TV Talk: Season of the Serial Killers

I sense a theme to my current choice of TV shows. As the title implies, it’s serial killers. Most shows I watch seem to have some sense of the morbid (except for comedies, and even then it shows up on occasion), but never have there been so many serial killers.

The Following 
Kevin Bacon’s new drama just premiered this week. He plays a former FBI agent who is called back after the serial killer he caught escapes prison. The killer, played by James Purefoy, is a former university literature professor who idolizes Edgar Allen Poe, reenacting some of the ‘beautiful’ deaths upon his young-lady-students. Now he is forming alliances with other murderous and suicidal types, causing emotional turmoil left and right.

Death Toll

• 8 Security Guards/Officers
• 1 Student Post-Incarceration
• Several Students Pre-Incarceration
• An Uncounted Number of Dogs
• 1 Public Suicide

Ripper Street 
Also recently premiered, Ripper Street is set in the neighborhood where Jack the Ripper went on his murdering spree, but after his disappearance. A new victim is found in an alley with all the markers of Jack’s handy work, and jump right to that conclusion. One Detective Inspector, played by Matthew Macfadyen, isn’t so sure. He thinks there is someone else.

Death Toll

• 2 Ladies
• 1 Suicide

Bones 
This long running series stars Emily Deschanel as a forensic anthropologist, who determines an astonishing amount of information from human bones, and David Boreanaz as an FBI agent. Together, along with the smart ‘squints’ at the Jeffersonian, they solve murders. The most recent episode sees the return of their serial killer nemesis, Pelant (Andrew Leeds), who is once again targeting their team.

Death Toll

• 1 Innocent Man
• 1 FBI Agent
• (Presumably) 1 Monkey

American Horror Story:  Asylum 
This season, we a privy to the horrendous things done in one 1960s American asylum. From aliens to Nazis, this show has a little bit of every horror in it. But this post is about serial killers, and it has that too.

Death Toll

• Before or after the serial killer is a ghost?
• Doesn’t matter. The answer is too many to count, or even show.

 
The Walking Dead
Yes, this is a zombie show (and a darn good ‘un, at that). But let’s be honest, it’s more about the survivors. Slowly, they’re all turning into non-zombie killers. There is one concrete serial killer, though, and that’s The Governor. He kills anyone he damn well pleases, keeps it from the majority of his little society, and collects tokens:  victim’s heads in jars (Futurama style).

Death Toll

• Ha! You think I can remember how many deaths have occurred on this show?
• Seriously, there was A WALL OF HEADS IN JARS from The Governor, not to mention those he kills that are not worthy of collection.

Zombies or humans? Either way their heads are coming off.

That’s a lot of serial killer action on TV this spring. AND that’s only the shows that I’m watching. It wouldn’t surprise me if there are more serial killers being broadcast right now. I can just feel the death tolls rising.