• by Les Luchter , Staff Writer, November 9, 2018

Two weeks ago, I was ready to admit my blind spots when it came to NBC’s Friday night drama, “Blindspot.” 

I had always looked past the preposterous overall plot of this FBI-based action drama, realizing that shows of this type need to come up with one potential end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it arc after another. 

And although the initial point of the series was deciphering the clues embedded in the many tattoos on Jane Doe’s (Jaimie Alexander’s) body, I soon tired of the convoluted ways those puzzles would be solved week after week.  

What kept me watching were the show’s engaging characters and individual weekly cases -- which, more often than not, were of movie-thriller quality.

But, in the third episode of its fourth season, titled “The Quantico Affair,” I thought “Blindspot” had jumped the shark.

Midway through the episode, I saw evidence that the show's writers had lost their grip on New York City reality. First, we hear Agent Weller (Sullivan Stapleton) calling in to headquarters that he’s on “the turnpike” to Coney Island. Sorry, writers, we don’t have turnpikes in Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Queens Expressway is a parkway! (The “E” in BQE? Fuhgettaboutit it!) 

Then, the climactic scenes take place on a subway train, but Weller says this team is searching compartment by compartment, as if this is “Murder on the Orient Express.” We call them subway cars in the Big Apple!

As if those miscues aren’t bad enough, the action aboard the subway train is literally “phoned in.” It felt as if I were like listening to an old-time-radio drama! 

Apparently, this season’s production budget that would have allowed visuals of the train action was spent instead on location shooting in such overseas locales as Amsterdam.

Prepared to say adieu to ‘Blindspot,” I watched last week’s episode, titled “Sous-Vide.”

And voila, the old “Blindspot” was back. The action was tense, sharp and on point.

My two favorite characters -- Ashley Johnson as the super-smart Patterson (whose first name has never been revealed) and Ennis Esmer as the wisecracking Rich Dotcom (both pictured above)  -- were in fine form, with Patterson of course solving the case and Rich explaining “Friends” to a non-viewer: “And then Ross goes, “We were on a break!”…David Schwimmer, you want to hate him, but you can’t because he’s so good.”

The episode ended with Jane’s intensely annoying brother, Roman (Luke Mitchell), who was killed off last season but brought back this year as a character in his sister’s head, possibly gone for good.  

I know that isn't likely to happen, but I’ll keep watching anyway, if only to see which ”Blindspot” will show up tonight.