American Horror Story, Season One

With some thoughts on the show’s future

Try as I might, I was somehow unable to escape the gravitational force that is/was American Horror Story. I was avoiding the show because I tend to be a big, stoneless chicken when it comes to the horror genre, true, but the far more alienating factor was the fact that this was another show from Ryan Murphy, who I have a lot of gripes with as a showrunner. As anyone who reads my Glee reviews no doubt knows, I tend to like Murphy’s show better in theory than in practice, for while he’s great at creating premises that could lead to great drama, he rarely seems capable of using said premises to the greatest effect, as his storytelling style tends to focus on creating singular moments rather than tell a coherent style. This style is perhaps ratcheted up to full effect in AHS, and while that makes the show a complete train wreck, it’s also a train wreck that I couldn’t stop watching.