I’ve been meaning to start this site up for sometime. It seems weird to me that the first show I’m reviewing is a show like Blindspot, but gotta start somewhere, right? Spoilers for the first 10 episodes of Blindspot, though not major ones, really.
Blindspot, NBC’s new show that’s basically another riff on the “What if we knew about crimes before they happened” show that’s been around forever. It may the most common concepts in high-concept television these days. Given the timing of the show, I have this image of some writer watching The Blacklist while the roommate watches Memento, and then just running down a hallway waving the pitch paper in the air shouting “I’VE GOT IT.” But I digress.
As far as high-concept television* goes, it’s not a particularly solid show. Your pitch, a woman with amnesia covered in tattoos that hint at government corruption, runs into bizarre so fast that it hardly has time to be intriguing. Your star is, at this point in her career, most famous for being in the Marvel movies as a supporting character, so I don’t know if Jaimie Alexander is really a huge selling point. On that note, I think one of the big problems is that something that seems to have been framed as a vessel for Alexander is designed to fundamentally undercut her acting ability. Her character is a blank slate and there’s not much for her to work with, she spends her time confused or a badass. I hope as the show progresses we see more of her past, because that could give her time to shine, but they’ve cast the big name of the show in the part that has the least to do and is the least interesting.
In execution, the show is dumb. It’s tropey. We know there’s a mole on the team because this kind of show always has a mole on the team, even though they’re supposed to be an elite, handpicked group of the best. Characters constantly make decisions that seem to exist only to drive the plot forward (in episode 10, Weller just lets Jane Doe walk home alone instead of escorting her home, because Jane needs to be alone to be kidnapped). I could go on. So why am I still watching Blindspot?
Well, the answer is, there is a world of difference between dumb stupid and dumb bonkers. And Blindspot is gloriously bonkers.
I’ve already talked about what is wrong with the pitch, but what it gets right is how visual it is. The real concept has nothing to do with fighting crime or government corruption. Ultimately, the pitch for this show is Alexander, naked and covered in tattoos, standing in Time Square. All the marketing came from that, from the behind the scenes clips of the tattoos being applied, to the opening credits of the show, they are banking off of that image being intriguing enough to get you to watch it. That’s it, that’s the show. I’m willing to bet that a pencilled sketch of that shot was what sold the show.
The problem is the same problem with all high-concept art, you need to have more than just the concept. Otherwise, you end up with Snakes on a Plane. A well executed movie can get away with it (which Snakes on a Plane was not), but a tv show needs to last a lot longer. There are several, very different, but great ways to stretch out your concept. One is to delve deeply into the concept and what it really means. Person of Interest is a great example of this, where you forget that it started out being about stopping crimes of “ordinary people,” because it’s turned into how the surveillance system has changed organized crime, terrorism, government oversight, and corporations place in society. Another good solution is to transition from concept driven to character driven. Just about every successful superhero has done this. Daredevil started out as another vigilante ninja character, but the pitch was that he was blind. That only lasts for so long, though, because eventually you accept that he has other senses that are enhanced and being blind isn’t really an obstacle for him. The statement “blind ninja” goes from an intrigued “how is that even possible” to “this is the new normal.” The reason he survives as a character was the introduction of all the lore around him, like Elektra, Bullseye, and The Hand. I’m getting distracted from my point again, but there are ways to make a high-concept piece go long term, even beyond when its concept has run out.
Blindspot is early, it can still go somewhere. However, they either haven’t decided yet or (more likely) don’t want to reveal too much too soon and are trying to play the delicate balance between telling enough to keep us hooked and not enough to give up the game. So they’re left with what they’re doing, distraction.
I liken it to a poorly prepared GM, who shows up at the gaming session with a solid idea of where to go, but not much of an idea of how to get there. So the GM is forced to improvise and distract, constantly. You need action, both in a tabletop game or in a TV show. But the difference between a prepared and an unprepared GM is if the action grows organically or comes out of nowhere. If it grows organically, the fight makes sense, it can be prepared for. Important people have body guards, routines, favorite places, all of that can be found by the players (or main characters of your show) and exploited. But all of that requires a lot of thought on the part of the GM (or writers) as to what the people the main characters are doing, have with them, and who has the element of surprise It’s a lot of work. Sometimes a fight can just break out, too. It’s part of the fun, players get caught unawares. But when the fight doesn’t match the setup, it’s ridiculous; like having some random drunk in a bar be an amazing martial artist. The hope is there is so much excitement and scrabbling that nobody realizes it doesn’t make any sense. Used once or twice it can be effective. Used as a basis of a show, it becomes utterly bonkers.
