The TV Column

Blacklist fans can rejoice as Redemption begins

The Blacklist: Redemption debuts today on NBC and stars Famke Janssen as Susan “Scottie” Hargrave and Ryan Eggold as Tom Keen.
The Blacklist: Redemption debuts today on NBC and stars Famke Janssen as Susan “Scottie” Hargrave and Ryan Eggold as Tom Keen.

The Blacklist: Redemption premieres at 9 p.m. today on NBC. This is the spinoff for which fans of The Blacklist have been waiting.

It follows a new episode of The Blacklist, which is in Season 4 and stars James Spader as former government agent and fugitive Red Reddington.

The Blacklist will then go on hiatus and give up its 9 p.m. time slot to Redemption for eight weeks before returning April 20 with a two-hour episode.

About Redemption, the network synopsis says the series "follows the world's most elusive criminals as they seek redemption for their past transgressions by forming Halcyon Aegis, a private military intelligence team that solves problems governments don't dare touch."

Ace Blacklist undercover operative Tom Keen (Ryan Eggold) joins Halcyon Aegis' chief, Susan "Scottie" Hargrave (Famke Janssen, X-Men film series), as well as Tom's nemesis Matias Solomon (Edi Gathegi, House), "as they aim to be a force for good and right dangerous wrongs."

Other team members include Nez Rowan (Tawny Cypress, Unforgettable) and hacker Dumont (Adrian Martinez, Focus).

Regular viewers have known since Season 3 that Scottie is Tom's mother. Executive producer John Eisendrath told Entertainment Weekly, "Their relationship is one that people in their own lives will be able to relate to."

Terry O'Quinn (Lost) will have a recurring role as Howard Hargrave, Tom's father and founder of Halycon Aegis.

About Redemption compared to Blacklist, Eisendrath added, "Redemption stands on its own. Redemption is a world that is independent of The Blacklist. We feel that it's very important to establish that world and the dynamics of these characters."

In other words, don't expect the two worlds to cross over, although Eisendrath said Tom is "always going to be part of The Blacklist family. He's not leaving The Blacklist with a period; it's more of a comma.

"It is very important to us that Tom Keen's character, who is a young guy, fun, sexy, a great undercover operative, also be someone who is vulnerable and accesses his emotions and is responsible for the things that matter in life," Eisendrath said.

Tonight's episode, "Leland Bray," is rated TV-14 for violence.

Sun Records. The series premieres at 9 p.m. today on CMT following Nashville and tells the dramatic tale of Sam Phillips, his Memphis recording studio and the birth of rock 'n' roll.

The series follows Phillips as he guides the early careers of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins.

My brush with fame: Phillips' son, Knox, was a fraternity brother of mine at Rhodes College (then Southwestern) in Memphis in 1966, but I never met Sam until I happened to run into him on a PBS press tour in Pasadena, Calif., 35 years later. We had a nice 15-minute chat about the good ol' days in the Bluff City.

Sam died a couple of years later.

Sun Records, based on the Tony-winning musical Million Dollar Quartet, is rated TV-14 for language and sexual situations. It stars Chad Michael Murray as Phillips, Drake Milligan as Presley, Kevin Fonteyne as Cash, Christian Lees as Lewis and Dustin Ingram as Perkins.

Billy Gardell (Mike & Molly) plays Presley's manager, Col. Tom Parker.

How to Get Away With Murder. It's a two-episode Season 3 finale for the Viola Davis series. The action begins at 8 p.m. on ABC with "He Made a Terrible Mistake." The episode "Wes" follows at 9.

Fans note that this will only give the season 15 episodes, but Murder was always intended to have fewer episodes than the average series. And the ratings so far have not been mediocre, sometimes almost making it to 5 million viewers, but more often hovering just above 4 million.

The series is the middle third of the Thursday night Shonda Rhimes-created dramafest that includes Grey's Anatomy and Scandal.

Project Runway: Junior. It's the season finale at 8 p.m. today on Lifetime. The surviving teens tweak their collections and show them in front of an audience at The Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Los Angeles. Finally, the winner is chosen.

Lone Star Law: Bigger and Better. Are you a fan of the Animal Planet series Lone Star Law? That's the show that follows Texas game wardens as they bring the hammer down on scofflaw ne'er-do-wells.

Now Animal Planet has reshuffled the deck to squeeze the series for all it's worth. Lone Star Law: Bigger and Better debuts at 9 p.m. today and "goes behind the scenes with insider facts as Texas game wardens patrol the inland waterways and the Gulf of Mexico."

How is that any different? Beats me.

The TV Column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Email: [email protected]

Weekend on 02/23/2017

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