PILOT REVIEW: Blindspot

BLINDSPOT

Starring: Sullivan Stapleton, Jaimie Alexander, Rob Brown, Audrey Esparza, Ashley Johnson, Ukweli Roach, and Marianne Jean-Baptiste

Created by Martin Gero
Written by Martin Gero, Directed by Mark Pellington

THE PREMISE
You've seen the commercials all summer. A Jane Doe (Jaimie Alexander) is found naked and covered with tattoos in a bag in Times Square with no memory of who she is or what happened. Tattooed on her back is the name of an FBI agent, Kurt Weller (Sullivan Stapleton) and he is put in charge of finding out who she is and who is responsible for what happened. As is the case with shows like this, the rest of the main cast are the agents also working on the case including FBI Director Bethany Mayfair (Marianne Jean-Baptiste). Patterson (Ashley Johnson) is the tech girl, the "Garcia" of this group if you will. Rob Brown and Audrey Esparza round out the team while Ukweli Roach is not seen much in the pilot, but very key to the plot.

THE REVIEW
Blindspot started in a stunning way. Though I had seen it in the trailer, it was still very cool from a cinematic standpoint as Times Square got cleared out and the mysterious bag (that contained Jaimie Alexander) was dealt with. Unfortunately, that was the high point of the show until the final couple minutes. I felt like it got quite slow at times in the middle of the pilot, but it certainly set itself up well with a twisty and satisfying conclusion to the pilot.

At its best, the show was an unnerving drama that felt dark and twisty. The unnerving feeling was aided by the use of the shaky camera technique throughout the pilot. It's hard not to compare it to The Blacklist, which launched in this same slot two years ago. There are a lot of similarities but this one felt much darker. The Blacklist was quite intense, but James Spader brought a lot of humor in his larger than life role. There is decidedly less humor in this show and everything feels more grim. Airing after The Voice and being a thriller of this type seems to warrant something that's not as unrelentingly dark at times. Maybe it will get there. The performances were fine but not especially memorable though Marianne Jean-Baptiste seems like an early standout.

The problem was that it just felt slow for most of the middle of the show and that's not a great sign. This show has marketed itself as a thriller and there was not enough thrills. I'm not someone that needs to have an "OMG" moment every few minutes or even every episode. I'm fine with a slow-burn story if it goes somewhere. There was too much time devoted to slow questioning of Jane Doe or hypothesizing about the tattoos. Then when it was time to catch the bad guy, it morphed into your run of the mill procedural and there was nothing new or exciting. How many times do we have to see an intense moment on a subway?

WILL I WATCH IT AGAIN?
Yes. I'm not giving up yet. I'll tune in next week and hope the whole episode is closer to the first and last five minutes than everything in between.