Following Fox's "The Following": Serial Killers Break into the Network Lineup

 

 

Fox did a great job of promoting its new series, The Following, and the first episode (aired January 21^st) did not disappoint.  Although at first I thought that this show was just capitalizing on the fact that Showtime’s Dexter is drawing to a close (after all we have to get our serial killer fix somewhere, right?), I think the concept is a bit more intelligent than I first gave it credit for. 

 

The idea behind the program is this:  a serial killer, Joe Carroll (James Purefoy), escapes death row to initiate a chain of copycat killings done in his honor (his “following”).   The first episode starts with his escape and then quickly shifts focus to that of the law enforcers tasked with apprehending him once again.  The most important of this group, of course, is the main character, Ryan Hardy (Kevin Bacon).  I fully admit it was Bacon landing this leading role that sold me on watching the show.  It was an excellent casting choice as Bacon plays the reluctant/troubled hero quite well:  a former FBI agent who, having previously cracked the case on Carroll, is drawn back into the fray.  But, as always, it’s more complicated than that.  Hardy is haunted by this former case – how long it took him to solve it (18 months) and how much it cost him (he was severely injured during the initial arrest of Carroll).  The injury lands him on disability from the agency and his act of publishing a book about the case (as well as his reputation as an alcoholic) further estranges him from his former colleagues.  [Spoiler Alert] And the things that he has been able to take comfort in – that he was able to prevent Carroll from killing his last victim, Sarah Fuller (Maggie Grace), and ensure that Carroll’s wife and child would be safe with him in custody – dissolve in this first episode when Carroll recaptures and kills Sarah and starts a plan in motion that includes the kidnapping of his child. 

 

The program is fast paced and quickly launches into the storyline without much exposition and not with the predictability I might have expected.  In fact, I found many things surprising in the first episode.  I was sad to see Fuller die (as I like Maggie Grace), but it just proves the show is not going to shy away from killing characters that viewers quickly grow invested in; I was impressed by just how much gore Fox was able to get away with showing on network television; I enjoyed the revelation that Hardy had had an affair with Carroll’s ex-wife (a romantic storyline being a mandatory component of any drama); and I was surprised to find that Carroll was actually back behind bars by the episode’s end and that all of the death to follow would not be directly at his hands (the scenes with him in the jail remind me of some from Silence of the Lambs – despite Carroll’s imprisonment, it is obvious who holds the power in this scenario). 

 

So:  so far so good.  I like the way this show is starting and I look forward to watching it play out.  (Although admittedly I might be a bit biased.  I’m drawn to the twist the show provides on the makeup of the serial killer. As an English professor myself, I find the thought of a former literature professor killing victims in tribute to Edgar Allan Poe to be intriguing.)  In my opinion, watching this new series will do more than just give viewers a leg up in games of “The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.”

Farewell to Fox’s Fringe (2008-2013): One More “Smart” Television Show Goes Off the Air

 [Spoiler Alert]

 

 After five seasons, Fox’s Fringe went off the air this January.  Although I enjoyed the season finale (despite having had a love/hate relationship with most of the season itself), I found the final episode to be a bit anticlimactic.  It might be that, unaccustomed to change, I still am unsettled by winter finales (seasons and series that break or end in December, January, or February only to be replaced by mid-season replacements that networks are testing out).  Or it could be that the emotional musical score meant to pull at the heart strings and accompany the admittedly heartfelt final storyline was obscured by the blaring music of an infant swing operating within feet of the television set.  Regardless, having faithfully watched the show through its many transformations I felt it was due some reflection here.