For instance, in episode 5, the Blindspot crew track radioactive material to a cemetery where they are attacked by a dozenish men with automatic weapons and it comes out of no where. Everything to that point suggested a small, tightly organized cell, who all knew that they would die of radiation exposure. But what we got was a large group of heavily armed soldiers in New York City and a shoot out. Immediately following the shoot out, the CIA turns out to have been there the whole time, but couldn’t help because they can’t operate on American soil. That doesn’t stop them from minutes later, pulling guns and having a standoff with the FBI. Why does any of this happen? I don’t know know. Does it make sense for a small bomb making cell hiding in New York to have a well equipped fire-team with them? No. Why was it not ok for the CIA to shoot the baddies on American soil, to the point where they will let a terrorist with a dirty bomb walk away into downtown New York, but apparently they’re totally comfortable killing a team of FBI agents right there? These things fundamentally make no sense. They happen because they make things exciting, they keep people in the moment.
Blindspot can probably milk this technique for a long time. It’s sustained other shows, film series, and plenty of table top games. Lost is a masterclass in this technique; every time something seems like it’s about to make sense, introduce something stranger. But in the end, it becomes unsatisfying. Once people lost faith in the ability of Lost to provide a good explanation, they stopped watching the show. And I think that’s going to happen with Blindspot too. It has to all make sense, and sooner rather than later. I don’t think you can get 3 seasons out of the tattoos.
But I’m eager to see how bonkers it gets before I stop watching.
*A term that’s nebulous and difficult to define. Suffice it to say, it’s a show, movie, novel, etc, where everything interesting is described in the pitch and usually has a big name attached to it to make it work. I do want to unpack it in a separate post though, seeing as a google search has resulted in many people talking about it and every one of them has a different definition.
Blindspot, NBC’s new show that’s basically another riff on the “What if we knew about crimes before they happened” show that’s been around forever. It may the most common concepts in high-concept television these days. Given the timing of the show, I have this image of some writer watching The Blacklist while the roommate watches Memento, and then just running down a hallway waving the pitch paper in the air shouting “I’VE GOT IT.” But I digress.
As far as high-concept television* goes, it’s not a particularly solid show. Your pitch, a woman with amnesia covered in tattoos that hint at government corruption, runs into bizarre so fast that it hardly has time to be intriguing. Your star is, at this point in her career, most famous for being in the Marvel movies as a supporting character, so I don’t know if Jaimie Alexander is really a huge selling point. On that note, I think one of the big problems is that something that seems to have been framed as a vessel for Alexander is designed to fundamentally undercut her acting ability. Her character is a blank slate and there’s not much for her to work with, she spends her time confused or a badass. I hope as the show progresses we see more of her past, because that could give her time to shine, but they’ve cast the big name of the show in the part that has the least to do and is the least interesting.
In execution, the show is dumb. It’s tropey. We know there’s a mole on the team because this kind of show always has a mole on the team, even though they’re supposed to be an elite, handpicked group of the best. Characters constantly make decisions that seem to exist only to drive the plot forward (in episode 10, Weller just lets Jane Doe walk home alone instead of escorting her home, because Jane needs to be alone to be kidnapped). I could go on. So why am I still watching Blindspot?
Well, the answer is, there is a world of difference between dumb stupid and dumb bonkers. And Blindspot is gloriously bonkers.
I’ve already talked about what is wrong with the pitch, but what it gets right is how visual it is. The real concept has nothing to do with fighting crime or government corruption. Ultimately, the pitch for this show is Alexander, naked and covered in tattoos, standing in Time Square. All the marketing came from that, from the behind the scenes clips of the tattoos being applied, to the opening credits of the show, they are banking off of that image being intriguing enough to get you to watch it. That’s it, that’s the show. I’m willing to bet that a pencilled sketch of that shot was what sold the show.
