Blindspot: Pilot
September 22, 2015 5:59 PM - Season 1, Episode 1 - Subscribe

FBI Agent Kurt Weller and his team investigate when a naked woman with amnesia is found in New York's Times Square covered in an intricate map of tattoos--including Weller's name.
posted by oh yeah! (27 comments total)
 
I gave up about a third of the way in. It screamed "broadcast network!" to me in every scene. The dialogue was flat and the procedural stuff was cliched to the point of absurdity. I felt like I was being punched in the face by mediocrity.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 6:11 PM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


Yeah, it was more or less extruded television product. The cast is good enough that I'll give it a few more episodes, though. Sometimes the pilot is the weakest episode.

The paint-by-numbers nature of the procedural work does not make me optimistic however.

Oh Hannibal where art thou?
posted by Justinian at 6:27 PM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


I made it all the way through, but, I don't know that I'll watch any further. I loved Jaimie Alexander in Kyle XY, and in the MCU, so, I wanted to give it a shot. But even aside from the ludicrously 'high concept' premise, there was a lot of peripheral gendered violence -- the women and baby Weller rescue at the beginning, Jane Doe discovering her fighting skills by stopping the abusive husband. And, the reveal that Jane volunteered for the amnesia drug gave me bad Alias flashbacks; why tell us she volunteered to be Jason Bourne-ified?
posted by oh yeah! at 6:29 PM on September 22, 2015


I kind of wish Alias had never happened. Its influence makes so many shows worse.
posted by Justinian at 6:33 PM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


How is this show not just John Doe?
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:52 PM on September 22, 2015 [2 favorites]


I'll give it another episode or two before I think about ejecting. The cast is strong, so it has that going for it at least.

Man, so far, this new season is looking like a dead zone, though. I'm even iffy about the new season of Fargo, just based on the ads I've seen.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:12 PM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


The cast is good enough that I'll give it a few more episodes, though. Sometimes the pilot is the weakest episode.

Yeah, you often can't judge the quality of a show fairly by the pilot. I'll give it a few more chances too.
posted by homunculus at 7:14 PM on September 22, 2015


FanFare: like being punched in the face by mediocrity.
posted by homunculus at 7:14 PM on September 22, 2015


I'm happy to hear that this is sub-par, because I have a whole boatload of stuff to watch this season already.
posted by codacorolla at 7:20 PM on September 22, 2015


Another vote for yawn. I feel like these shows automatically expect you to care about a character. Why no, you can't just throw anybody on screen and expect me to care just because you think they're physically attractive leads. I have no reason to care about this woman or this officer, or even head baddie.
posted by cashman at 7:49 PM on September 22, 2015


How is this show not just John Doe?

Wasn't that show just a Pretender clone?
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:11 PM on September 22, 2015


I did not watch this but I just wanted to say that after seeing what felt like months of "LOOK AT THE PRETTY MYSTERY LADY! HER BODY IS A TREASURE MAP!" promos it was hands down the winner of my coveted New Fall Show I Most Want To Fail award.
posted by prize bull octorok at 4:42 PM on September 23, 2015 [1 favorite]


...I guess the brainwashing worked on me? I liked the characters, and even though I can tell basically exactly how this season will go, I want to watch it happen.
posted by Night_owl at 8:38 PM on September 23, 2015


I kind of liked that she was seriously freaked out by what she was doing in those action sequences, sometimes almost immediately. A more violent continuation of the 'I'm a stranger in my own body!" mirror sessions she kept having in the safe house.

Also found it fun that Big Dumb Hero is wandering around snapping at people and not knowing what's happening while two women back at the HQ figure out that Jane's a Navy Seal by just sitting there and talking to each other.

Sorry, third thing: I wander if BDH is also a construct? I mean, really, what real person talks like he does? Dibs on him being an artificial personality layered onto a mindwiped boxer.
posted by Mogur at 11:41 AM on September 24, 2015 [3 favorites]


I did not watch this but I just wanted to say that after seeing what felt like months of "LOOK AT THE PRETTY MYSTERY LADY! HER BODY IS A TREASURE MAP!" promos it was hands down the winner of my coveted New Fall Show I Most Want To Fail award.