For those unfamiliar with the program, in 2008 Fox (the network that gave us 24) launched what seemed to be yet another narrative to exploring the concerns of a nation battling an invisible enemy called “terror.”  Created by J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman, and Roberto Orc, Fringe focuses its plot around the FBI “Fringe Division,” agents operating under the supervision of Homeland Security.  At the heart of this show lies an eclectic team headed by Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv), an FBI agent with enhanced supernatural skills leftover from being part of a childhood experiment; Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble), a mad scientist figure and former government researcher who understands of the capabilities existing on the periphery of science; and his son, Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson), the eventual love interest to Olivia and investigative side kick to them both.  (Admittedly, as a former Dawson’s Creek fan, it was Joshua Jackson’s impeccable delivery of sarcastic one liners and his ability to perfectly play the romantic underdog that originally drew me to the show).

Originally the program was concerned with investigating “the pattern” – a series of unexplainable, and often catastrophic, events caused by fringe science attacks.  Throughout the first few seasons the show was rather episodic – each episode was focused largely on a single mystery stemming from science-gone-wrong.  However, as the series progressed, the overarching narrative lessened this episodic focus and larger storylines connecting these events and characters became more of the focus.

The perils from which the characters saved society in these early episodes hinted at mass concerns about the possible use of biological warfare and new technology.  It seemed at the time like an obvious product of the post-9/11 moment.  Fringe ended its first season with a moment that I have elsewhere described as a sort of wish fulfillment.  It presented viewers with a parallel universe in which the Twin Towers had not been destroyed on 9/11.   In the final moments of this episode Olivia searches out the mysterious William Bell (played by none other than Leonard Nimoy) and finds herself in an office building in New York City.  As the camera pans away from her looking out over the skyscape viewers realize the office she is standing in is inside the Twin Towers.  Not many moments leave me speechless staring at the screen, but this was one of them.  (It ranks up there with these three shocking screen moments:  Jack’s Bauer’s wife’s death in the season one finale of 24, Rita’s death in the season four finale of Dexter, and – of course – the end of the movie Seven… after all, who hasn’t been traumatized by watching Brad Pitt scream “What’s in the box?” in that film before the credits roll backwards?).  There was just something about seeing that imagery – the towers – that froze me in place on the couch.  After the attacks those buildings were all but erased from narratives set in New York.  (They were even physically erased from shows and films that were shot pre-9/11 as to not upset viewers).  So seeing them was, in a way, taboo.  And see them we would, often times in the coming seasons as a visual indicator of which parallel universe we were being launched into. 

Despite this allusion to post-9/11 concerns, as the program continued on the storylines slowly moved away from the concerns of reality and became more fantastical.  Eventually the program found the agents traveling through universes, and time, to save the world from destruction.   And, for the most part, I enjoyed the ride.  (After Lost went off the air in 2010 I felt Fringe was one of the smartest television shows left on the air; it forced viewers – especially in the final two seasons – to put in some cognitive work to keep up with the narrative leaps and bounds).  But, sadly, this season sat oddly for me.

Perhaps the problem was that the show really could have ended last year at the end of season four.  The team of agents had saved the destruction of two universes, the estranged lovers had been reunited both physically and emotionally, and all could have been right with the world.  But the show had a fifth season to fill.  I say this a bit in jest as I believe writers when they say they have an ultimate plan and if season five was always in the cards then so be it.  (And to be fair, in retrospect there are moments of foreshadowing that do lead logically to this end).  But, as one friend noted, this season had the feeling of an epilogue (much like those tacked onto Dollhouse before it drew to a close).  Although the writers wrapped up most loose ends, this season still seemed a bit forced.  Temporally speaking, the show began its first episode of season five a few years in the future, in 2015, quickly introducing Peter and Olivia’s three-year-old daughter, Etta, just as a wave of Observers arrived to take over earth.  (For most of the season this made no sense to me and usually I can suspend my disbelief and patiently wait for the narrative to fill me in.  It takes quite a while for this act of war to be explained and it seems out of character being that the Observers – future evolved humans from the year 2609 – were originally depicted as unobtrusive and often benevolent visitors, far from how they would be depicted in this final season.  The explanation for this ends up being that the twelve observers that the Fringe team encounter throughout the first four seasons were anomalies of sorts; they had changed due to their exposure to this era, eventually growing attached to it and its inhabitants and gaining the ability to emote to some degree.  This is an ability their counterparts from the future do not have because advanced evolution – prompted by science – has chosen to develop intellect at the expense of emotion).  The narrative then jumps to the year 2036 where Etta (as an adult) saves her parents who have been frozen in time (and, well, amber) and enlists their help to rid the future world of the Observers who are wiping out normal humanity. 

