Hollywood Q&A

Q: Do you know when the next series of “The Blacklist” will be airing? Also do you think this will be the last season? It’s kind of lost its edge for me.

A: “The Blacklist” returns from its winter hiatus in March, but what happens after that, we don’t know.

There’s been no word yet on a renewal for what would be the show’s eighth season. We don’t even know for sure how long the current season will be.

The seventh-season renewal came last March, but there was no official release of an episode count. Given that the midseason break came after the 10th episode, it seems likely the show will get a full order (that is, 22 episodes), as it has since its beginning back in 2013.

However, your question raises the specter that always stalks shows at around this point in their lifespans: fan fatigue. The show has aired nearly 150 episodes, with so many twists, turns and rug pulls along the way that there’s always a chance fans will either stop caring about the central mystery or give up hope that they’ll get an answer. In a serialized story like this one, that’s the kiss of death.

On “The Blacklist,” the central mystery is the true identity of Raymond Reddington (played by James Spader). The show’s writers have been surprisingly honest in saying that fans shouldn’t expect to find out anytime soon.

“Are we going to answer it immediately? Absolutely not,” creator Jon Bokenkamp said in an interview with The Wrap. Executive producer and writer John Eisendrath hinted at the show’s plans for that reveal but wasn’t any more precise about it. “I think it’s safe to say you’ll get an answer as to who Raymond Reddington is whenever NBC tells us we will be ending the series.”

Q: The theme song for “Hotel Hell” seems to ring a bell. Was it written just for the series?

A: “Hotel Hell,” the umpteenth reality show based around celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay fixing other people’s problems, gets a lot of guff for its “weird” and “cheesy” theme song. One TV writer pointed out that “it seems like every word that ends with an -el or -ell sound was used in the lyrics of this song,” and another simply called it the “worst theme song ever.” It would be pretty awkward if this all gets back to Australian glam-rock band Skyhooks, because they’re the ones who released it back in 1978, as a serious song. Skyhooks were a major pop phenomenon in Australia. The song is (not surprisingly) also titled “Hotel Hell” and was released on the band’s fifth album, “Guilty Until Proven Insane.” Australian music journalist and historian Ian McFarlane called it their “classic” album and listed “Hotel Hell” as one of its best tracks, thanks to its exploration of “themes of alienation” and its “blistering hard rock firepower.”

All that is to say that context is everything: Skyhooks’ “Hotel Hell” works as a glam-rock song, but it doesn’t necessarily work as a TV theme.

Q: Is Capt. Jack ever coming back to “Doctor Who”?

A: There are certainly no plans to bring back Capt. Jack. But if we were to move into the realm of speculation (and if you can’t do it for “Doctor Who,” when can you?) things look somewhat promising. Capt. Jack Harkness, played by John Barrowman, popped up frequently in the early seasons of the “Doctor Who” revival and also starred in his own spinoff series, “Torchwood,” which ran from 2006 to 2011. And “Torchwood” was created and written by Chris Chibnall, who now happens to be “Doctor Who’s” new showrunner. Barrowman is hopeful that this means a return of Capt. Jack, either on “Doctor Who” or on a revival of “Torchwood.” “Chris is the one who can make the decision, because it’s always the decision of the showrunner of ‘Doctor Who,’” Barrowman told Radio Times magazine.

But there’s bad news, too. In the premiere of the most recent season [spoiler alert], the Doctor was told that Torchwood and the related Unified Intelligence Taskforce (UNIT) had been disbanded.

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