Though the two shows couldn’t be more different, Ryan Murphy may have learned a valuable lesson from the decline of his hit musical dramedy, Glee, which he then adopted to ensure longevity for his horror anthology series, American Horror Story.
Glee premiered on May 19, 2009 on the FOX network, and ran for six seasons. Its series finale aired on May 22, 2012, a little under a year after American Horror Story premiered on FX. Regardless of its downslide, Glee was a massive success for Ryan Murphy, and launched amazing careers for many of its principle cast members including Lea Michele, Chris Colfer, Matthew Morrison, and Darren Criss. Criss has worked with Murphy on other projects since, including a lead role on The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story (2018), which won him a Primetime Emmy Award.
Even though Murphy has had a wildly successful career that he can, at least in part, attribute to Glee’s success, the show’s rapid decline may have been partly to blame for his adoption of an anthology format or limited series focus for most of his television series that came after.
How Glee Potentially Saved American Horror Story
The third season of Glee premiered on September 20, 2011; American Horror Story premiered on October 5, 2011. Glee’s third season was, overall, the lowest rated on Rotten Tomatoes, and dropped in overall viewership. Part of this can be attributed to it being the season where the primary cast members were all set to graduate on the show, and rumors circulated that Chris Colfer, Lea Michele, and Cory Monteith would be calling it quits after that. American Horror Story saw a similar decline when Jessica Lange left the show after the fourth season, Freak Show. The fourth season of Glee attempted a refresh by bringing in new, fresh faces to McKinley High School, which served as the show’s principle setting, and attempted to introduce an already lukewarm audience to different characters. Fans weren’t thrilled by the changeover, as most of their interest lied with the actors whom they had grown to love.
It was here that Murphy likely learned his biggest lesson: his fanbase was attached primarily to the actors, and even though the show had admittedly gone off the rails in more than a few ways, were willing to stick it out to continue their support. Also, based on the fact that the show was largely musical, the quality of music had its ups and downs in popularity depending on who was performing during each week’s episode. American Horror Story has been careful to do its refresh deliberately, adding just enough new actors to build on a fanbase and continuing that momentum once the popularity and attachment is there.
Emma Roberts became a lead cast member in season three, Coven, and took a leading role in the ninth season, 1984, after Sarah Paulson and Evan Peters announced they wouldn’t return. Roberts had a following which had been steadily building and, while her popularity wasn’t as strong as Peters and Paulson, she was familiar to the show’s audience. 1984 also brought back Lily Rabe, who has been with the series off and on since its inception and John Carroll Lynch, who made a name for himself by playing Twisty the Clown in Freak Show.
Though viewership has seen a steady decline overall since Lange’s departure, ratings have had highs and lows interchangeably since, allowing American Horror Story to never fully lose momentum, and part of that is also due to its anthology angle where, even if fans don’t love one season of the show, they can rest easily knowing that the next will be different, but their favorite actors are, for the most part, there to stay.
Next: American Horror Story Has Rewritten History (In A Bad Way)