This part of the storyline was difficult for me too.  Watching 30-something year-olds have parent-child encounters with their grown 20-something-old daughter was just odd.  They all looked as they could have been siblings so the dynamic often played oddly on the screen.  And while they cast Etta well – she looked and behaved much like her mother – this had a detrimental side effect.   Like the character Olivia, Etta came off as a bit restrained, guarded, even cool.  While viewers had five seasons to warm up to Olivia, they only four episodes to do so with Etta as that is exactly how long she lasted before she was killed off.  Sigh.  At a time when all parent-child storylines (especially mother-daughter storylines) make me tear up due to the excessive hormones surging through my system, I had a hard time shedding tears over this loss.  I think I might have dropped one or two but mostly I was mad.  Mad at the writers for introducing this character only to kill her and mad that they didn’t do a better job with her because I should have felt crushed by her loss.  But her death would be the motivation for her parents to go on – to avenge her death and later attempt to reset time so that they could be reunited with her.

The final season then is simply one of their quest – the lone Fringe team assisted by one rogue former Observer, September, and his son (a “child” observer capable of both advanced intellect and emotion) – to rid the world of the Observers (who have invaded this time period because in the future they have ruined the Earth for themselves).  The plan the characters come up with is to take the child Observer, Michael, into the future to the year 2167 where human genetic experiments began sacrificing emotion for intelligence (ultimately leading to the creation of the Observers).  Their hope is that if scientists could see that this is not necessary (that advanced intellect can be gained without the elimination of emotion), that these experiments will not begin and the future dystopia can be prevented.  Ultimately they are successful but in order for the timeline to be reset a sacrifice must be made:  Walter must travel into the future with the child, forgoing his future with his own son and grandchild.

While I enjoyed the show’s thematic concerns with fate and destiny (giving me my fix on that theme after Lost was no longer around to play it out), I did not buy the logic in this end sacrifice.  In my mind, if the mission was accomplished and the scientific experiments halted the moment they saw the boy and realized what he was capable of, in theory all Observers – including the boy – would cease to exist and the timeline would be reset hence making Walter disappear from that future.  (But according to the explanation given in the show this would not be the case, Walter and the boy would live out their lives in the future – somehow existing there as space-time anomalies trapped in that future unable to return to the past).  While I admit that I simply don’t have the scientific background to debate who has the correct logic, I understand that the writers provide the more heartfelt ending:  a scene where Walter walks into the light and Peter mouths “I love you, Dad.”  So assuming I can get past this aspect, one other plot hole nagged at me.  Peter only exists as an adult because September saved Walter and him when they fell through the ice at Reiden lake when Peter was just a boy.  So, again, if my reasoning is sound, if the timeline was reset and the Observers never existed, then Peter would have drowned as a child in 1985 and would have never grown up, met Olivia, and had Etta.  Yet during the last few minutes of the show, the timeline is reset and Peter still exists.  Viewers are returned to the opening scene of the season where Peter and Olivia are playing with their three year old daughter in a field. 

