Five things THE FOLLOWING needs to fix

Remember a few weeks ago when I noted my concern about The Following becoming a one-tricky pony?  It's safe to say those fears haven't abated in the ensuing weeks.  If anything, they've grown.  Considering this was one of my favorite pilots from this season, I'm quite dismayed and concerned.

This is my list of things that need to be fixed immediately:

The sheer preponderance of cult members. I touched on this a bit in my earlier entry, noting that the show kept trying to shock the audience by revealing each episode that a character we thought we trusted was actually "one of them."  While the scripts have dialed back on using that as an episode's climactic twist, every episode we're meeting more and more cult members.  This most recent episode not only introduced a small-town cop who was basically a charter member of Carroll's cult, but it revealed he's been recruiting others to "the cause."  At this point, serial killer Joe Carroll probably has more devoted followers than Community.  (And they're probably slightly less zealous than Dan Harmon fans in trying to recruit others to the cause.)  Why is this so crazy? Because....

The cult members are poorly motivated.  I don't understand why anyone would be so devoted to Carroll.  He's handsome and he has an accent.  In some circles, that passes for seductive, and why not, let's spot him a few impressionable co-eds who passed the time in his class on Edgar Allen Poe by writing "Mrs. Joe Carroll" in their notebooks.  But falling for someone and killing for them are two entirely different things.  Not to mention we've seen a lot of male cult members who likely aren't there for Carroll's dashing good looks.

This might be what disappoints me most about the show because when the series started, I really was interested in hearing what creator Kevin Williamson had to say about the psychology of serial killers.  This is the guy who wrote the line "Movies don't create psychos! Movies make psychos more creative" in Scream.  Considering the meta nature of the premise, I was eager to see Williamson explore this territory in more depth.  Eight episodes in, I'm starting to doubt that we'll get much below the surface.  This also leads to my next point, which is...

Joe isn't as compelling as the shows wants us to believe he is.  Despite the best efforts of James Purefoy, Joe isn't especially charismatic, nor does he seem to be espousing any kind of philosophy that I buy as reaching these lost people and convincing them to hand over all agency.  I'm sure there are people out there with lurid, perhaps unhealthy fascinations with serial killers, but to date, I haven't seen anything that really shows me Carroll is capable of weaving a spell that completely overtakes one's moral code.  I buy him converting one or two damaged people and reshaping their psyches.  But as the cult membership gets larger and larger, I'm less willing to cut slack on that particular point.


The FBI is deeply stupid.  We've been shown that just about every cult member Carroll personally groomed (not an insubstantial number) paid him a visit in jail, right?  So why have the FBI not combed the visitor's logs and detained everyone who saw Carroll until they can clear those people?  I think some lip service was paid to this in the pilot, but it's ridiculous that half a season in, the show is still bringing in Carroll's visitors and playing it like the FBI doesn't have them on their radar.

Last week, Carroll contrived a prison transfer.  As soon as this was announced, every viewer knew this was going to end with Carroll's escape, and had it been done right it could have been as thrilling as Hannibal Lector's escape in Silence of the Lambs.  Instead, the show merely revealed that Carroll's people had the warden's daughter kidnapped and forced him to facilitate an escape.  It was far too easy.  Given how resourceful Carroll had been up to that point, I don't buy that there weren't double or triple redundant security procedures.

Time and time again, Carroll's plans only seem to succeed because the good guys are stupid and the bad guys have the deck stacked in their favor.  It's too easy for the cult, so no victory feels earned.  Instead, it's contrived.

The show needs to reign in the bouts of pretension.  One of this week's final scenes was so overwrought that it was ridiculous.  A cult member believes he's failed Carroll, so he hands Joe a blade and essentially puts his life in Joe's hands. And well, observe....


There's a lot I could say about this scene.  However, I'm a big fan of Williamson's other work, so I'll reign in the adjectives that would ensure I'll never get a meeting with the man.  I'll just say that I hope this was an anomaly.  Every writer has an off-day, no one bats a thousand.  I genuinely hope that this isn't a signpost of what to expect from the show.

There are still seven episodes left in this season and the show's already been picked up for season two.  I plan on sticking through the rest of this season at least, with my fingers crossed that the remaining episodes right the ship.  The Vampire Diaries got off to a rocky start in its first half-dozen episodes before finding its voice and improving in a major way.  I've still got faith that Williamson can work the same magic here.

THE FOLLOWING and the perils of too much of the same surprise

I raved about the pilot for The Following when I got an advanced peek at it last summer and it's safe to say I was eager to see what came next when the series debuted.  The hook of the show is that Kevin Bacon plays a former FBI agent called in to help with a manhunt when the serial killer he put behind bars a decade ago escapes.  Though the killer - played by James Purefoy - is captured by the end of the pilot, it's soon revealed that he's got a devoted cult of followers - all of whom are eager to do his bidding and kill in his name.

The pilot made use of the "this guy's one of THEM" shock twist at least three times, and initially, that was a great way to set the audience on edge.  We've met seemingly normal people who end up being part of a ridiculously over-coordinated plot to serve the killer's bidding, so going into future episodes, we might be wise to not trust anyone.

That's a knife that cuts both ways, though.

