Has American Horror Story lost its mojo?

There is quite a bit of debate and conversation, rants and cussing about the most recent season (10) of American Horror Story which has been packaged as a ‘double feature’ comprising Red Tide and Death Valley. Here are my 2 cents:

I think the Falchuk/Murphy team is either bored, distracted or maybe they’ve just lost the spark for AHS. Maybe it’s time to bring the final curtain down. They have had an amazing, game-changing run. I thoroughly enjoyed it, delicious fare and fodder with a few misses, but Season 10 is definitely off-colour, below par and not what we’ve become used to and now expect. I smelled the rat when I ventured into their spin-off American Horror Stories, I watched 2 or 3 episodes I couldn’t watch anymore. I don’t know if they were trying to diversify their brand but I was clearly not the audience for the juvenile dumbed-downness that assailed me.

AHS Season 10/the double feature was very uneven. Red Tide, talent/vampire story with the black pill at its core started off with a bang. I thought it was really well done, actually excellent up until the last episode (six) which was a complete disappointment, a little more than 30 minutes which felt rushed, it just did not hang together and did a poor job of putting a pause on the story. It felt like a slap in the face, an insult to viewers frankly. The new feature, the alien storyline called Death Valley, didn’t hang together. The major challenge is that there was a stark disparity between the black and white section which sets up the whole alien story and is well done, great acting the black and white effects are popping, strong acting. Then you get to the present day section which centres around a cast of young actors who give below average to good performances, trapped in banal and trivialized characters, unnecessarily explicit language and a lack-lustre storyline. The dissonance is real! I struggled through to end and was left assailed by pangs of disappointment. A few sparks of light were the cast of Red Tide, and especially Sarah Paulson and Angelica Ross who were on-point in both features.

This Season 10 flop actually saddens me, especially in light of the fact the Falchuk/Murphy team has done other things and done them really well: I just realized that at least one of them is involved in 9–1–1 (which I like!), they did Pose (Yaaaassss!) and Hollywood (which I thoroughly enjoyed!) Maybe they got distracted or maybe it’s just time to call it a day for AHS.