The Following debuted last night to many open-jawed, eyes covered, creeped out viewers. To recap, Kevin Bacon plays Ryan Hardy, an elite ex-FBI agent taken out of retirement after a diabolical serial killer, Joe Carroll (James Purefoy) escapes from prison. By the end of the episode, Carroll is caught and hauled back to prison but not before he kills his only surviving victim from nine years ago, reveals his cult of killer followers, and aids in the kidnapping of his own son.
But was it good? Find out after the jump!
To say the episode was intense is an understatement. The blood, gore and violence is not something that’s been common with network television in the past. Now that they are competing with big budget, no holds barred shows on cable television leads like HBO and Showtime, it was bound to happen eventually. Where similar genre series Criminal Minds will happily show you dead bodies and allude to the horrible things that happened to that person, The Following will show you a disturbingly bloody, graphic, close up of all the horrible things that happened to that person.
Bacon and Purefoy are easily the shows biggest assets. Their acting was superb which helps distract you from some of the obvious plot holes (really? a kid can go missing with that many cops around??). For fans of 24, you may see the similarities of plot twists and “no one can be trusted” paranoia but instead of terrorists, we’re dealing with serial killers. Overall, I recommend the show specifically for the intensity and the performances from Bacon and Purefoy. Just make sure you watch it with the lights on!
The pilot of The Following drew in 10.4 million viewers last night and has doubled the ratings versus the most recent debut on Fox, The Mob Doctor which only brought in 5.1 million viewers.
Editor’s Note: Amanda and I were going to do a joint review, but she really nailed this on the head, from the actors to the very obvious plot holes, a few of which I’m not completely forgiving of. However, Kevin Bacon is a great actor, and I’m excited to see where his character goes from here. The Following has at least two viewers that will be tuning in next Monday.
I wasn’t blown away by it. While it’s great to see a couple of solid character actors like Bacon and Purefoy go head to head, I felt the show was just plain boring. The reason that shows on cable networks that are adult oriented and graphic are successful is because they are shows that contain strong character driven stories that are occasionally punctuated by violence. Fox seems to have gotten that formula backwards. I’ll give it a chance to pull it’s act together, but if a show like that doesn’t have a strong pilot I’m not going to hold out much hope for the rest of the season. I hope they prove me wrong, but in the meantime I think everyone’s time would be better spent watching a double feature of “Se7en” and “The Silence of the Lambs”.