SERIES RETURN: Part 1 of 2. The post-Super Bowl slot used to be the perfect slot for a network with rights to the big game that year to launch a new series. The past few years, it’s been employed instead as the perfect place to re-launch a series, and gain a huge, previously untapped audience sampling. Tonight NBC’s The Blacklist gets that honor, and relaunches its winter season with a two-part episode – which means it’s teasing new viewers with a cliffhanger, hoping they’ll follow as the show moves to its new night on Thursdays. James Spader stars as Red Reddington, an FBI most-wanted fugitive who’s actually working, in top secret, with an FBI task force. Tonight’s plot makes that clear for new viewers, but also muddies the waters, because Red is captured by an FBI operative who knows nothing about Red’s undercover status. That operative, by the way, is played by guest star Ron Perlman (pictured), returning to TV after Sons of Anarchy.