The Following

While the Scandinavians and even the Argentinians have already shown that they can make the “serial killer playing with the police" concept work in TV series form, the Americans (or Williamson, specifically) are yet to succeed. And the devil knows if they'll ever manage to do it in this series, given the concept; and by the way, the genre, as it happens to be overly polished. The visuals, the characters, and… actually everything, but above all the atmosphere. An average, run-of-the-mill TV show that is pretending to be something that it is (so far) nowhere near. (23/01/2013)

Pilot: It looks like a fairly well cast thrilleroid series with a weird, perverse and unarguably unlikely (even though Yankees can be real maniacs) plot about serial killer fans (Hi there, Dexi ;-) ). Poe is rather overused inspiration, but for the pilot it suffices. I hope that Bacon starts to drink more, if there’s not much action, a broken heart is annoying. So far, Purefoy isn’t chilling enough, but he didn’t get much room. We’ll see, so far I’m quite hooked, but it’d better get better soon. Season one: A twisted game with the viewer and his taste? The first half is stupidly refined and Joe and his little sect are quite entertaining. Then they start trying to finish writing the book themselves and that’s where everything starts to fall apart. What’s with the attempt at literary cliché and screenwriter’s cliché? Where is it Joe’s fault and where is the screenwriter at fault? The whole thing goes unpleasantly against the genre by copying it. At the end Purefoy is a completely different person from the one who says at the beginning... “It’s too soon for me to kill you". At the end, pacemaker or no pacemaker, Bacon jumps into the shoes of Jack Bauer just to look like a complete idiot at the end. This ending is a dirty trick on the viewer, who wanted to part company with this serial after the first season, but now I don’t know what to do. I suppose I’ll take a look at season two, at least one episode. (23/01/2013)

I have mixed feelings about this series. The premise is perfect and decently developed in the first and second season. The main villain is played by James Purefoy, which was a great choice, just like the casting of Kevin Bacon. But it’s beyond me why the first season makes every FBI agent or policeman come off as an unintelligent ignoramus. Another problem for me were the constant flashbacks. After a while, I thought I was going to see Agent Hardy making toast in 1986. The second season felt more balanced if it hadn't been for the terribly handled ending. The third season was a downright disappointment. The writers seemed to have taken the best of the first and second seasons and added everything they could think of. The density of serial killers per hectare was abnormal, as well as the amount of sappy clichéd dialogue. (09/08/2016)