American Horror Story

This is now officially one of the weirdest shows I've ever seen on television.  We're six episodes into this thing and I can't help feeling that I'm drawn to it more out of watching a train wreck in slow motion than in any character or plot development.

One thing about American Horror Story, stuff happens.  Constantly.  And part of that is because not only are they telling the story of the people in the present day (though I'm starting to wonder if we're going to find out at the end of the season that the family we're watching is just another set of ghosts), but they're reaching back to the 1920s for unresolved plot lines there.

So, yeah, stuff is happening.  All the time.  You can't really miss an episode because characters die -- and come back even though they've been buried under a gazebo.  Alliances between the characters are constantly shifting too, and stuff you thought you knew isn't true, or it's way different than you initially thought.

However, there isn't a redeeming character in the show.  At first I was drawn in by Vivien Harmon's character (Connie Britton) because she'd been the poor wife that had been cheated on.  But she's become fairly distasteful to me because she's lost all depth (even before she ate the brain this week).  I wanted to feel for Ben Harmon (Dylan McDermott), but he's beginning to be a wimp.  Violet (Taissa Farmiga) started to become the character that I wanted to champion, but now she's curling up into a fetal ball.

I'm more drawn in by the puzzles, who all the ghosts are and how they got there.  And then there has to be a malevolent force that trapped them all there.  I want to know about that too.

But the series was greenlighted for a second season, so I don't know how soon we'll get all those answers.  I don't want the pacing to slow down because there isn't much else here.  Shock me, puzzle me, and make me wonder.

A friend told me that this series is the Dark Shadows of this generation, and I think that hits the nail squarely on the head.