American Horror Story season one: revisiting the Murder House

It's no secret that one of my favorite shows is American Horror Story. The show is about to start it's third season, although technically each season is actually a stand-alone mini-series so the show is an anthology of different narratives instead of a multi-season show. This, I think, has helped make it such a strong show since the writers can go into each season with a set narrative arc and they don't end up introducing red herrings or side plots that go nowhere. But, when AHS's pilot episode premiered almost two years ago, we didn't know that the structure was going to go that way. Questions about how they would maintain the freshness of the story for more than a season were often at the forefront of my mind. Now that I know better, it's even more exciting to revisit the first season. Since I know what the vision was to its completion, there are all sorts of clues, themes, and nuances to pick up on. I'm planning to go over each episode and look into the time line of the Murder House (for those who watched it already, you'll know that the show frequently used flashbacks to show different points in the house's history, not necessarily in order), and look into some overarching themes that show up. I'll try to avoid outright spoilers, but since I know what's coming obviously what I choose to focus on will be influenced since I know what's coming. So without further ado, let's step in the front door of that gorgeous evil house for the pilot episode.

Shows That Make You Hide Behind The Couch: The Awesome Rise of Horror TV

I am a horror fan. I've mentioned some of my scary literary faves already, but lately I've been getting most of my shocks on the small screen. When I was growing up, the only horror TV shows I remember were the occasional Stephen King mini-series (Rose Red has given me a yearning to visit the Winchester Mystery House someday), but in the last few years genre television has trickled down from networks like HBO and Showtime onto more standard cable channels like AMC and FX and now even onto network stations. Some of them are amongst my favorite shows on TV right now. Others are... less successful.