It’s a little hard to believe it was a decade ago that Jon Bokenkamp created The Blacklist for the TV schedule. At the time, we were in the middle of a wave of big names making returns to TV, and James Spader fit the bill perfectly. The former The Practice and Boston Legal star had signed on the dotted line to play Raymond ‘Red’ Reddington in what would become another career-defining role. Ten years later, the finale wrapped with a tear-jerking Reddington moment that paid off years of storytelling in spades. But should the show have ended far earlier? If you were to ask the cast, they might say they were “surprised” about what happened.
Harry Lennix, who played Harold Cooper for a whopping 218 episodes of The Blacklist, recently opened up about the series finally wrapping. The actor gave a lot of credit to the fanbase for helping the show stick around – even sticking it out through varying timeslots, including that Friday death slot for a while. The show persevered, but the actor says that in some ways it was very surprising the NBC drama lasted as long as it did, as he told NBC:
Without the fans, we would not have been able to tell this story... There was, from time to time, the question as to whether or not we'd be able to go on telling this story. But I have to tell you, when we first started, I thought we were maybe a five-year show. I was kind of surprised, although not on the other hand because it was such a good show and it was so well-told.
Linear shows like The Blacklist often don’t get a decade on the air; that type of timeline is often reserved for comedies like The Big Bang Theory or Friends – which also ran for 10 seasons. Alternatively, a lot of procedural, case-of-the-week-type dramas can endure on television for lengthy runs. Think NCIS or even the recently revamped Criminal Minds.
The Blacklist always had some commonalities in its storytelling with procedurals given the actual list of criminals that were being tracked down, but it took some of its formatting similarities and expanded into a world with complicated backstories, relationships and through-lines often driven by the “Who is Red?” question. It was enough to give the show the gift of longevity. For Harry Lennix, this dream cast getting to work together as long as they did was “extraordinary.”
But I'm glad that we got a chance to do 10 years, 'cause that's extremely extraordinary. We've come to the conclusion. And I think that we're all very happy that we had this amount of time. As Carol Burnett used to say, ‘So glad we had this time together.’
Of course some changes happened over the years. Ryan Eggold left the show for spinoff, though Redemption was canceled after only one season. Series lead Megan Boone also exited in Season 8. But a lot of the core cast, anchored by the Dembe and Red relationship in its later eps, stuck around. The fans did too.
There’s always a debate about whether shows should simply run for the length of their initially planned storyline (that is if said show doesn’t get canceled prematurely) or if successful shows should be allowed to go on as long as they wish (even if the plots drop in quality somewhat). I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer, though I’m not one to begrudge shows that run a little too long when it’s clear the cast and creative team really love what they do and the audience is still on board.
The good news? I do think that regardless of how long it ran, The Blacklist’s ending did wrap on a fitting note, so whether or not it should have ended sooner rather than later, it’s one that will stick with me for quite some time.
