The way of the knife: Fox's The Following

Any regular follower of this blog knows I'm a bit of a binge TV watcher. My Netflix subscription is mostly used by my daughter in watching Spiderman, My Little Pony or Barbie. She's on a Mulan kick right now.
I don't have time for Netflix and the movies are really out of date. BUT -- when I'm off recovering from foot surgery (like last spring) -- I become a bit of a Netflix junkie with its TV offerings. (I am still way behind on AMC's Breaking Bad and Showtime's Dexter because I am watching those with the hubbie, but alas, I only have so much time.)
I finally got caught up on PBS's Sherlock Holmes and now record the current season. While season one and two were great, season three has a lot of fast-forward moments. Dr. John Watson's wedding was just so boring I skipped through most of the episode. Or it was interesting and the fact that I am recovering from foot surgery, the flu and some bizarre week of terrible headaches could have tainted my viewing attitude.
Anyway on to the main topic The Following. I am a Kevin Bacon fan in that I think he does well in choosing good roles to play. If you look through his acting history, he has good taste. Also to his credit he's married to Kyra Sedgwick, the star of TNT's The Closer, a kick ass show that never failed to entertain.

So, I did not watch The Following until last week. I binged on season one and two over the past five days. I had flashbacks to The Vampire Diaries, but I'll explain in a minute.
The show is pretty dark, loves knives and is kind of twisty-turnie in its plot. I think season one could have been abbreviated to eight or nine episodes, down from 15, because it got really repetitive and a bit formulaic. The problem with binge watching is you see everything up close and don't have the advantage of short term memory loss between episodes.
So to sum up season one, in practically every episode a good guy was kidnapped and a bad guy got killed. The bad guys multiplied faster than rabbits so they never ran out of evils, but the number of scenarios where Ryan or Claire or Joey were facing either rescue or peril was ludicrous. It really got kind of silly after a while a nd to a point where I just knew no one significant was going to die -- of course until the end.

Also in almost every episode, especially near the end of season one, there was a dark scene where Ryan or Mike or Debra, or all three in one case, are in a deserted house/abandoned armory/empty hotel under construction -- you fill in your location -- searching for bad guys by themselves, off book, and get caught/knocked out/taken hostage/beat up etc. I started to see flashbacks to season one while watching season two because they are using the same type of setup. It's dark. The protagonist is alone. They are knocked out by the bad guy and the bad guy/girl gets away. These guys really need new foils.
That takes us to the Vampire Diaries. I binge watched about five seasons of that show about 18 months ago and it was the same kind of scenario. Actually, I'm going to venture to say the Vampire Diaries was more thrilling in the first three seasons because the show wasn't afraid to actually kill cast members. See my old review on that mark. At the same time the central characters constantly faced danger/near death weekly that it became a bit absurd.

Which brings us to Kevin Williamson, who is the creator and writer of both shows. I only seem to think of Dawon's Creek when his name comes up, which is strange because I recently checked out his writing history and about 90 per cent of the work he's done is horror/thrillers not teenage dramas. He's of Scream fame, which has to be the movie that gave horror a resurgence when it opened with its over the top horror/gore. I think Williamson was making fun of the genre and I think he does that with The Following and did that with the Vampire Diaries, I don't think he writes for the show any more.

OK. Enough Williamson blather. I see a lot of similarities in these two series. Vampires suck blood in a gory fashion, Joe's followers love to carve up victims with knives. These two series are full of blood-loving characters and since no one runs out of blood, there is always a supply for the gore-loving.
So, I just finished the third episode in season two of the The Following and I really liked it, for two main reasons, because there was some humor and sarcasm, ie: best line: utopian slut palace - and the story finally started moving forward with this year's psychos, who seem sicker and more twisted.
It was clear last season that while most of the characters loved killing, no one seemed to do it for sport or just for the fun of it. The deaths all had a thrill -- or a personal self satisfaction. This season the French loonies are bringing some spontaneity and unpredictability to the show that is much needed.
So far the one important piece missing from this season is emotion. I liked listening to the killers when they visited Joe in prison talk about their adoration for him and their past. In particular, I think they did a good job fleshing out Roderick's devotion and in the end Joe's betrayal of him. I actually felt sorry for Roderick, who was one sick puppy. Same goes for Charlie. I liked that guy and saw it strange/sick and twisted that he let Joe kill him because he'd failed his mission.
Also at the beginning at least, the Emma/Jacob love story seemed quite real and that scene with Emma's mother was very powerful. I just don't see any hints of that kind of attachment in season two, but it's only been three episodes, perhaps it's coming.

