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UPFRONTS 2013: The Overachievers 
A couple of thoughts on TV from a feature guy. The Kevin Williamson-created Fox series The Following might be the most aggravating but addictive series to come down the pike in some time. Kevin Bacon plays an FBI agent trying to capture a serial killer (James Purefoy) who has accumulated a Manson Family-like group of creepy disciples all too eager to commit unimaginably horrible acts on the killer’s behalf. As if that in itself wasn’t unlikely enough, the killer met all of his acolytes when they visited him in prison. Hasn’t anybody in the FBI thought of checking the visitor list from his days behind bars, rather than waiting and reacting to the latest horror? Can the FBI really be that dumb? That said, I cannot think of a time when I’ve been hooked on so many series, between The Following, Justified, The Walking Dead, House Of Cards, The Americans, Vikings and Blue Bloods, and I just now received the first four episodes of the new season of Game Of Thrones, and have new seasons of Homeland, Sons Of Anarchy and Boardwalk Empire to look forward to. I remember Tony Gilroy telling Deadline in an interview that mid-range dramas like his superb Michael Clayton are becoming extinct in features, and are instead being made as series for basic and pay cable networks by feature guys. As a result, TV has never been stronger while film leaves room for improvement in this department.
And while I’m on the subject of hit TV series, the ruckus raised over the visual similarity between Satan and President Obama in The Bible is ridiculous to me. The actor doesn’t really look like the leader of the free world. But he is a dead ringer for Jackie Brown star Robert Forster. Coincidence?
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LOVE The Following! Best new show of the year! I actually think they mention this exact thing in the pilot. They find the list of everyone that has visited Joe Carroll during his time in prison, but I think they all have congregated in that house, so they have all made themselves pretty much impossible to find. Plus, I think they were using false names.
They did. And they mentioned it last night. All used false names. They are guessing that there might be around 100 followers.
This show is an embarrassement, the kind of turd you shouldn’t have on your resume. Seeing how people take the cringeworthy writing seriously, let alone think it’s the best new show of the year (House of Cards, The Americans, Banshee, Vikings, Top of the Lake, Utopia, Ripper Street, Bates Motel are all better without being masterpieces) is yet another proof that network TV is DEAD.
i didn’t care about the show but my roommate wanted to see the pilot. he has since dropped out but i am still watching.
however, i don’t see what they could do with a second season. joe carroll can’t be elusive forever. it would be way too aggravating.
Of course they can. They can keep letting him escape!
It’s very possible these followers of his that visited him, did so under false names, I’m sure that plot hole will be explored next season or in the coming episodes this season.
They actually have mentioned a few times that “fake names” were used by most of the visitors. But I think that’s the least of The Followings problems.
A bigger problem to me than the haplessness of the FBI, is the lack of charisma and intelligence displayed by the supposedly magnetic serial killer. Passing out bromides and Poe quotes to people, no matter how damaged they are, wouldn’t recruit a soul–Charles Manson would laugh his ass off if he saw this program–and the grand literary project he hopes to accomplish with his killings, so far, have boiled down to this: he’s trying to get his wife and kid back.
Give Satan a pair of glasses and a Los Pollos Hermanos uniform and he’s a dead ringer for Giancarlo Esposito.
I too am unhappy with the stupidity of the FBI in almost all respects. In one episode, they rescue the stabbed FBI agent and fail to disable the only car parked nearby that was used by the “bad guys” as a getaway vehicle. The hero drops his gun when faced with a hostage situation (never would happen) and then grabs a nail gun? They have no plan, not strategy and no brains at all. The tech people cannot figure out their computer system is hacked? The sheriff spends all his time at the cult hideout? They take pictures of visitors to high value inmates! But, it’s well acted and the production values are great. Very frustrating that all these “smart” people have never even tried to out smart the bad guy.
I had precisely the same problems with that episode. Why couldn’t they simply slash the tires, take the keys, or otherwise incapacitate the getaway vehicle . . . just as a precaution (and, ocnsidering that they’ve already been in similar situations where the bad guys got away)?
I am also conflicted because, yes, the acting and production values are strong, but the writing is for shit.
I stopped watching three weeks ago as the show continued to become more and more aggravatingly stupid. When I start screaming at the TV it is time to switch channels. These FBI agents are the 21st Century version of the Keystone Kops! What is scary is how many people think this show is so great when you can see the plot twists coming from miles away yet the characters can’t. Rubbish!
First not everyone in ‘the cult’ visited Carol in prison. They set up a secret secure network on the Internet which he used to communicate with many of them. Second, those who did visit him in prison used fake names. They’ve mentioned several times that they found something like 47 false identities.
They actually mentioned that list in last night’s episode…they found that all 47 names of the people who visited were aliases.
