There are quite a lot of TV shows that I follow on a weekly basis, meaning that I watch the new episodes as they are released every week. The Blacklist, an NBC series, is one of those, and after missing out on season 4 and 5, I returned to the show for season six and I have followed it closely since then.
If you don't know anything about The Blacklist, it is about a Most Wanted criminal (Raymond Reddington, played by James Spader) suddenly showing up at FBI giving himself over to them, as long as he gets to work with Elizabeth Keen. He is then handing them information regularly that help them catch bad-guys, and throughout the seasons, we follow them in thick and thin.
The Coronavirus and The Blacklist
Well, then we arrive by the seventh season of The Blacklist. Yes, it has been an interesting season, and even though I don't really enjoy the company of Katarina Rostova, it has still been amusing, and I have been looking forward to the new episodes every week. The highlight of the season so far was for sure the Cornelius Ruck episode, in which Raymond Reddington suddenly turns into a light version of Poirot solving a crime all by himself, on an island with only a few other people present.
But, in the season finale - things suddenly turned upside down. I managed to read a little article by @cryptoandcoffee on the topic before I actually saw the episode, but that just made all the more curious. You can find his article here: https://peakd.com/hive-174578/@cryptoandcoffee/covid-screws-with-tv-program
Did the Coronavirus screw with The Blacklist?
After three minutes of the final episode, we suddenly see some actors in their homes, telling us that this is when the coronavirus stopped the recording of the final episode. That is why, the episode was changed, and they had to make a sort of cartoon version of the final episode at times. I was curious about what to see after this.
To be honest, I quickly felt as if I was scenes from the computer game The Sims around 2005. They tried to show the scenes with virtual characters, and it reminded me really of The Sims and other older computer games. Newer computer games have way better graphics than what we were presented here.
From time to time, we were shown actual scenes that had been recorded earlier, and then once again, we were shown such animated scenes.
In a way, I didn't mind. It was a breath of fresh air and brought some renewal to the show. Of course, I am really happy that this was just a little part of an episode because if it would continue in this way, I would stop watching. But, as a real try to at least be able to finish the season, I appreciate the job they did and consider it a funny and creative way to do so.
Now I just hope that the coronavirus will disappear, so that we can get some real action and more fun with Raymond Reddington as the show might continue on NBC and on Netflix from November 2020.
The pictures you have seen in this article are from the final episode. Do you see the resemblance with The Sims and other similar computer games?
Have you seen it? Did you like it? Would you rather have seen them waiting with the episode, instead of going for the animated version?
I think it was worth the gamble but no more as it was just very different. The actors must have been happy as only voices were needed to finish the series. They still get paid and everyone is safe plus they can start the new season fresh. I used to think the episodes were shot well in advance of airing and now I guess not.
Well, a little bit in advance, but not really that much. I also expected it to be further in advance. Considering that it aired in the middle of May, means that they are less than two months ahead with the recording of the episodes.
Just saw someone commenting that NBC shouldn't have hired from Fiverr to finish the episode. I guess we can agree that if they first made it animated, then they could have made the graphics better. But all in all, I still enjoyed the episode.