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.

On Time Tuesdays: Is "Hannibal" already feasting on leftovers?

I really wanted Hannibal to turn into a great show. But we're 4-ish episodes in, and it's already turning into another formulaic procedural drama with a little more gore. Criminal Minds has already ripped off the best of Thomas Harris for weekly installments; to work, Hannibal needed to focus on something other than increasingly farfetched serial murders that could be solved in the span of an hour. After episode 3, I was hopeful that it was turning in that direction. But then, the latest episode aired and I'm feeling pretty cynical towards the show.

On Time Tuesdays: Is "Hannibal" Worth Sitting Down With A Glass of Chianti?

NBC's new series Hannibal has aired two episodes now, giving some hints at what the show might be leading towards and setting up its cast of characters. For those who are even more behind than I am, Hannibal is a prequel to the original Hannibal Lecter trilogy made most famous by the 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs. The original three novels and corresponding movies all take place after Hannibal has been caught and incarcerated (a later fourth book, Hannibal Rising, examines Hannibal as a child and young man, but is rather disconnected from the original trilogy), and although we get snippets of Hannibal's original crime spree, the new series is the first narrative to show Hannibal when he was an uncaught serial killer.

On Time Tuesdays: Walking Dead Season 3 in Review

Last Sunday was the season 3 finale of The Walking Dead, AMC's zombie thriller that I have discussed previously as one of the better examples of horror TV at the moment. Season 3 was fairly strong overall, but it still had its ups and downs as it constructed a new societal system for the main band of survivors and developed a conflict between their group and another community nearby. I hope the show will continue to strengthen in season 4--I wonder if some of the difficulties they've faced haven't been due to the transition from a six episode format in the first season to a more traditional thirteen and sixteen episode arc in seasons 2 and 3 respectively. Season 1 was all action; with more episodes, the show had more time to spend on exposition and character development but it didn't always seem like it was sure where it was going. (If you haven't yet seen Season 3, spoilers follow.)

On Time Tuesdays: Bates Motel

Last night, A & E aired the first episode of their new show Bates Motel. If it's not obvious already from the title, Bates Motel is an update (in more ways than one) of Alfred Hitchcock's classic film Psycho. The show looked pretty promising from the teasers and overall I was pretty pleased with the first episode. With such familiar subject matter, I was expecting Bates Motel to be, if not exactly predictable, at least a touch formulaic. There's definitely a lot going on in the show's world already, and it managed to be surprising and fresh even with such well known characters.

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.