Skip The Following unless you have a deep fondness for James Purefoy and Kevin Bacon, but only if you can suspend herculean amounts of disbelief. It didn’t help that the cult was based on a deep love for reading gothic romanticism–the show takes place in the US, and the leader is a British college professor. POSSIBLE SPOILERS

The Following lost me around Season 1, Episode 6. Even with the existence of The Manson Family, the idea of an effective, utopian society of disciplined [serial] killers got to be a bit much when they started treating Joe Carroll, the lead serial killer played by Purefoy, as if he was the president, and they were the Secret Service. Also one episode actually addressed what may happen if a male serial killer who likes to kill women has a relationship with a female serial killer. At some point, no one is going to be alive. Also The Following reminded me of Dark Shadows with all the absurd plot twists (lock up someone until they love you-sure I kill, but I’m not a rapist) and villains just being missed by the cops in the same way in every episode. Basically if you see a doe-eyed innocent, that person is in the group.