“The Following” (8 p.m. Central Mondays on Fox) has all the makings of a hit: Kevin Bacon in his first lead TV role, TV super-producer Kevin Williamson at the helm, a ton of hype, and a 15-weeks-in-a-row commitment from the network.
Just one problem: “The Following” is rather awful. That doesn’t necessarily preclude it from becoming a hit, but I for one will certainly be dropping this dud from my DVR after one episode, and it’s hard to imagine anyone being hooked by it.
Bacon plays Ryan Hardy, the stereotypical cop who caught a serial killer but is still haunted by the horrors of the killings, even after trying to get it out of his system with a bestselling true-crime book. In the pilot episode, the killer, Joe Carroll (James Purefoy), escapes from prison, and Hardy — now an alcoholic, in addition to dealing with having a pacemaker from an injury on the Carroll case — is pulled back onto the hunt. And if you forget that he’s still haunted, the vodka-in-a-water-bottle, sleepy-eyed look and general distractedness on the job are helpful reminders.
Neither Bacon nor Purefoy seems engaged with this material, as if they’re both surprised by how thin it is. It’s not for lack of clichés being thrown at the screen –Carroll has copy-cat followers, one intended victim (“Lost’s” Maggie Grace) is still out there, words are scrawled on the wall in blood — but it doesn’t jell into anything fresh. Even the extreme violence — one follower, with Edgar Allen Poe lines written all over her body, strips down in front of a crowd and stabs herself in the eye — is somehow cold and expected.
I’m just as surprised and disappointed as Bacon and Purefoy seem to be. Williamson’s resume is impressive: 1996’s “Scream” was so good that he got noticed as a writer in a director’s medium. “Dawson’s Creek” (1998-2003) was his small-screen masterpiece, and he’s done good TV work since then, including the launchings of “The Vampire Diaries” (2009-present) and “The Secret Circle” (2011-12), and the mystery-that-never-got-completed “Hidden Palms” (2007).
Canceled after eight episodes, “Hidden Palms” was no masterpiece, but it was a compelling start to a mystery with decent characters and a nice sense of place. “The Following” doesn’t even have that much. The “clues” — to use the term very loosely — consist of ridiculous leaps of logic and absurdly convenient timing. For example, someone tells Hardy that Carroll’s novel was an attempt to complete Poe’s unfinished final manuscript. “Of course! Unfinished business!” Hardy thinks, and he’s off to the home of the victim who escaped the first murder spree.
In a broader sense, Carroll — the lit-teacher-turned-killer — doesn’t ring true; neither Purefoy nor Williamson gives him any sense of instability or strangeness. It’s all played straight, giving the character an empty falseness. Carroll’s apparently brainwashed followers are even less believable.
Since this is at least a 15-episode series, layers will no doubt be added as “The Following” moves forward. Maybe viewers will get better explanations of why the serial killer has a loyal following. After such a bland and uninspired pilot episode, though, I won’t be among those viewers.
