A strong start, but will it last?
by Ed Blackadder
I’ve enjoyed watching all the new shows that have decided to up the ante, by recruiting Hollywood ‘A‘ listers to star in them. We now have several to chose from with the brilliant Hannibal being among the best of them. It has the likes of Lawrence Fishburn, Hugh Dancy and the brillaint Mads Mikkelsen. Moreover, it also has a great writing team to drive the story. Then there is the wonderfully acted Bates Motel, with a young Norman Bates, played convincingly by Freddie Highmore with Norma Bates played well by Vera Farmiga. Kevin Bacon has finally decided to give TV a go, as he plays a cop, in The Following, which is similar in idea to Silence of the Lambs, by having a psychopathic mass killer, controlling people from prison. He causes them to commit all manner of atrocities, which include matricide, burning victims to death and the like. Our psycho is of course a Brit (apparently, Brits sound evil or something), James Purefoy who plays Joe. We also have the talents of Shawn Ashmore.
This show started off really well, and even though I’m only at episode 4, I can see it starting to slip a little, by having some crazy situations for our hero Ryan Hardy (Bacon) to struggle out of. The writing is most definitely not as good as the others previously mentioned, but I’m still enjoying it thus far. I just hope it maintains this decent level of writing, which should then keep fans happy, or more importantly, keep me entertained. I’m gonna stick with show for now, because faults or no, It’s still helluva good.
Grade: B
