Fox’s ‘The Following’ is worthy of one

This killer happens to be a brilliant and dashing former professor, Joe Carroll (James Purefoy, “Rome”), who specialized in Poe.

“It could be real,” Purefoy says, looking far less threatening with a glass of wine in his hand. “It’s a difficult idea to get one’s head around. If you play it real, it becomes so terrifying. There is a very real feel to the whole thing.”

Though Carroll is evil incarnate, he is so intelligent and charismatic, it’s easy to see how he holds sway over people. His specialty, besides the works of Poe, is seducing people, making him even more dangerous than your average serial killer.

He’s so masterful at this he developed a cult. This means that not only does he kill — slicing up his victims with gruesome nods to Poe — but his disciples also slaughter innocents.

Again, there are scenes in the first four episodes that will make some recoil.

It does seem curious how inept most police officers are in this and how only the one FBI agent who had to be called back truly understands Carroll’s manipulative genius. He is so deadly that if there were a drinking game of doing a shot per victim, players would be plastered by the end of the pilot.

“He has a certain eloquence,” Purefoy concedes of his character, and that gains him everyone’s trust.

It’s debatable as to whether FBI specialist Debra Parker (Annie Parisse, “Law & Order”) falls under Carroll’s spell.

“I am an academic brought in to consult and investigate Joe Carroll,” Parisse says. “I am in charge of Kevin Bacon. I am trying to keep that man in line.

“I am not easily scared because of knowing the genre,” says Parisse, an avowed horror fan. “I was so scared. What they do in the pilot is so shocking.”

This series was long percolating in creator Williamson’s brain.

“I have been working on this baby for years,” Williamson (“Dawson’s Creek”) says. “This started as a TV story a hundred years ago. I came up with this idea when researching ‘Scream.’ I just sort of sat on it. I wrote it as a TV show, then a feature film during the writers strike, and then I sat on it again. And after ‘Vampire Diaries’ was going into its third year, I had a deal with Warner Brothers, and this is what I wanted to do.”

Williamson’s mom fostered his lifelong passion for Poe.

“She took me to the Richmond, Va., museum, and you had to follow ‘The Raven’ on red walls, and I started reading it and reading it,” he says. “My mom gave me the collected works of Edgar Allan Poe. More than anything it is about what he stood for and what he believed in.”

“Joe Carroll says it in the pilot,” Williamson continues. “Poe said nothing is more beautiful than the bereavement of a beautiful woman. This man was surrounded by death in his real life, and it carried over into his fiction.”

And that is inherently entwined into the series. Arresting Carroll can’t stop the bloody killings, not when he has deranged disciples.

Still, Williamson says, this isn’t a horror movie. “It is a drama with a lot of scary stuff,” he says. “It is a love story; it is a story about two men and the woman between them. It is a big story.”

Across

1. John Ritter’s role on “Three’s Company”

5. “Yes, __” (2000-06)

9. Lightweight wood often used for rafts

10. “Woman __ __”; 2000 Penelope Cruz movie

12. Alkaline cleaning solution ingredient

13. Word in the titles of seven Hope/Crosby movies

16. Movie tape player, for short

17. “__ All Night”

18. Hannigan of “How I Met Your Mother”

20. Fight result, for short

21. Actress Moran

23. Grant and Carter 25. First name in tyrants 26. “Tic __ Dough”; game show of old

48. “Resident __: Afterlife”; 2010 Milla Jovovich film

Down

1. “Modern Family” role (2)

2. Pub order

3. Ms. Sellecca’s initials

4. __ Malden

5. Ding-a-ling

6. Prefix for large or lighten

7. Arctic Cat or Honda FourTrax, for short

8. Actor on “NCIS” (2)

9. “NYPD __”

11. Experts

14. Nanny Fine’s comment

15. “__ the World Turns”

18. “__ Practice”

19. “Face the __”

22. “American __”

24. “__ Hari”; Greta Garbo film

29. Does drugs

31. TV brand

34. A.J. Soprano’s portrayer

35. “__ Time for Sergeants”

36. Ruth or Phil: abbr.

37. Adams or Falco

40. British restroom

42. __ alai

44. Fraternity letter 46. “The __ Set”; 2006 David Duchovny film