'Following' doesn't take violence lightly, says producer

'Following' doesn't take violence lightly, says producer

Bobby Bank/WireImage

Kevin Bacon stars in Fox’s ‘The Following.’ Its season starts Jan. 22.

PASADENA â€" Kevin Williamson has no trouble writing the most violent, sadistic and psychotic murder scenes anyone is apt to see on broadcast television this season.

At a panel for TV critics Tuesday on “The Following,” the Fox show where all this gore starts unfolding on Jan. 22, the show’s creator and executive producer, Williamson, had more trouble articulating why he thinks it’s appropriate 9 p.m. broadcast viewing fare.

His basic argument was firm and clear enough. “It’s a work of fiction,” he said. “It’s not intended to inspire anybody. I certainly hope it doesn’t.”

But like other creators and executives who have talked about TV violence at the semi-annual critics’ press tour, Williamson stutter-stepped his way to that point â€" wanting to make it clear he was not taking real-life violence lightly.

“Of course we were affected by Sandy Hook,” he said. “We all worry about [violence]. I particularly think of the [movie theater shootings in] Aurora. We’re all traumatized by it. ... It just gets too real.

“I’m a storyteller, so of course what happens in the real world affects me. I just don’t always know how. I guess we’ll have to [follow the show and] see.”

“The Following” stars Kevin Bacon as a retired FBI agent, Ryan Hardy, who finds that a serial killer he thought he had put away for life has been using the Internet to create a cultlike network of additional killers.

The killer, Joe Carroll (James Purefoy), is a college professor who killed 14 of his female students. His study of Edgar Allen Poe, Carroll says, convinced him that the greatest beauty in the universe is the death of a beautiful woman.

Bacon said viewers concerned about the violence need to follow the larger stories of the characters and their relationships.

Underneath the violence, he said, “The show is about love stories.”

Kyle Catlett, 9, who plays one of the character’s children on the show, was asked if he is allowed to watch “The Following.”

“I’m able to see almost everything,” he said, “with my Mom’s permission.”

dhinckley@nydailynews.com