BLINDSPOT (NBC)
I'm out. Jane (Jaimie Alexander) bores me. Kurt (Sullivan Stapleton) really bores me. And it's all very stupid. The FBI has created computer software that can "cross reference" Jane's tattoos with crimes, which suggests some kind of artificial intelligence at play. This show is already becoming Person of Interest? This episode, "A Stray Howl", involved a secret domestic drone program attacking people who aggrieved one of its pilots. That sounds silly but fun, but it was a drag. As I expected, Blindspot may have an intriguing setup with Jane as an amnesiac with body ink somehow relating to 100 episodes worth of crimes (many of which are going to be occurring years from now), but it's just 'hunky male Fed fights crime with sexy female bad-ass'. Rinse, repeat. I don't have time for shows like this, sorry.
SCREAM QUEENS (FOX)
The third episode of Fox's new horror-comedy Scream Queens leaned heavily towards the comedy half of its identity, with a script by Glee co-creator Ian Brennan. It felt like I was watching Glee's version of a Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror" episode, and Jamie Lee Curtis is quickly becoming this show's version of Sue Sylvester. I always knew Scream Queens was going to be a lighter affair than American Horror Story (which two-thirds of its creators also made), but I was hoping for something with more bite. It doesn't want to be taken very seriously by its audience, but that means its horror aspects are neutered by the bubblegum tone and how characters don't behave like real people. "Chainsaw" had a sequence where a man's arms were cut off that was perilously close to being a homage to Monty Python's Black Knight. I can't completely hate a show where a giant ice cream cone mascot got bisected by a Red Devil to the strains of Wham's "Baby I'm Your Man", but it's a real shame this show isn't even trying to be scary. Sadly, it's a problem that can't be fixed because it's a core creative choice to favour ridiculousness and camp over suspense and terror.
