THE FOLLOWING

**1/2 (out of ****)

 

The Following is probably early-2013’s most anticipated new show. It’s on FOX, which knows how to promote the everliving fuck out of something, especially if you are a viewer of their sports programming. It has, for television, a major star in Kevin Bacon, and it’s about a serial killer, which, along with mobsters, is America’s favorite topic for fiction. Almost immediately, and for basically its entire runtime, The Following proves one thing more than any other: this is clearly a network show, and networks are still unbelievably behind cable, basic or pay.

 

This isn’t to say the first episode was terrible. Kevin Bacon stars as Ryan Hardy, an ex-cop-something-or-other who famously put a serial killer behind bars about a decade ago. Life hasn’t been kind to Hardy since then, as he has picked up a drinking problem, and has a certain sort of self-respect that makes him think he fits better in people’s past than in their future. You know this, by the constant references to his drinking problem, and the one time where he says that he fits better in people’s pasts than in their futures. But, whatever…it’s a pilot. Let’s move on.

 

The serial killer, played by James Purefoy, an actor that hasn’t had much to do since he was a kickass Marc Antony on Rome, escapes. And the first person they call is, of course, Kevin Bacon. As the hour moves on, we get to watch these two play cat and mouse, and wonder which one needs the other one more, like a more boring Batman and Joker. It’s not a groundbreaking premise for a show, but it’s one that can definitely be compelling enough depending on the people in charge, whether that be the showrunner, or the actual channel it’s on.

 

The thing is, we have no idea what it’s like to go after drug dealers in Baltimore. We have no idea what it’s like to run a New Jersey mob, or create a meth empire, or work for an advertising firm in the sixties. But we do have a decade and a half of wonderful TV, TV so good that the way that they told us how it works is what we believe, regardless of how it actually goes down. Network TV is still about twenty years behind. They still have a mindset that TV has a ceiling that caps out at mindless fluff, and it can never be better. If Kevin Williamson wanted to tell a realistic story about how this premise would actually happen, he can go make a movie and fuck himself. This is network TV, bitch.

 

So the characters run around doing stupid things. And making stupid decisions. And saying blatant dialogue so everyone around them, including you, can get to know them quicker. Everything that happens is to service a plot that needs to move at a pace no basic cable show would ever tolerate, or to get us to the next genre scene, be it a gun fight, car chase, or gore reveal. All of this would have been fine a long time ago. And it’s OK now, but that type of OK where, although you don’t hate anything, none of it sticks with you, and there’s no drive to watch more other than a whodunit you are also pretty sure will disappoint. When the most compelling part about a show is not the characters, or what’s going to happen, but instead how they are going to stretch this into anything resembling five seasons and a movie, that’s a bad sign. It’s a show that immediately gets filed in that most hallowed of all television show files, in which you wait until you’re really sick after a bunch of episodes have piled up.

 

 

NEWSREADERS

**1/2 (out of ****)

 

From the entertainment empire that is Childrens Hospital, now with more spin-offs than Happy Days, comes Newsreaders. Childrens Hospital fans will immediately recognize the show-within-a-show-that’s-now-its-own-show, as Newsreaders, once upon a time, broke the story that the actors playing characters on CH were actually actors playing actors playing characters on CH. If any of this is confusing to you, then you must not be well-versed in exactly what Childrens Hospital is capable of.

That legendary zaniness is mostly gone from Newsreaders, however, as we mostly just get a straightforward parody of a news magazine show, like 60 Minutes. My first thought when watching this is that the Childrens Hospital masterminds came up with a bunch of jokes they didn’t have a place for, so they created this, where any joke can fly. The first episode, about the creators of a Bang Bus-like porn site, and what the popularity of that site did for van sales, basically just adds up to a 15 minute skit. I’m not sure what more they can do to the genre, seeing as how The Daily Show exists, so maybe a weekly one-skit skit show is the best thing Newsreaders can be. And the people behind this show have enough trust from me to make me think that everything about that idea will be A-OK.

 

-Ryan Haley