Yeah this may have won the Most Male Gaze-y award of the season already. I don't mind the tattoo concept (though lampshading it with "why would someone do this instead of just calling in a tip?" doesn't make it any less dumb) but the number of shots of her giving her a once thrice-over in the barely not-nude was cringeworthy.

I like looking at pretty women but I prefer to avoid pretending that's not what we're doing. The sense of personal confusion would have been even better conveyed (and Alexander did a very good job with it) if we'd been confined to her personal perspective a little more instead of the creepy creepster perspectives.

I thought it was an okay high concept action show; very forgettable and droppable the moment my DVR gets too full.
posted by phearlez at 2:05 PM on September 24, 2015


Ken Levine: How BLINDSPOT got on the air
WRITER/CREATOR: We got this totally cool idea. It’s like a mix between the Bourne movies, PRISON BREAK, MEMENTO, the old game show CAMOUFLAGE, and what shows do you like?

NBC: BLACKLIST.

W/C: It’s also like BLACKLIST.

NBC: We’ve been looking for another BLACKLIST. And another HEROES.

W/C: Ours is that too.

NBC: That’s okay. We’re remaking HEROES.

W/C: Well, if you ever want to remake THE BIONIC WOMAN ours is also like that show.

NBC: THE BIONIC WOMAN was a bomb.

W/C: Wait. I forgot. We took out THE BIONIC WOMAN elements.

NBC: So what’s the series?
posted by the man of twists and turns at 4:00 PM on September 24, 2015


I don't buy the handwavey "do you think they'd tell anybody?" when someone rightly points out that there has never been a female Navy Seal. Yes. Yes I do think they'd tell somebody.

But okay, I'll pretend for the show. If it gets better.
posted by Justinian at 6:22 PM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]


This is where I got hung up. She's a secret Navy SEAL with a SEAL Trident tattoo. That's a terrible way to keep a secret.
posted by zinon at 5:07 AM on September 25, 2015


I liked it, but mostly because of Jaimie Alexander's acting. Currently she's the only anchor and that can only go so far. Bottom line, there has to be a really good premise behind the idea of doing all of that tattooing and wiping her memory and I don't have a lot of faith in a network tv show being able to pull that off. Would love to be wrong on that though.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:10 AM on September 25, 2015


I really hope this show turns into something good and doesn't devolve into a crime-of-the-week procedural. Although that's kind of what it looks like it's going to be. And they just happen to decipher each tattoo just in the nick of time to stop that week's bad guy. In the right order. Coincidentally.
posted by Weeping_angel at 5:19 PM on September 25, 2015 [2 favorites]


They really dropped the ball by not having a lot of social media for this. Imagine if they previewed each week's tattoo, created something online for people to interact and figure out the mystery.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:46 PM on September 25, 2015 [2 favorites]


She's a secret Navy SEAL with a SEAL Trident tattoo. That's a terrible way to keep a secret.

That's OK, they covered it with an ENORMOUS PATCH OF BLACK, rather than obscure it in part of another design.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 6:11 AM on September 26, 2015


I guess the tattooist had blindspot.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:30 AM on September 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


Also, apparently NBC blew all of their costuming money on the makeup artists doing the tattoos, because Jane's Flashback Wig is atrocious.
posted by TwoStride at 8:23 PM on September 29, 2015


I like Jamie Alexander and I'm willing to give it a go on that basis and it being Greg Berlanti, whose superhero-type productions I have enjoyed a lot. It struck me more as Berlanti wanting to do something with the Orphan Black kind of vibe than as most of the other influences that I know that have been mentioned so far. Except the dude is centered in it (see: his name tattooed on the middle of her back) because network tv. I love the women in the cast, though.
posted by immlass at 9:10 PM on September 29, 2015


Oh neat, the episode titles are clues. Answers are not given in the link.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:23 PM on October 5, 2015


If you're decoding the episode titles, the pilot is subtitled "Woe Has Joined".
posted by GhostintheMachine at 11:50 AM on October 6, 2015


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