11 Beloved TV Shows With More Bad Seasons Than Good

With its first season, American Horror Story quickly established itself as must-watch television. Telling a stylised but gripping haunted house tale that covered everything from urban legends to stories of mass shooters and suicide, the anthology series' original run threw everything at the wall, and while not everything stuck, it made for a chaotically fun time.

However, after finishing that self-contained season, the series could never quite recapture the anarchic magic that made it so compelling. The follow-up run attempted to tackle more serious themes of abuse and religion, and while it gave fans great performances from Jessica Lange and Sarah Paulson (as well as the greatest piece of filmed media in recorded history), it lacked the same creative spark of the original.

Season 3 was a minor improvement, embracing camp rather than the oppressive atmosphere of previous episodes, but its brief quality reprieve was completely shattered the year after with Freak Show, and the series has never recovered since.