‘The Blacklist’ Renewed For Second Season

NBC has renewed The Blacklist for a second season.

The midseason finale on December 2 drew 12.30 million viewers with a 3.5 rating in the adults 18-49 demographic. That was just slightly down from the series’ premiere, which drew 12.58 million viewers with a 3.8 rating in the 18-49 demo.

“The success of ‘The Blacklist’ demonstrates that inspired storytelling is alive and well in broadcast television, and I’m impressed on a daily basis by this creative team’s imagination and the extent to which they will go to capture this grand vision on film,” NBC Entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt said in a statement.

“With gratitude to both our partners at Sony Pictures Television and our NBC development executives who took a great script and shepherded it into a great series, I hope that Red Reddington never runs out of names to bring down on his list,” he added.

The Blacklist star James Spader as Raymond “Red” Reddington, one of the FBI’s most wanted fugitives. Red surrenders at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., and teams with rookie profiler Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone) to “neutralize” dangerous criminals whose existence the feds are unaware of. Elizabeth has no idea why Red has taken such a special interest in her, but he tells her it has something to do with her missing father.

The series also stars Diego Klattenhoff as FBI Special Agent Donald Ressler, Ryan Eggold as Tom Keen, Elizabeth’s husband, Harry Lennix as Harold Cooper, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI Counterterrorism Division, and Parminder Nagra as CIA field agent Meera Malik.

NBC picked up The Blacklist for a full 22-episode first season in October.

“The many layers of Red Reddington and his mysterious reasons for getting into bed with the FBI seem to be fascinating to fans of this show,” NBC Entertainment president Jennifer Salke said at the time.

Salke continued, “With great talent like James Spader and Megan Boone on board, as well our stellar executive producers and the whole cast and crew, we believe this outstanding series will continue to make NBC a big destination on Monday nights.

The Blacklist airs Mondays at 10 pm on NBC. The series returns January 13, 2014.