The Following is a serial killing drama of epic
proportions. Think Homer meets
Clive Barker and Jackie Susann at a Nantucket beach house mixer: hilarity
ensues. Okay, maybe not hilarity, unless you find unreasonable body counts
funny, but there is a lot to swallow here, and it’s not just the cocktails.
It’s hard to imagine all the love triangles, quadrangles and
sextangles you can fit into a weekly serial killer serial, but they do it:
everywhere. At least the bad guys
and gals do. The good guys get pent up, broken and filled with churlish
contempt.
This is the glitzy glory gory of turning to the dark
side. The Following is a cult. A
group of outsiders looking to belong. They’ve found faith and understanding
through an ex literature teacher turned convicted murderer with his romantic
visions of Poe and death.
“Johnny, angry Johnny…I want to blow you…away…”
No, wrong Poe.
“Nevermore.”
There you go.
According to Nielsen, the show has a decent following of its
own. Then again, with DVRs and the Internet, who listens to Nielsen anymore?
They don’t have quite the following they used to have.
“Nevermore!”
Nielsen doesn’t believe that; they believe they have a
relevant future in TV ratings. Like Fox Television, they’re looking for new
ways to bring the believers in. Right now they’re looking at correlations.
What’s like TV?
A cult?
Maybe, but they don’t want to go that far. They have noticed
that ratings and Twitter go hand in hand. Shows that get Tweets during their
airing, get watched during their airing. Nielsen found this so interesting,
they wrote a report on it.
Networks, like Fox, followed. They looked for ways to bring
cult-like devotion to their programming. Fox already had a cult. They just
needed a following. To do that, they needed a way to recruit the outcasts, a
way to make them feel like they belong to something secret and cool.
Last night, at the end of the episode, when the Warner
Brothers logo came up, a voiceover announcement came too. Watch next weeks
episode live, and tweet “#thefollowing” during the airing, and you will receive
a special gift. Limited quantities, so first to belong, only to get love. Follow
quickly or get left behind.
Wow! Gifts that bring a sense of belonging to a secret
society and the special warmth that comes with no longer standing on the
outside. It’s almost like belonging to a cult.
One that follows serial killers.
I’m more than a little creeped out.
“Nevermore!”
yah…
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