11 Beloved TV Shows With More Bad Seasons Than Good

3. American Horror Story

american horror story freak show evan peters come as you are
FX

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.

Contributor

Josh has over 11 years of experience as a published writer, having worked nine of those years as a full-time content producer at WhatCulture. In that period he has created hundreds of articles, videos and podcast episodes for multiple WhatCulture channels, specialising in gaming, horror and film & TV. He now primarily works as a senior content producer and presenter on WhatCulture Gaming where he co-hosts the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast, a top 3 UK most listened to gaming podcast that he co-created in 2018. Over the years he has reviewed several high-profile gaming releases, covered industry events with on-site reporting, opined on breaking news, and even kicked off his interviewing career by chatting to childhood hero, Tommy Wiseau.