What’s the name of the show? Blindspot
Oh, is this the one with the tattooed lady? Yes, how did you know?
Because NBC has plastered ads for it on every back page and other flat surface since the middle of summer. Yeah, the marketing push behind this show is very aggressive. NBC is really betting the bank on this one.
When does it premiere? Monday, 21 September, at 10pm EST. It’s on right after The Voice, which made The Blacklist a big hit for the network a few years ago.
So this is about a tattooed lady? Yes, a Jane Doe (Jaimie Alexander) wakes up naked in the middle of Times Square and her memory has been completely erased by some newfangled drug. She’s covered in fresh tattoos, one of which is Kurt Weller (Sullivan Stapleton), the name of an FBI agent. The FBI takes her in and starts trying to unravel the mystery and discovers that the tattoos on her body are actually clues that solve crimes. While they’re trying to solve the inky riddle they discover that Jane is an ex-Navy Seal who knows martial arts, speaks Chinese and has various other skills. We also learn from flashbacks that she recently got a very flattering haircut.
Wait, if she has no memory, how does she speak Chinese? That’s just part of the twisted logic of the show. This drug erased all her memories, just not her skills. I guess the ones that were honed well enough survived somewhere deep down in her brain.
What is this show’s pedigree? TV veteran Martin Gero and Greg Berlanti, the guy behind everything from Brothers and Sisters to every DC Comics show currently on the air, created it.
Is the show any good? It is certainly action packed. It starts with finding Jane and the pace doesn’t relent for the rest of the episode. It’s one life-or-death situation to the next, which sort of catches you up in the story the same way an older aunt drags you to the dance floor at a wedding, good-naturedly but a little against your will. There are a number of great fight scenes, including the one where we learn Jane knows martial arts as she takes down a number of attackers in confined quarters. She’s just as surprised as we are when she starts deflecting punches and tossing guys into crumby cabinets.
There are large chunks of exposition that threaten to drag down the action, but they’re dispensed with fairly quickly and provide a bit of a breather between chasing off to find the next clue to stop an act of terrorism. But somewhere along the line I couldn’t shake the feeling that I know exactly where this is going.
You already solved the mystery of Jane Doe? Well, not really. We do get some flashbacks from her memory and there is a shadowy figure following her around, but I’ve seen enough of these shows to predict a bit of the future. Like Blacklist before it – or Alias or Lost or Orphan Black – this whole thing is going to turn into a tale of shadowy government agencies and secret conspiracies. There will be illegal and possibly immoral science experiments done to meet some morally ambiguous end. There will be red herrings galore and revelations that only lead to more questions. There will be so many plot twists that they will turn eventually in on themselves, turning and turning in a widening gyre until the falcon can not hear the falconer. Thanks, Yeats.
I can see the downward spiral starting even now, as everything becomes so incredibly Byzantine and labyrinthine that there is no way that it could happen in the real world and people will lose interest as the mythology becomes increasingly complex and outlandish. Know what? I just don’t think I want to stick around for another one of those.
Why not? I feel like we’ve been disappointed too many times. The producers of Lost promised us that the characters weren’t in heaven or purgatory or whatever, and that’s exactly what ended up happening. (Spoiler alert.) The dome on Under the Dome was supposed to come down after one season, but that dome stayed up for three long years and after one and a half I just didn’t care what the hell was making it. (Aliens, I think. Spoiler alert?) Or look at Orphan Black, which started off with such a great premise and has since withered into something that is so ludicrous that it’s almost laughable and increasingly difficult to follow as crosses and double crosses become quadruple crosses. And it’s not like Blindspot is full of amazing characters like Orphan Black.
Jane Doe seems pretty cool. Yes, she is, and Alexander does a great job, but it’s hard to get to know a character that doesn’t even know herself. Like a drunk frat boy waking up on a park bench, her only emotions are confusion and surprise, which are natural given the plot but not really great for developing a fully fleshed character.
What about the FBI agents? They are nothing but tired good-guy tropes and functionaries. That is the problem with having a show so linked to the adrenaline rush of action. The agents (including the always wonderful Marianne Jean-Baptiste as the head of the FBI) are only known by their jobs, not by their personalities. It leaves the show with a bit of an empty center, where the mystery of the week takes center stage rather than the people trying to solve it.
Should you watch this show? If you’re a fan of these sorts of background-rich thrillers, go right ahead – it certainly is enough to keep you engaged for a full hour. But bigger picture-wise, I think everyone is in for an inevitable disappointment.