The series does not end on that scene.  It actually ends with Peter opening a letter from his father (who, unknown to him, he will never see again).  In this envelope is a drawing of a white tulip.   I probably enjoyed this end more so than any other viewer because I had the accidental luck of having written an essay on the Fringe episode from season two that it alludes to.  (In this episode a man travels back in time over and over trying to prevent the death of fiancé.  Through these attempts he encounters a distraught Walter who is struggling with the choices he has made in life.  Walter tells this man he keeps looking for a sign from God that he is forgiven – that sign being a white tulip.  Before his last time jump, and death, the man sends a drawing of a white tulip to Walter.  Walter eventually receives this, and since he has no recollection of meeting the man as he has been erased from the timeline after dying alongside of his fiancé, he interprets it as a sign from God).  While I did enjoy this callback to this episode, I wondered about it also.  Would the white tulip mean anything to Peter?  What did it mean that the show ended on the image of something that was originally meant to represent forgiveness and, perhaps, even faith?

Perhaps I’m being a bit too hard on Fringe.  After all, the more complex the television show, the more difficult it is to wrap up.  (I’m doing here what I criticized fans for doing after Lost’s final season and episode).  I enjoyed the intelligent plot Fringe wove throughout the years and I think to fully appreciate it I will have to watch it again from the beginning.  All in all, I am sad that the show is over and that there is now one less “smart” television program existing in the network line-ups. 

 

Writing to Justify the Countless Hours I Spend in Front of the TV Set

I am pretty sure that the world doesn’t need another blog and I know that there are countless other ones that will have more insightful stuff to say about television than I will… but I’m on a mission.  A mission to, yes, as the title to this opening entry jokes, justify my television consumption, but also a mission to write again.  After a year and a half of writer’s block (which I blame largely on having two children within a 17 month period), I thought forcing myself to write regularly might be a good thing. 

Of course it’s a bit hypocritical of me to start a blog when I read so few myself.  Most of the ones I frequent are written by my co-workers and students (although I do have a soft spot for one comedic mommy blog that helps me laugh my way through raising a just-turned-toddler:  The Honest Toddler).  The majority of my experience with blogs has actually come from my work as an academic – a popular culture scholar hiding out in an English Department in the middle of central Illinois).  More and more these days when I am seeking out research on contemporary television the most interesting (and up to date) pieces I find are not published in scholarly journals or obscure collections housed only on the shelves of university libraries, rather they exist online in personal websites and public blogs.  Thankfully such sources are now (usually) accepted in academe and I can draw upon this smart commentary stemming from a range of individuals – most of whom are not scholars in the traditional sense but are just really intelligent consumer of mass media and/or enthusiastic fans.   This is the audience I want to write to.    (Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate writing for peer reviewed presses also but I’ve grown disheartened by the slow speed of print publishing.  I have a journal article on ABC’s Lost coming out in The Journal of Popular Culture in 2014… a full four years after the series went off the air.  How relevant will my work be when it finally hits those pages?  Not very).

The title of this blog not only reveals its focus, television (and an embarrassing appreciation for alliteration), but it also alludes to my own self perception as a scholar.  Sometimes I feel rather “small screen” in a world of bigger and better and flashier “big screen” thinkers.  I suppose I suffer from the “fake professor” syndrome that I heard many Ph.D. holders do.  I often do not feel as smart as those little letters might imply I should feel.  When surrounded by fellow English professors I never feel that I know enough, that I have read as much, and I am certain that at times my vocabulary and grammar give me away as a “poser” of sorts.  (Case in point:  I had to look up the word “ennui” just this past week even though I once knew its definition; at a conference last year I mispronounced both “ephemeral” and “zeitgeist” in my own talk; and I am pretty sure that I make up words on a daily basis.  The latter was less of a problem when I taught high school and could jokingly tell my students that since Shakespeare got away with it I could too.  This joke doesn’t go over as well up in the good ole ivory tower).  But despite feeling this way from time to time, I know that I do occasionally have some “smart” things to say about television and popular culture and so I start this blog in the hopes that I will capture a few of those fleeting moments… because it would be a shame if they only lingered between me, my couch, and my faithful DVR remote.

With that said, I write this mostly for myself.  If anyone is reading, that’s a plus.  And if anyone is reading, I apologize in advance for subjecting you to my meandering thoughts on an eclectic set of television programs.