Spader chewing the scenery was by far the best thing about it for me.

If Keen truly is his daughter, they need to make that obvious reveal quickly, and let the show become a father/daughter spy-team adventure. Otherwise, if you drag it out and then reveal the obvious, I think a lot of people are gonna walk.

Hopefully, though, there's a better twist involved.

Last night's twist was cool. Spader was great but for fans of Homeland, Diego Klattenhoff was good to see on a network, in albeit a similar role.

The key for me is not the true nature of the relationship but whether or not the producers allow Spader to mess with them. If he knows EVERYTHING that's suppose to happen every single week, that will tire quickly, IMO.

Good point.

It wouldn't make sense for him to know everything that's supposed to happen every week while he's in FBI custody. I think (hope) it'll be more like the scene towards the end of the episode where he's helping them put pieces together. Hopefully he doesn't conveniently escape every week so he has time to talk to his contacts.

It'll be interesting to see how the show feels next week.

Joe Carnahan directed the pilot. The practice of big name Hollywood directors hired for pilots is becoming commonplace.

The weird thing to me is that they do that (Carnahan directing last night, Johnson directing last week's BB, etc) but don't seem to go out of their way to advertise it.

Although I think they're doing it at least in part to try and win Emmy's. Those voters love it when 'real' directors slum on television.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. And the FBI agent just puts her head down. What? No cell phone call to HQ with the bad guys' location and heading? :rolleyes:

Show was okay, but some stupid stuff makes it less than good. I'll continue watching with the hope that it gets better.

DVR screwed up and I only got to where they discover the girl has the bomb strapped to her. But, well done TV. I'll watch again next week.

Here you go. Think you can finish it here. Just watched it tonight on the iPad.
http://www.nbc.com/the-blacklist/vid...-pilot/n41047/

Wow, NBC may finally have must watch TV again.

The writing was really uneven, but James Spader is a bad mother****er.

Found myself comparing it to Hannibal, which is vastly superior.

Watched it last night and really liked it. Sure there were some things that seemed to not add up or seemed hokey but for the most part it is a fun watch that kept my interest. Spader is just a great actor and I love him already in this role.

I'm not a big fan of having a bad guy that is all-knowing and all-powerful so I'm hoping this doesn't go down that road. If it goes to more of a Silence of the Lamb psychological bent (getting into the mindset of criminals), it would be more sustainable.

We watched it tonight. Good first episode. Nice little twist at the end. I'll keep watching.

Good second episode.