At this point, just three episodes in, the script has pulled that "HA HA, they're part of the cult" trick so many times that I have stopped investing in any of the characters.  There was a scene at the end of the second episode where the FBI agent played by Anna Parisse delivered a book to Purefoy, and the camera lingered an insanely long amount of time on a gaze they shared.  Blind viewers would have been able to pick up the implication, "Everybody got that? This ambiguous gaze means that... SHE COULD BE ONE OF THEM!"

The third episode featured a subplot where we meet a woman whose husband killed a critic on Purefoy's behalf. Already attuned to the fact that the first two episodes got their jollies by revealing that the person we least suspect was "in on it." I immediately guessed... well.. she was in on it.

And I was right.  The way things played out, the show wasn't banking on me guessing that ahead of time, though.

It's going to be hard watching the show going forward because if history holds, at least once an episode the show is going to try get us all to fall in the same trapdoor again. And since we all KNOW that trapdoor is there, the easy way to avoid it is not step on it, i.e., don't invest in any of the characters.

Boy, that was a tortured metaphor.  My point is, when I go to a magic show, I want to get involved in the spectacle. I don't want to see ten variations on the "saw-the-lady-in-half" gag because by the third time I'll have moved on from "pretty cool" to "ah, I think I see how this is done."  I'm hyper-aware of how the show is trying to shock me and because of that, I'm not engaged with the show.

This doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't try to surprise an audience frequently.  Williamson's other series The Vampire Diaries has done a fairly strong job of advancing the story week-to-week and providing a variety of shocking twists at a fairly frequent pace. The difference there is that there are a variety of twists.  The show doesn't just rely on the "This character isn't what they seem" reveal, and often when it has deployed that trick, it's built it up over several weeks and been layered in in such a way that that twist isn't the sum total of the character's value.

But you can't go to the same maneuver and keep the audience engaged.  (Which is not to say that Vampire Diaries is totally immune to this. The Klaus character has stuck around at least a season past his sell-by date when it would have been more powerful to off him for good last season.) It's inevitable at some point that a member of the FBI team will be revealed to be playing for Purefoy's team.  I'm just bummed that when it happens, I won't be floored by it because the show insisted on calling that shot almost from the beginning, like Babe Ruth point to the bleachers.

I'm gonna stick with the show in the hopes that this gimmick is moderated over the course of the season.  I understand it takes some shows a while to find their voice - but I really hope that tonight's episode of The Following can surprise me without once giving a shocking reveal that... s/he's one of them!

Pilot sneak peeks: A great premise is no excuse to cut corners on characters

After you've been in L.A. for a few years, you come to anticipate one of the perks of working in the business: getting to see all the network pilots months before they premiere.  For some actors and writers, this is a process marked by envy.  (i.e. "How could they order this script/cast THIS actor and not order/cast mine/me?!")  I've vowed to make this tour as much of a learning experience as possible.

Because it's not unusual for pilots to be retooled, partially reshot or even recast after they're ordered, I'm not going to offer any in-depth thoughts, nor am I going to name any of the pilots that suc---  I mean, that aren't going to find themselves on my DVR this fall.

I will offer that the two efforts I've given A's to are ABC's Last Resort and FOX's The Following.  Last Resort is the story of a submarine crew that defies orders to open fire on Pakistan and then takes over a neutral island, declaring themselves a nuclear power.  It's a solid script from Shawn Ryan and Karl Gajdusek, with feature film quality production values and directing from Martin Campbell.  The cast, headed by Andre Braugher, is solid.  This is efficient storytelling at it's best.  When this pilot was over, I wanted to see what happened next and I couldn't wait to spend time with these characters.

Important lesson here: as plot driven as this first hour is, the characters all have depth and strong dynamics with each other.  All of the actors slip into these roles as if they've been inhabiting those characters for years and it's a reminder that a truly great show isn't just about a great hook or premise; it's about populating it with characters who make the most of that premise.

In other words, being plot-driven isn't an excuse to be lazy.

The Following also has a killer hook.  A notorious serial killer escapes from prison and the retired FBI Agent who brought him in many years ago is recruited as a consultant.  Before long, it's clear that the killer has help from a full cult of followers who've admired his work for years.  Kevin Williamson's script is slick, and frankly, probably more along the lines of what networks expected him to pitch back in 1997 instead of Dawson's Creek.

Williamson's ace-in-the-hole is Kevin Bacon as the lead FBI Agent.  But one doesn't get a movie star like that unless he's got a compelling character to play.  I don't want to say too much, but Bacon's character is haunted by his past mistakes and the pilot makes it clear that while the manhunt for the killer is the show's engine, it's Bacon who'll lure back an audience week-after-week.  There are probably a half-dozen shows featuring FBI agents and/or cops hunting psychopaths, but The Following is no procedural.

Most of the stronger pilots I've watched are all driven by strong characters.  No matter how high the concept, a television series needs distinct residents populating that world week after week once the initial rush of the premise wears off.  The Office thrived because of Michael Scott and his ensemble, The Vampire Diaries gets much of its dramatic tension from the Stefan/Damon dichotomy and the Stefan/Elena/Damon triangle; and where would Revenge be without the damaged Emily Thorne driving events?

When you write a movie, sometimes you can use high concept as a crutch.  TV is less forgiving, and nothing makes you more aware of the importance of strong characters than watching 15 pilots in a short span.