American Horror Story: Murder House

Larry Harvey: I'm trying very hard not to judge you.
Ben Harmon: Me? You murdered your entire family!
Larry Harvey: Yes, but I was never unfaithful. 

In its first season, American Horror Story, an FX show created by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, follows the Harmons, a family that has unwittingly moved into the Murder House. They move there to get a fresh start after the wife Vivien has a miscarriage and the husband Ben has an affair, but the house, haunted by its own gruesome past, threatens not only their safety but their sanity. In addition to the house, they must contend with the machinations of their unwelcome neighbor Constance, a horribly disfigured former resident Larry Harvey, and Tate, a young psychopath wooing their daughter Violet.

While this is a very well-scripted show that relies on psychological horror rather than shock value, the truly interesting thing about it is its structure. Because it is a cable show, each season is twelve episodes long and each season is a different, unrelated story, that uses the same cast. While season one is the story of the Murder House, season two is set in an Asylum in the 60s. Murphy and Falchuk have taken what I consider to be an underused format in American television, the mini-series, and rebranded it into something marketable and cool. It allows them to delve into a story and characters for longer than a two hour movie but does not weigh them down with an obligation to always leave the story open-ended to allow for unlimited future seasons. So many interesting shows struggle after their first or second season simply because they must stretch a good story past its breaking point, but if the format of American Horror Story catches on, we could be looking at a whole new type of television show that's already told some very interesting stories in the UK. Hopefully the success of this show helps to change the way producers and viewers think about mini-series so that we can get shows that recognize the value of resolution as much as set-up.It would have gone a long way for shows like Lost and Heroes.