The fall TV season is just getting underway and NBC and CBS are debuting competing series for Monday nights and reviews seem to be favoring Blacklist over Hostages.
CBS' Hostages is trying to follow the success of cable shows by telling a story in only 15 episodes instead of the standard 22, USA Today reports. Though the show will be treading a fine line as it follows similar series with ongoing mysteries that never panned out.
Hostages follows Toni Collette's surgeon who is told to kill the president while he's on her operating table or her family dies.
The Los Angeles Times's Mary McNamara writes that Hostages is ambitious and is gifted with a good cast, but doesn't quite match up with Blacklist. Tension is a problem since it will be hard to believe that Collette's family will be shot "anytime soon."
NBC's Blacklist looks more likely to succeed thanks to James Spader and the more conventionally structured layout, McNamara notes. The show might be able criminal spy turning himself in - though is he really? - but it looks to be following the "case of the week" style.
Spader is "the ace in the hole." She adds, "One look at that face - those knowing eyes half-veiled by drooping lids, that tucked in smirk of a smile split wide with genius mirth - and you're in."
Jessica Rawden of Cinema Blend says of the Spader-led show, that though "the pilot's not the most perfect project," the show avoids trying look like an overblown Hollywood production with its predictable action scenes. They are "all very contained and believable."
Which show will you be checking out?
image: NBC