Not sure about how you solve them, but it sure is easy to predict them — just look for the latest minority guest star. They basically cast them just to kill em off. Someone needs to build a montage showing this.
other than kevin bacon it’s just more “models in peril” television. written for and about, non-emotive, botox-saturated, puffy-lipped, near-bolemic 20-something models in the roles of everything from fbi agents to medical examiners and psychologists. no thanks.
Not to be to much of a stickler but the FBI did check the visitor logs for Joe, on like the first or second episode. The majority of them were all aliases. I think it’s funny all the criticisms thrown at the she when most of them are addressed by the series or so nitpicky that they are laughable some are justifiable, where a characters actions seem unrealistic. But many of those are easy to overlook
It’s Dexter light…
I agree the quality of TV has gone up, Nikki, but now it’s already getting to a saturation point.
I’ll be glad when the pendulum swings back the other way and more creative indie features start getting made. I’ll take a well crated movie like Michael Clayton any day over a story stretched like taffy over two or three seasons that really could have only been two hours.
Especially when it’s the crap being shoveled out on ABC, FOX and NBC… it’s hard to even call that stuff drama.
This is the most asinine article ever written.
Um, doesn’t our national security network trace wholesale purchases of merchandise? Check our credit cards? Flag as suspicious any large cash transactions?
Check unusual increases in electricity/water use in a residential home (which would happen as his tribe gathers)? Check missing persons’ reports, from cultists’ families? Dig in through owners of Poe websites (the gateway for cultists)? Check online academic citations for those who mention the serial killer’s work (since he’s so confoundedly concerned with also having a standing in the world of letters, and only his potential cultists would risk shunning by their professors, for doing so)?
And, hey — don’t all these clowns refuse to wear gloves? Isn’t there a way to trace peopl3e through their fingerprints?
*sigh*
… and, for the coup-de-grace, there are no secure Internet networks. There may be obscure ones, but no secure ones, considering what’s Hoovered-up everyday by the agencies. If they wanted to advance their storytelling, they’d approach it through checking the (are they illegal, anymore) wiretaps maintained worldwide — but, that’d be another more compelling conspiracy to compete with.
Where’s Jack Bauer, when we need him — or, is that the Monday nigh on FOX point — to always make us yearn for his civil-rights-stomping tendencies? Even Dr. House didn’t give a fig about privacy, if it got in the way of his self-appointed mission.
Actually, secure networks are alive and well. Just because an agency can come into posession of a message does not mean it can de-cipher it’s content. I would also refer others to discussions of The Tor Network and the “dark-net” that relies on it.
Actually, secure networks are alive and well. Just because an agency comes into possession of a message does not mean it can de-cipher it’s content. I would also refer readers to discussions of Tor and the “dark-net” that relies on it. Using Tor, content can be made openly available while making the source of that content impossible (not virtually impossible – impossible) to track.
And to those who say ‘nitpicking’ — one, for my spelling mistakes, my bad. And two: Any series that presents to me the work of a criminal mastermind and his brilliant proteges, should deliver conspiracies and characters smarter than the average viewer. If it doesn’t, then it’s wasting an opportunity to show why serial killers hold so much psychotronic sway: They get to be the best, at doing their worst.
If their plots are sub-par, intellectually and logically, then they’re more lucky than good — and if we wanted lucky (and, dumb), we could turn to any reality show at that timeslot. Why bother?
What do you expect — it’s Fox.
Enjoyed the pilot script after a really lackluster pilot season but didn’t love the execution or the following episodes.
Kevin Bacon deserves better.
Yes, TV is having it’s moment. So glad studios and networks are giving some smarter programming a chance. (Not everything has to be a CBS procedural!)
This is the stupidest show on TV right now. Kevin Bacon got us in the chairs. Kevin WIlliamson and his pathetically bad writing got us out of them. The stories are embarrassing. The FBI behaving like keystone cops are more embarrassing. This is the stuff of high school film students. Bacon must be crapping his pants knowing this show has no way of sustaining itself. You can only use your acting for so long before there’s no more acting left to save a show like this. Hopefully he’ll make a graceful exit and move on to more worthy material.
That actor who plays the devil looks nothing like Robert Forster and completely like Barack Obama. Hence why it’s causing a ruckus and why this article is pointless. Especially since the very point of the article was disproved on last night’s episode. Try again.
I’m going to see “The Following” through, but I’m getting more and more frustrated with each episode. Aren’t there more than 3 FBI agents available to back up Ryan Hardy as he heads out to confront the cult? On no less than 5 occasions, he’s gone there alone or with one other agent (who hangs back to “check the perimeters”) just so that he can face down the cult alone (and allow them to escape.) These have to be the worst FBI agents in history.
One more fabulous TV show for your addiction pleasure: The Americans on FX. Much better than The Following. A smart show all around with great cast.