The Following (of Kevin Bacon)

Watched the pilot on Hulu because, well, Kevin Bacon. And obviously I needed a bloody, disturbing and gross serial killer show in my life, which has been empty for the last 14 years since Millenium was canceled. The show opens with the guitar from Marilyn Manson's cover of Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This), which kind of tells you everything you need to know about the tone.


Kevin Bacon was appropriately Kevin Bacon throughout the entire first episode, so I guess I'll stick with him and see where it goes. James Purefoy (as Dr. Joe Carroll) was appropriately gross and creepy as the villain. And why is it that every single time in a cop show someone says, "You'll want to see this," I immediately know that no, no we will not. Ever.

The concept for the show has potential to be interesting, since it's basically Dr. Carroll the world's most evil and Poe-obsessed literature professor convincing his weird following of - serial killer fans, I guess? - nutty people to kill for him from prison. I'm expecting a lot of bad technobabble to explain how this will all work, though if they continue to give him access to the internet in the successive episodes they'd better have a damn good reason.

At this point, though, I'm really just expecting it to be a lot of hapless and good-looking young women (mostly blonde) getting messily killed every week by awful people while Kevin Bacon is deeply wounded yet sternly Kevin Bacon at them and there are occasional hat tips to Edgar Allen Poe to prove the script writers did pay attention in their English lit class.

Prove me wrong, The Following. I dare you. Be more interesting and give me a reason to keep watching other than the unutterable Kevin Bacon-ness of Kevin Bacon.

My guilty pleasure

It's August. It must be time to resume my weird, shameful love affair with Project Runway.

I still can't figure out why I love this show so much, but I do. It's definitely not the bitchy cat fights, since those make me want to hide my head under a pillow in shared human shame. I think it's the fashion, as strange as that sounds. Because I don't understand fashion. I never have, and I think at this point I just never will.

The part I like most about the show is watching the designers make art, and talk about it, and feeling utterly mystified because I have no idea how any of it works. I'm one of those people who really just needs a personal retainer of to tell me what clothes I should and should not wear.

Justine Larbalestier recently wrote a blog post about writers and our obsession with process porn. Writers really like talking about how we write rather than necessarily what we're writing (because that's a secret). Honestly, I think some writers like to talk about it a little too much, which is why I make a conscious effort to minimize that kind of navel gazing.

Perhaps the reason I like Project Runway so much is that it's a little slice of process porn for a different kind of art, watching the designers struggle to come up with something and work through it. That's actually the part of it I enjoy watching the most. Not the runway stuff at the end, or them saying snippy things about each other in interviews, but them scurrying around the work room and building their projects up, tearing them down, and then rebuilding them in search of their idea.

I just wish I understood the art itself. But then I remember I'm both intensely lazy and unable to feel comfortable in any clothes that aren't specifically intended to be copiously sweated in to and I slink quietly away.

I'm loving all the female designers this season so far, by the way. My favorites are Sonjia and Alicia. I hope they stay in for a long time! (And I wish I looked like Alicia so I could dress like her. Yes. I'm aware this means fundamentally I want to dress like an adorable lesbian. I fail to see the problem with that.)

It's a Bad Universe out there

Finally! Phil Plait's sooper sekrit project has been revealed! He's been talking about this (or rather, annoyingly not talking about it other than to say that there's a secret project) for months and I've been dying to know what it's about. It looks like a lot of fun, sort of a Mythbusters with more focus on the science.

This makes me really, really wish that I had cable. Maybe I can talk Mike in to it.

I'm very entertained by the little trailer. I'm not sure if my favorite bit is Mutant!Phil shooting lightning out of his eyes at the UFOs, or Phil just saying "oh god" when he's apparently being taken on some crazy maneuver in a jet.

(Phil has now posted about his project on his blog.)