Watched the pilot on Hulu because, well, Kevin Bacon. And obviously I needed a bloody, disturbing and gross serial killer show in my life, which has been empty for the last 14 years since Millenium was canceled. The show opens with the guitar from Marilyn Manson’s cover of Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This), which kind of tells you everything you need to know about the tone.
Kevin Bacon was appropriately Kevin Bacon throughout the entire first episode, so I guess I’ll stick with him and see where it goes. James Purefoy (as Dr. Joe Carroll) was appropriately gross and creepy as the villain. And why is it that every single time in a cop show someone says, “You’ll want to see this,” I immediately know that no, no we will not. Ever.
The concept for the show has potential to be interesting, since it’s basically Dr. Carroll the world’s most evil and Poe-obsessed literature professor convincing his weird following of – serial killer fans, I guess? – nutty people to kill for him from prison. I’m expecting a lot of bad technobabble to explain how this will all work, though if they continue to give him access to the internet in the successive episodes they’d better have a damn good reason.
At this point, though, I’m really just expecting it to be a lot of hapless and good-looking young women (mostly blonde) getting messily killed every week by awful people while Kevin Bacon is deeply wounded yet sternly Kevin Bacon at them and there are occasional hat tips to Edgar Allen Poe to prove the script writers did pay attention in their English lit class.
Prove me wrong, The Following. I dare you. Be more interesting and give me a reason to keep watching other than the unutterable Kevin Bacon-ness of Kevin Bacon.