FALL TV EXTRAVAGANZA!!!

AMERICAN HORROR STORY

*1/2 (out of ****)

American Horror Story is the pet project of the guys who brought you Nip/Tuck and Glee.  Starring Not Clive Owen and A Girl, AHS attempts to bring horror to the little screen.  A noble task, because if you asked me what the worst format for horror was, I would say ‘40 minutes episodes with commercial breaks.’  Horror needs tension, which requires time to build.  It also needs to suck you in, which requires that there be absolutely no Subway commercials.  Also, TV executives aren’t the kind of people who generally like ‘new’ things, so if you want something new on TV it’s your job as a creator to prove them wrong.  If you don’t have the credibility you need, you make what they will let you until you do.  Then when you’ve got the clout, you make the exact opposite of this show.  Like I said, TV is bad for horror.  That means if you’re going to come at TV with that shit, you’d best come correct.  AHS is not correct.  It’s barely even a horror show.  It’s just a boring family drama whose twist is that it’s cut with stock horror footage.  You won’t care about the characters, but at least you won’t really be scared either.  Aside from that, this episode was just a fucking mess.  It laid so much boring groundwork without actually building anything up.  Just like Terra Nova, it forgot it was a TV show and introduced every plot line of the season in the first episode.  The whole point of TV is that it keeps going on.  Feel free to take your time.  Also like Terra Nova, it’s someone with a lot clout trying to break new ground and falling flat on their faces.  That pisses me off, because it ruins it for whoever might take that same concept and do it really well.  It hurts a lot more when it’s ‘time traveling dinosaurs’ than it does when it’s ‘horror on TV,’ but the sting is still there.  By the way, I was actually excited to watch this show, until about five minutes in – two ginger twins with bats are about to go wreck this old house.  They really want you to know they’re little shits, so before they enter the house one of them takes a swing at a nearby branch and shouts “I hate trees!”  Is that really the foot you want to lead off with?  Yes?  Well fuck you, then.  -DT