American Horror Story: Apocalypse looks like the franchise's dumbest season ever

The Atlantic

"FX has hyped Apocalypse as the ultimate treat for Story fans, promising to bring back characters from the first season (set in a house haunted by hot ghosts) and the third (about a coven of sassy witches)," says Spencer Kornhaber. "Those earlier installments did indeed provide the scary, silly, and moving highlights of a franchise whose eternally promising conceit has been undermined by sloppy tonal shifts and plotting. The Apocalypse premiere can barely muster even the baseline bonkers, though: Forgoing the directive to terrify, it relies on first-draft camp comedy. Most troubling is that by wiping the Earth and heading below ground, (Ryan) Murphy and (Brad) Falchuk are betting they can construct a coherent new world according to their tastes and imagination. But eight seasons in, their stores of those resources appear as barren as California in nuclear winter."

ALSO:

• Apocalypse premieres to more than 3 million viewers, down from last season's premiere
• American Horror Story ditched the seriousness of Cult for the campy fun of Apocalypse
• This was one of the strongest premieres in American Horror Story history
• Nothing in the premiere was even remotely scary or shocking
• Apocalypse has perhaps the most visually beguiling set-up of any in the anthology so far
• The premiere's first moments redeemed the aimless, camping next 45 minutes