same desires and surrenders himself in person. The catch is that he is only willing to speak with a rookie profiler by the name of Elizabeth Keen who is on the job for her first day. She doubts his motives but with his help they are able to take down a terrorist involved in a kidnapping and insinuates there are more people that need to be caught. Over the past decades he has compiled a list of the most dangerous men, the men the FBI doesn't even know about. This is the Blacklist.

James Spader (Boston Legal, Stargate) stars as Raymond "Red" Reddington with Megan Boone (Step Up Revolution, Sex and the City 2) as Elizabeth Keen.

Also starring Harry Lennix, Diego Klattenhoff, Ryan Eggold and Ilfenash Hadera.

The Blacklist premieres on NBC, Monday September 23rd at 10PM EST.

Where I Would Go With the Plot

There is a very fine line that needs to be tread here. The Mentalist had to do the same thing and succeeded. Before The Mentalist a similar show already existed in Psych, but it chose to differentiate itself. The same is true here with The Blacklist. A similar show already exists; White Collar. Luckily, NBC can follow in CBS's good decisions for the most part with The Mentalist and make a success out of this show.

First off, there most be no secret family relation between Reddington and Keen. Just watching the trailer I find myself saying "Oh my gosh, if he's actually her father I'm going to be so upset." It's cliche and it just better not happen. He has obvious motives for surrendering on her first day on the job. You don't just do that for the average rookie. There's a reason he's chosen her. Make it something important -- something that he personally needs her for. Maybe the largest name of the Blacklist is someone that she knows personally (maybe her husband?). Her connection to this person will be what enables him to actually succeed in doing what he's trying to do. I say that because I do not for one minute believe he's doing this out of the goodness of his heart -- at least right now. He has an ulterior motive. This is a power play and the FBI is playing right into his hands.

Also, as much as they try to make this a "Catch a bad guy every week" drama, can they realistically do that? It's going to get old and fast. After a few names Reddington's motive is going to have to come to the forefront -- I'd make Keen find out about it first. She feels like she should turn Reddington in, but she knows that if she keeps quiet they'll be able to catch more of this unknown criminals so she starts becoming a little "less by the book" while Reddington starts to realize that a life of crime really wasn't worth it and that he enjoys making the world a safer and more legal place.

What I Think Will Happen

Other than NBC cancelling it because they've cancelled every single good show they've had since Friends and Frasier? Okay, I'm bitter, yes. NBC has had some good shows over the years that they've cancelled and some really sub-par shows that they've kept. With any luck this can be their new baby. But my guess is they'll flub it up in the beginning.

This has "buddy cop" written all over it. To start it off it's going to be a different person they're catching every week -- everyone loses faith in Reddington, including the viewer, asking themselves if this is his moment that he's going to "make a break for it". And then he'll turn up, do the valiant thing and save the day. Easy. Peasy. Done....Boring.

Let's just hope that goes out the door by Christmas and a "rival" to Reddington is introduced (similar to M in Elementary last season). He'll be discontent with Reddington selling out criminals and vow to not only hurt Reddington, but hurt his darling "Keen". He'll also insinuate that he knows who Keen truly is and that'll just make Reddington even madder. Oh gosh, I hope I'm wrong on this one.