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3 New “DC” Shows Coming to Network Television

Dermot Mulroney, James Spader, and Toni Collette star in upcoming Washington-set dramas.

Dermot Mulroney hides his hotness under bookish glasses in Crisis. Photograph courtesy of NBC.

It’s that time of year again, in which we trawl through the wreckage of pilot season
to analyze which shows live (Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), which have died (CBS shockingly passed on a TV version of
Beverly Hills Cop about Axel Foley’s son), and which will set themselves in “Washington” in the loosest
and most liberal way imaginable.

The good news? Three new network dramas are Washington-set. The bad? Two of them are
on NBC, which last came to Washington with the short-lived follow-up to John Grisham’s

The Firm.
Here’s a cheat sheet for which shows might be worth watching, and who to look out
for.


The Blacklist

Airs: It’s on NBC’s fall lineup for Mondays at 10.

Buzz: Deadline called
it

“NBC’s hottest drama pilot,” hence the A+ timeslot.

Stars: James Spader, Megan Boone, and Diego Klattenhoff, also known as
Homeland’s Mike Faber

Premise: Spader plays the shadowy, Hannibal Lecter-like crime boss Raymond “Red” Reddington
(the name is the only apparent similarity to Rayful “Ray” Edmond,
the man who introduced DC to crack), who suddenly and apparently needlessly turns
himself in to the FBI. His only request is that he gets to team up with recent Quantico
grad and rookie FBI agent Liz Keen to help her thwart all the wrongdoers he’s compiled
on a “black list” (hence the name).

Trailer:
Looks all kinds of hokey. James
Spader is as enigmatic as ever but also seems to be aging into
Jeff
Perry
,
for one thing, and Clarice Starling is a hard act for anyone to
follow. Plus NBC puts
the FBI headquarters in a DC skyscraper, which is always
irritating, and a Russian
bad guy kidnaps a general’s daughter, which is so 1980s.

Filmed: Here for one or two scenes at least, says Reddit, and the obligatory monument/reflecting
pool shots would seem to suggest so.
Otherwise, New York.

Score: 5/10


Crisis

Airs: It’s on NBC’s midseason schedule for Sundays at 10.

Buzz: “We think [NBC’s] decision to pick up Rand Ravich’s conspiracy drama might be
a good one!” said the Tiresias of our time, also known as Perez Hilton, who also decided
the show “sounds a bit like
Scandal.”

Stars: Dermot Mulroney, Gillian Anderson, Lance Gross, Rachael Taylor

Premise: The children of Washington’s elite, who all attend the same high school [cough
*SidwellFriends* cough], are on a school bus driving down a secluded road when they’re
ambushed and kidnapped by a shadowy mastermind who wants to “bring the most powerful
people in the world to their knees.” Dermot Mulroney wears glasses and a V-neck sweater,
so I’m assuming he’s a teacher. Anderson plays “Meg Fitch,” while Taylor and Gross
are FBI agents.

Trailer: None

Filmed: Probably not here, until they need a shot of someone fleeing from criminals
with bombs on the Mall (this and the tourists is why running here is such a pain).
Otherwise, Chicago.

Score: 6/10, with three points each for Mulroney and Anderson and zero for premise.


Hostages

Airs: On CBS, although no word on when.

Buzz: “The concept is based on an unproduced Israeli format,” raves the Huffington
Post
.

Stars: Toni Collette, Dylan McDermott (who is frequently confused with Dermot Mulroney
but never by anyone with a true appreciation of the latter’s short-lived stint as
Gavin on
Friends), Tate Donovan (also on
Friends, immortalized in
The OC).

Premise: Collette is Ellen, a Washington surgeon whose
family is kidnapped (yawn)
when she’s selected to operate on the President. Donovan plays
her husband, Brian,
who has money problems and is hiding them from his wife, just
like Jimmy Cooper.
Dylan McDermott plays (you’ve guessed it) an FBI agent (double
yawn).

Filmed: In New York.

Score: 6/10, but only because Jerry Bruckheimer is a producer, and he is a national
treasure.

Not impressed? There’s always season three of
Homeland, which returns September 29, although maybe without Mike Faber. (Poor Dana will never
get the father figure she so obviously yearns for.)