Handicapping New Drama on Television

I just read Bill Carter's account of the ratings numbers for television last night on the Web site for The New York Times. I was glad to see that The Blacklist is still going strong. I just watched my DVR recording of last night's episode. There is something delightfully fascinating about its capacity to flirt with absurdity at just about every turn in the plot. It almost makes we wish that there would be an EMMY award for Willing Suspension of Disbelief. I do think it is too much of a spoiler to say that the bit about the band getting back together was a bit too predictable, but that brief moment was too minor to cramp the overall style.

My wife and I seem to play this game involving who makes the decision to bail when. In the case of Madame Secretary, we were both ready to give up when the opening credits began to roll. I do not care if they eventually cook up a good plot, I just do not want to be in the same room with those people. Where Scorpion was concerned, it looked like we crossed wires: Each of us thought the other wanted to stick with it. Fortunately, it did not take long for us to resolve that confusion. As far as I am concerned, I am getting enough message about genius being an excuse for infantile behavior from Manhattan (although I got a real kick out of the peyote trip); I do not need Scorpion to give me any more of it.

Next Monday things will start to get tricky, though. We have not yet upgraded our DVR to record more than two programs at the same time. Next Monday the 10 PM slot settles in with Blacklist, Castle, and the new home for NCSI: Los Angeles, each of which is generous with characters who tend to know more about reading and writing than most of the authors of book reviews I encounter these days. Fortunately, our On Demand service will rescue us from our predicament!