Is This Watchable?: Verdicts for Revolution, The Following, and Every Other Show on Comic-Con’s Preview Night About Shady Cabals, Tattoos Burned onto Arms by the FBI, and/or Archery

hulu:

The Following
 

(Click Kevin Bacon to watch the trailer.)

Verdict: Kevin Bacon is an irresponsible detective who keeps getting outsmarted by a handsome man with an MFA in English. This professor likes to de-eyeball his victims, then tie them up dead to a post or the ceiling. This will air on ToonDisney.

No, wait, sorry, Fox. Mixed up my notes there.

You’ll groan audibly a few times—they beat you over the head with one literary reference so many times that you’ll have to call a neurologist—but you’ll also be totally and completely compelled. It’s the one show I left thinking, “Wait, it’s gonna be two months until I see another one of these. And that sucks.”

Alternate Title: Retina Roulette — Ben Collins

Verdict: I wasn’t expecting to like this one, and with its graphic violence it’s definitely a Fox show, but this one won me over and managed to make me forget Kevin Bacon was the lead. A cult of serial killers and the only person who can help the FBI agent is the apprehended serial killer they all adore? I can’t turn away. 

Alternate title: Murder With a Side of Bacon — Martin Moakler

Verdict:  Remember that English lit professor you had freshman year who would drone on about Edgar Allan Poe for what seemed like hours, but you were enraptured anyway because he was hot?  Well guess what, he’s also a crazed serial killer who’s inspired a cult of followers to continue his killing spree.

Despite some really heavy handed moments (NEVERMORE!), the scares are there.  We’ll be checking this one out this fall.

Star Power: Created by Scream’s Kevin Williamson, Kevin Bacon plays the show’s lead, an FBI who retired after the prof stabbed him in his tell-tale heart, but is brought back into the fold when the serial killer escapes from prison. 

Alternate Title:  Edgar Allan No — Andrea Marker

Arrow

(Click jacked crossbow guy to watch the trailer.)

Verdict: A skinny Green Lantern with a crossbow and a billion dollars fights crime during the lulls in parties when everyone starts to talk about their dogs and wonders if they should play Scrabble.

It’s predictable, but it’s watchable. Dangerously watchable.

Alternate Title: “Archer.” Oh, wait. — BC

Verdict: Handsome billionaire by day, handsome superhero by night, The Green Arrow brings a arrow to a gun fight…and wins! This CW thriller promises plenty of action and a little romance, if not slightly familiar storylines.

Alternate title: A Quiver Runs Through It — M.M.

Revolution

(Click on that lost female-led metal band to watch the [awesome] trailer.)

Verdict: J.J. Abrams creates a dystopia where all of the electricity is sucked from the Earth. Cool, right? We get to see them struggle with their new reality and wonder how they’ll adapt to a new agrarian lifestyle, like sexy Amish.

Nope, he just skips a decade ahead and now it’s basically some sort of Lord of the Rings/Hunger Games/Curious George-style race to find an amulet. Woof.

Has potential, though! Especially if you like valuable USB drive amulets.

Alternate Title: Flash-Drive Forward — B.C.

Verdict: This one hurt, as this had been the show for which I had been looking most forward all summer. Fifteen years after all the power in the world ceases working, a young woman sets out on a quest to avenge the death of her father/ rescue her brother/ discover why all the power disappeared/ overthrow an oppressive regime…and there are more arrows (they’re so hot right now).

Alternate title: Lord of the Hunger Games — M.M.

Verdict: Militias run the show when all of the machines in the world stop working. Miraculously, everyone’s hair is still perfect without the aid of blow dryers.

You know those old timey villages you had to visit when you were a kid and the whole time you’re there you wish you were in school instead?  This show’s like that.

Star Power: Created by JJ Abrams, so you know the first season will be pretty good, but then they’ll cut the lead actress’ hair in the second season and somehow the show will never be the same.

Alternate Title: ZZZZZZZ — A.M.

Cult

(Click on the 1800s picnickers to watch the trailer.)

Verdict: A very CW show in which people are compelled to kill themselves because another very CW show that airs within that show tells them to. So if an episode of Dawson’s Creek ever made you want to shoot yourself in a shed, boy, the CW’s got a show for you.

This thing can can definitely be redeemed, however, if the show in Season 1 becomes a show within a show within a show in Season 2, creating a ridiculous Russian doll situation.

Alternate Title: Cancellation Alley — B.C.

Verdict: Matthew Davis pays penance for screwing over Elle Woods by trying to find his brother who has disappeared because of his involvement with a cult that is obsessed with a show about a cult called Cult. Frankly, there was a lot of stuff going on in this one, and I wonder if it’s too complicated to get people hooked quickly enough to make sure it gets a full season.

Alternate title: At Least There Were No Arrows — M.M.

Verdict: A TV show about a fictional cult may actually be a TV show about a real life cult written by its leader in the year.  

The CW has finally found a way out of its ratings woes:  Produce a show within a show that airs on the CW.  That automatically doubles the ratings, right?  The pilot had some rough spots, but there was enough there that we’ll definitely give it a shot.

Star Power:  Does the guy who played Elle Woods’ ex-boyfriend count?  What if he was also Alaric on The Vampire Diaries?

Alternate Title: People are Gullible — A.M.