Blacklist - TV show

This is a good TV show, which dates me right there.  Who actually says "TV show" unless they are over 50?  But then what do you call a show on TV?  Some, like "Six Feet Under" or "Justified" or the like become "excellent TV Series" instead of Shows.  

But I digress..... "Blacklist" is intriguing in that it sets up the episode in the first five minutes, and that's clear.  Then there is another five minutes where the crew is assembled, rather haphazardly, and that's fine too.  But then there is about 15 minutes where they talk about stuff that makes no sense, they go on and on about moving into a cell manned by exotic drug manipulators who have ties to ovens in Syria and have exampled misapplied labels to diabetes trials in proceedings which show no validation to those parking tickets missing in Angola over the last twenty years with birth dates within that range of black opps. 

And at that point you either change the channel or say to yourself "Well, OK, that makes no sense but once Reddington (James Spader) comes on the scene at least there will be a semblance of order" and so you continue to watch.  (Which begs the question:  would you watch this TV Show if Reddington was played by anyone else other than James Spader?  Be honest.)

Of course Spader (forget Reddington) comes on the scene but nothing gets cleared up, it just gets more confused but you still watch because that was the point of him showing  up, just to get you to watch. For a few moments, when he is on the screen, things seem a little clearer, that mess in Syria with the bad parking attendant with diabetes doesn't mean much, especially since that nice looking assistant gets untied from the pipes in the basement.  You breathe a sigh of relief, as screenwriters say.

Finally, as the episode gets closer to a conclusion, someone gets shot (or many people do) and the guy you thought was dead or at least a bad guy isn't and the girl in the cute hat that you wanted to be a good person is either dead or now compromised in some way and just as you are shaking your head again, James Spader reappears so you continue to watch, much to your personal dismay, and then it ends. With an unfinished life or death hanging out there, so you are compelled to watch just ONE MORE episode.  And Spader reappears again and again and again so you continue on and on and on while you still shake your head in dismay at yourself and at the Show, knowing all the time that this is how they planned it, how they wanted to rope you in and how rope-able you are and yet, and yet... you don't care. You still watch.  Willingly.  

And hey, it's not a bad TV Show.

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