Vampire Diaries shocker

I just watched the episode from last week on the weekend while making chili.
That's how I watch TV these days. The kid and hubby are out of the house, I cook and catch up with whatever is on the DVR.
Holy Cow. Vampire Diaries does a good job at killing off its characters. For the first few seasons you always knew those temporary new characters were destined to die by the time they appeared in the fourth or fifth episode.
Then some stuck around and lately they've not been knocking people off.
But since Christmas it's like the show runners want to pare down the cast. Tyler's mom? Drowned.
Jeremy? drained of blood. Tyler? Banished until Klaus kills him.
I feel that Rebeka is next. Or maybe even Klaus because it seems that Silus is the new big bad. You can't have two big bads. It's the Buffy the Vampire Slayer formula. One big bad per season.
While I love Klaus, the originals story line is getting a bit tired. How many times can he threaten to kill everyone?
Catherine's return was a bit of a surprise but I knew that Silus wasn't going to get the cure and it would go to one of our favorite Scoobie gang.
Part of me thinks the show folks who be sick enough to have Rebeka get the cure and Klaus kills her.
I don't think it will go to Elena, too predictable.
All this talk about Silus bringing back the dead, that could be interesting. If he can do it, why wouldn't he bring back Jeremy? The teen who provided him with life?
In the scuffle in the caves, I lost sight of the other hunter. Where was he?

Getting a Vampire Diaries surprise

I have been super sick for the past week requiring time off work, lots of time in bed, sipping tea and watching three seasons of the Vampire Diaries.

I was never tempted to watch the show. I read one of the L.J. Smith books and thought it was horrible. The Elena character was very unsympathetic and I did not follow the series.

I watched my first episode a week or two ago and was surprised at how good the show was. I chalk that up to Kevin Williamson's involvement. The book series gave them the idea and since I never read past the first book, I'm not sure how much the books have influenced the  television show.

I figure it's probably like True Blood. The television writers draw the characters from the books but don't follow the book plots too closely.

Anyway, I was happily impressed. It's probably not a good idea to watch 60 episodes in a week because after a while the story lines blend into each other and it seems that every other minute Elena is being kidnapped and Jeremy and Alaric are getting killed and coming back to life.

I hate to say this but I'm glad Klaus is still alive. He's the love to hate character. You love the evil thrills he provides but don't like him because he's evil.

I also like him because his negatives allowed Damon to humanize and he's a much more enjoyable character as a good/bad guy rather than just bad.

I did not enjoy Stefan's return to being the Ripper. It was just too gory for me and made it hard for me to see him as the gentle, bunny-blood loving soul as he started out. As a plot device, separating Elena and Stefan for almost an entire season gave the writers the opportunity to explore the Elena/Damon connection.

It's funny how movies and television can grow from pretty bad books. Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse books aren't all bad but some of them are very poorly plotted and organized and have utterly silly stories that never made it to screen.

It's probably easier to come up with clever plot points with a team of writers. I did notice that Williamson and co-creator Julie Plec together wrote a slew of the scripts in season one. It was only in the later part of the season and into season two and three that other writers have appeared.

Then again, the stories in season two and three were more sophisticated and had more complex plots. At one point every episode ended on a cliff hanger (ala J.J. Abrams in Alias) and every attempt to isolate and kill Klaus was defeated.

This show has very good writing.