The problem is the same problem with all high-concept art, you need to have more than just the concept. Otherwise, you end up with Snakes on a Plane. A well executed movie can get away with it (which Snakes on a Plane was not), but a tv show needs to last a lot longer. There are several, very different, but great ways to stretch out your concept. One is to delve deeply into the concept and what it really means. Person of Interest is a great example of this, where you forget that it started out being about stopping crimes of “ordinary people,” because it’s turned into how the surveillance system has changed organized crime, terrorism, government oversight, and corporations place in society. Another good solution is to transition from concept driven to character driven. Just about every successful superhero has done this. Daredevil started out as another vigilante ninja character, but the pitch was that he was blind. That only lasts for so long, though, because eventually you accept that he has other senses that are enhanced and being blind isn’t really an obstacle for him. The statement “blind ninja” goes from an intrigued “how is that even possible” to “this is the new normal.” The reason he survives as a character was the introduction of all the lore around him, like Elektra, Bullseye, and The Hand. I’m getting distracted from my point again, but there are ways to make a high-concept piece go long term, even beyond when its concept has run out.
Blindspot is early, it can still go somewhere. However, they either haven’t decided yet or (more likely) don’t want to reveal too much too soon and are trying to play the delicate balance between telling enough to keep us hooked and not enough to give up the game. So they’re left with what they’re doing, distraction.
I liken it to a poorly prepared GM, who shows up at the gaming session with a solid idea of where to go, but not much of an idea of how to get there. So the GM is forced to improvise and distract, constantly. You need action, both in a tabletop game or in a TV show. But the difference between a prepared and an unprepared GM is if the action grows organically or comes out of nowhere. If it grows organically, the fight makes sense, it can be prepared for. Important people have body guards, routines, favorite places, all of that can be found by the players (or main characters of your show) and exploited. But all of that requires a lot of thought on the part of the GM (or writers) as to what the people the main characters are doing, have with them, and who has the element of surprise It’s a lot of work. Sometimes a fight can just break out, too. It’s part of the fun, players get caught unawares. But when the fight doesn’t match the setup, it’s ridiculous; like having some random drunk in a bar be an amazing martial artist. The hope is there is so much excitement and scrabbling that nobody realizes it doesn’t make any sense. Used once or twice it can be effective. Used as a basis of a show, it becomes utterly bonkers.
For instance, in episode 5, the Blindspot crew track radioactive material to a cemetery where they are attacked by a dozenish men with automatic weapons and it comes out of no where. Everything to that point suggested a small, tightly organized cell, who all knew that they would die of radiation exposure. But what we got was a large group of heavily armed soldiers in New York City and a shoot out. Immediately following the shoot out, the CIA turns out to have been there the whole time, but couldn’t help because they can’t operate on American soil. That doesn’t stop them from minutes later, pulling guns and having a standoff with the FBI. Why does any of this happen? I don’t know know. Does it make sense for a small bomb making cell hiding in New York to have a well equipped fire-team with them? No. Why was it not ok for the CIA to shoot the baddies on American soil, to the point where they will let a terrorist with a dirty bomb walk away into downtown New York, but apparently they’re totally comfortable killing a team of FBI agents right there? These things fundamentally make no sense. They happen because they make things exciting, they keep people in the moment.
Blindspot can probably milk this technique for a long time. It’s sustained other shows, film series, and plenty of table top games. Lost is a masterclass in this technique; every time something seems like it’s about to make sense, introduce something stranger. But in the end, it becomes unsatisfying. Once people lost faith in the ability of Lost to provide a good explanation, they stopped watching the show. And I think that’s going to happen with Blindspot too. It has to all make sense, and sooner rather than later. I don’t think you can get 3 seasons out of the tattoos.
But I’m eager to see how bonkers it gets before I stop watching.
*A term that’s nebulous and difficult to define. Suffice it to say, it’s a show, movie, novel, etc, where everything interesting is described in the pitch and usually has a big name attached to it to make it work. I do want to unpack it in a separate post though, seeing as a google search has resulted in many people talking about it and every one of them has a different definition.
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