I am following The Following

I don't watch a lot of TV. Mostly it's because as a freelancer who also writes on the side, I had to make a choice about how to spend my free time and writing won out over TV watching. (In other words, I'm not being a TV snob, I know there's good stuff out there.  And I am the first person to admit that a lot of what I do watch is totally silly.) But as someone who grew up with TV, I'm not often surprised. At least not by American television shows. The Following is a total surprise.
I expected to like it. Billed as dark. Starring Kevin Bacon and James Purefoy.
Kevin Bacon and James Purefoy. Every week in my living room. For free.
I'd seen Diner and Footloose and Tremors (he and Fred Ward were magic) but the moment I became a Kevin Bacon fan was during his one scene in JFK where he played a hustler named Willie O'Keefe who goes off on a rant. One of the reasons I really liked his bit was that he was doing a southern accent and HE GOT IT RIGHT. Bad southern accents make me nuts. You can see a really awful clip of the scene on YouTube. It's mesmerizing.

Poe man of the 80s

This is why I love Facebook. You can see silliness  like this photo of Edgar Allan Poe photoshopped to look  like a sleazy bad guy on Magnum PI.  Not sure where it originated.
And speaking of Poe (a belated happy birthday to the dark bard), his poetry is going to be an integral part of The Following, the Kevin Williamson-created television show starring Kevin Bacon and James Purefoy.

Bacon plays an FBI agent and Purefoy plays a literature professor specializing in romantic poetry whose real passion is murder. The series premieres on Fox this coming Monday and I cannot wait. There's an "Inside The Following" featurette up on IMDB, with images of crazy cultists in Poe masks killing people in honor of their idol, the charismatic killer played by Purefoy.