Blogger disagreement: The Following

Leeard: This show is fun and I'm still watching it. Kevin Bacon is the best. The show isn't afraid to be violent when needed, and the result is suspenseful. Each episode plays like a movie thriller instead of TV. Sure, I end up predicting a lot of it. But there are so many twists that for every one I do predict, there's another that I don't.

The audience agrees: This show is better than Revolution, a show that recently got slammed by The Following in the ratings. This show has interesting flashbacks as well. Ryan caught Carroll the last time. The female cop was raised by an abusive cult. Ryan has an ex-girlfriend. Emma killed her own mom. It's all good stuff.

The show doesn't write itself into a corner. There are endless possibilities of what to do with the characters and new characters to introduce. Everyone can be either good or evil. There are tons of bad guys following the ultimate bad guy. And hey, if Carroll dies, who's to say the following won't keep going behind the first guy to step up and take his place?

Ern: Every week, I have to force myself to watch this show, and I'm constantly getting behind. When I finally turn on the computer to catch up, five minutes in, I'm already bored. The Following had a great, action-packed pilot, but then it ground to a halt. There are too many periphery baddies that I don't care about. I hardly even care about the main baddie. Getting reeeeal sick of him. He's such a whiner.

How long are they going to drag this out? I think my main problem with this show is that there is nothing going on beneath the surface. You have the shallow teases, the murder, the cops, the crazies...but there could be more than just basic plot trying to distract us from its stupidity by constantly throwing us twists. There could be character development, a romance I can actually give a hoot about, some sort of theme, personalities....

Remember when LOST's Locke and Ben were juxtaposed? Or Locke and Jack? They saw the world so differently and that was the driving point of the conflict. Not, "Oh, no, they kidnapped my woman!" There comes a time when silly isn't fun anymore. It's just boring. And can we get a female character who is not a) one of Carroll's minions, b) a victim, or c) dumb love interest Claire who will just go with bad guys whenever they mention Joey?!!?

It's all getting repetitive too. Crazy followers. Kidnapping. "Blah blah Poe blah nevermore." Claire being an idiot. Ryan messing up. Someone getting killed. Carroll foils them again! But they get a small victory when they stop Carroll's follower from killing 10/10 of the people they are trying to protect (the follower usually gets 4/10). If the show had more of a brain, it could think of a good middle instead of these cycles.

The Following- Season 1, Episode 1

Pilot- Thoughts for people who HAVE seen this are after the jump. This first part is spoiler free though.

This show is about a retired FBI agent who is called back to look for an escaped serial killer. The criminal is a former English professor who killed a bunch of his students. Worst professor ever, right?  Also, he has a bunch of crazy followers who are willing to do insane things for him. The killer is obsessed with Poe, and we think it would have been more interesting if the killer were obsessed with multiple writers and ideas.

Ten minutes in, we already knew we loved this pilot. It was fast-paced and we cared pretty quickly. We didn't really want to watch this show because it had a boring name, but then we heard that LOST actress Maggie Grace was in it, and we think she picks good things.

Also, of course, Kevin Bacon, who is great in this. We spotted Rome and Justified veterans too. Once we found out the reason this show is called "The Following," we liked the name.

Yeah, there are a lot of cliches, like the damaged hero and the genius killer, but those are traditions because they work. Even with those staples, this show doesn't feel tired. The killer's cult is what separates this villain from Hannibal Lecter, although Hannibal was a lot more charming. This guy is too loud, talkative, and in-your-face arrogant.

We don't know if they picked the right actor to play the killer. The casting of James Purefoy might be our only complaint. He's good looking, as he should be, but he should also be more charismatic and terrifying.

The show is not afraid to be gruesome and very dark. Of course, this is the network that brought us the disgusting first season of Fringe, so we shouldn't be surprised. (We have GOT to watch that finale, by the way. We're the worst.) It's also pretty creepy. Even the flashbacks are creepy. Don't bother with this show if you can't stand violence.

We can see quickly that this will be a crowd pleaser rather than critic bait, kind of like 24 was. We can tell this show is dangling itself in front of an audience that isn't familiar with Poe or really can't process a remotely deep analysis of his work. A baddie literally writes NEVERMORE on a wall, in blood. THUNK. Der. We like when TV assumes its audience is smart and well-read, like LOST did. Still, we were highly entertained through the entire hour. If the show can keep up this level of quality, it will be one of our favorite shows. Can't wait for next week.

Episode grade: A-