10 Awesome Performances Trapped In TERRIBLE TV Shows

You might not have been aware, but the James Spader-starring crime thriller series The Blacklist is still going, with its tenth season set to air early next year.

Yet try and find a review for the show that doesn't mention how this dead-ordinary procedural series is held aloft sorely by the sheer acting gravitas of James Spader, who plays protagonist Raymond "Red" Reddington.

Though it was entertainingly pulpy for a season or two, the ratings soon enough began to nosedive amid declining interest, and by the time it reached season five, even most TV critics had given up bothering to review it.

A show with writing this campy-yet-labyrinthine isn't really conducive to a long tenure, and so with almost 200 episodes to its name, The Blacklist has become increasingly tough to give much of a damn about.

It's jumped the shark several times over the years, and has nothing left to offer in the way of genuinely compelling mysteries.

But Spader is a class act who gives it his all each and every week, even if it's easy to lament that he's spent so much of his career working on something so utterly undeserving of his talents.