TV Madness: ‘The Flash’ faces off with ‘The Blacklist’

Welcome to TV Madness! If you missed our first post on this ongoing series yesterday, what we’re going to be doing throughout the month of March is featuring some basketball tournament-style battles between some CarterMatt favorites, which you can vote on to your heart’s content until the poll closing times. (We’ve made them all clear above; for the first round, voting ends on March 10.) Just to make this separate from so many other poll-based articles that are out there, we’re also going to give you at least a few teasers / refreshers as to what’s going on with some of the shows taking part.

In your classic basketball tournament showdowns between the 4 and 5 seeds are often fascinating to watch, since by and large they’re considered to be evenly matched. There’s no real Cinderella, and it’s hard to predict a winner in advance. That’s where we are coming from leading into this showdown between “The Flash” on The CW and NBC’s “The Blacklist.”

“The Flash” (4) – It’s quick, it’s bold, and it may be the most entertaining comic-book show on the air right now. Its fans are passionate, and in a rare move for The CW, it’s not always just about the ‘shipping. There’s a lot of other things to like about this show right now.

While “The Flash” won’t be back until March 22, be prepared at that point to see a showdown like no other between The Flash and Zoom before the end of the season. Also, Trajectory will serve as the main adversary in the March 22 episode, and there’s the much-hyped crossover where Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) is going to spend a week playing in the world of “Supergirl.” Expect a few interesting wrinkles to how that comes about.

“The Blacklist” (5) – It’s a fan favorite around these parts, even though the recent batch of episodes has been somewhat polarizing in between Liz Keen’s pregnancy and what is going on with her and Tom. For those out there hoping to see this conflict involving the two of them and Red come to a head, you better believe that is going to hit you in a big way when the show returns in April. At first, it may seem like a wedding is on the horizon, but how much really happens in this world quite like you would expect? Part of what makes this show great is the unstable element of it, and the willingness of the writers to routinely shake up conventions and ideas for what you would expect from a crime show.

(Photo: NBC)