The Blacklist - Series 1

This picture demonstrates one of the key flaws of The Blacklist, to whit that Megan Boone so often looks inappropriately bored.

After a decades long manhunt, FBI most wanted fugitive Raymond Reddington walks into a Federal Building and surrenders. Having become one of the foremost fixers in the international criminal community, with a vast network of informants and specialists for all occasions, Reddington has also compiled a list - the titular Blacklist - of the people he deems to be truly beyond even his highly distorted moral code. He is willing to help the FBI bring these people down, but only on his terms, and only if he is allowed to work with Agent Elizabeth Keen.

A major breakout hit, The Blacklist is a slick conspiracy drama featuring a tour de force performance from James Spader as Raymond 'Red' Reddington, the Concierge of Crime. By turns charming and terrifying, all affable, folksy anecdotes or cold, harsh threats, he is never less than compelling, with his monologue on his goals in life garnering particular attention, and rightly so.

Unfortunately, The Backlist is at its core a two-hander, and Megan Boone as Elizabeth Keen doesn't have the same effortless assurance, and only partly because Keen as a character lacks Reddington's absolute self-confidence. For the dynamic of the relationship - which is primarily that Reddington chips relentlessly away at the bedrock of Keen's life - to work there has to be some parity to begin with, and it is just a little lacking (Season 2 has an even less assured Keen and a slightly more comfortable Boone, and benefits from it.)

The supporting cast is solid ranging up to good, with a strong core team. Parminder Nagra provides some confusion as a CIA agent with a completely unexplained English accent, but she's a good actress, so okay. Notable cameos from Peter Stormare and Alan Alda playing sharply against type enliven the second half of the season.

The Blacklist has a definite ambition to be gritty, and in pursuit of that makes a very conscious decision which results in unfortunate implications; specifically, Season 1 kills a lot of its female characters. In fact, it pretty much kills all of them except for Keen, and while it never revels in its violence against women, it does get to the point that it feels as if it's taking a certain pride in being willing to have female characters brutally murdered.

Overall, Season 1 of The Blacklist has been a good series with moments of excellence, although in all honesty I think only the monologue really compares with the very first scene of Red's surrender. It picks up the pace a lot after a slightly sluggish first half and starts developing its arc. It remains to be seen whether it can maintain its pace following the unveiling of Kaise Soze expy 'Berlin' in the finale - there is a reason why The Usual Suspects ends with the reveal - but Season 1 was strong enough to give me hope.