Except Hopkins' Hannibal was never anywhere near this goofy.  He was actually charming, gifted at both his profession and several disturbing hobbies, and despite his penchant for going over the top and smiling a lot, you never really stopped being afraid of him.  It would appear that the writers' appreciation of…

The House series finale was fairly wretched, but at least it reminded us of what was once a pretty great show for four or five seasons.  This show has no real legacy of good will to build upon - it's pilot was a middling hour-long movie of the week.  And it's gone from "somewhat interesting concept, but poorly…

But its not even just a problem of originality, its plausibility and depth of writing as well.  Run the first half-hour of last night's finale up against Buried (the movie it's clearly ripping off, with a quick and pointless "homage" to 24 thrown in for good measure), and note the massive decline in writing, character…

To be fair, they announced its renewal back around episode 7.  It was a dark and goofily implausible but solid C/C- show at that point (C-, C-, D+, C-, C, C, C-) and was pulling in around 9 million viewers every week.  AV Club's opinion at that point was "this has some decent moments but it's woefully underwritten and…

Sooner or later every comments section on AV Club gets in at least one reference to Community. ;)

Think of it, they find victims who've hemorrhaged out of their ears or smashed their own skulls into the wall to make it stop? :)

I seem to recall his daughter got kidnapped this season and he was able to pull together a $5 million ransom in a couple hours, so I suppose the assumption is that he'd be fine even if he never worked another day in his life.

Congrats to Kevin Williamson and all of the writing and production staff at The Following.  You are now officially responsible for the worst reviewed season of a show in AV Club's history.  15 episodes, 3 Fs, and a 1.16 average (D+).

I kicked myself for thinking they had almost pulled off a semi-clever twist by having Claire stab Ryan, until I realized it was Molly instead. Yawn.

Definitely Ayn Rand.  Tailor-made for a cult of obsessive anti-social personalities.

Is it any wonder the general public can still be convinced that DNA evidence is unreliable in court?  Watching TV and movies you'd think it was the easiest thing in the world to fake.  Meanwhile we instinctively believe people's eyewitness accounts, when those are shown time and time again to be terribly malleable and…

Wasn't that the comic twist in The Whole Nine Yards?

It's complicated, but I think it's a cocktail of things.  Some of us are pissed it sucked us in in the first place, others like the self-congratulation that comes with being able to recognize just HOW BAD it is (not in just a conventional sense, I mean bad on an epic scale, like Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space), and…

I think the Worst-Case-Scenario books did a bit on how to escape if you're buried alive.  You don't even need to master Bruce Lee/Pai Mei's one-inch punch.

It was extremely meta.

I dunno, there was some pretty stiff competition from Heroes, but either that, or the S&M club episode of this show.  That episode was just "beat your head against a brick wall to escape the suck" level of awful.  This finale and the other F episode (sorry David Zayas) were just dumb by comparison.

Yeah, for the longest time I was waiting for a reveal that she too was a cult member. Never happened.  Apparently it was just a random and pointless ominous look.  What are the odds her "sister" she asked Ryan to contact turns out to be an identical twin, and they bring her back next year?

His reviews are better than the show?  Isn't that damning him with faint praise? ;)

Giving birth to a new Zen koan - "if your villain gets away and nobody cares, does the show get renewed?"

Or why not go with the obvious choice for the writer who seems to inspire the most cult-like devotion from enthusiastic anti-social personalities who are convinced the rest of the world is filled with parasitic leeches in need of squashing?  Or who are most comfortable with characters that in no way resemble how…