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Ryan Murphy Shows Ranked
13. SCREAM QUEENS
Murphy’s “cutting” humor is constantly on display in his pitch-black Fox comedy. (Somewhere, Nicole Julian is smiling.) But, since the show is about as substantive as cotton candy, the overall effect, ironically, isn’t killer.
12. AMERICAN HORROR STORY: HOTEL
While Season 5 was visually dazzling — and we don’t just mean Matt Bomer — the absence of Murphy mainstay Jessica Lange cast a shadow over the proceedings, making her, in a way, the one ghost not haunting the Cortez. By the time we’d checked out, we’d decided Hotel was a creepy place to visit, but we wouldn’t want to die there.
11. AMERICAN HORROR STORY: ROANOKE
Murphy deserves a lot of credit for doing something altogether different for AHS’ Season 6 — from its red-herring promos to its reality-show-within-the-series premise. But nothing here hit us as hard as, say, Ma Petite’s Freak Show murder or frightened us as much as Bloody Face’s Asylum introduction.
10. AMERICAN HORROR STORY: FREAK SHOW
Since AHS’ fourth season delivered both genuine frights (for starters, Twisty the Clown’s face!) and memorable moments (Fraulein Elsa’s Bowie routine among them), we can’t say we’re sorry we bought a ticket to Freak Show. But, in the end, the narrative focused too much on Finn Wittrock’s murderous brat to be considered truly “dandy.”
9. AMERICAN HORROR STORY: COVEN
A bit heavier on style than substance, Season 3 of Murphy’s AHS franchise may not have been, er, Supreme. But it did add to his roster of talent the estimable Angela Bassett and Kathy Bates. And we’re pretty sure none of us have forgotten — or can forget! — Queenie’s tryst with a “horny” Minotaur.
8. THE NEW NORMAL
Pregnancies last longer than Murphy’s NBC comedy. And there might have been more constructive ways to depict the clashes between its central gay couple and the conservative grandmother of their surrogate. But, considering that the debate over what’s “normal” remains unresolved — among some people, anyway — the series’ creator was clearly onto something.
7. AMERICAN HORROR STORY
Compared to, say, the superior Asylum, “Murder House” may seem like a quaint haunted mansion. But when Murphy launched his horror-anthology series, we were awestruck by not only Season 1’s stylishness but also by the caliber of talent (Britton! Lange! Rabe! O’Hare!) he was able to recruit for his small-screen repertory company.
6. NIP/TUCK
For a drama about plastic surgeons, Murphy’s second series cut surprisingly deep. The FX series also solidified in our minds its creator’s love of all things extreme, whether disturbing (“Frankenlaura”), weird (Matt’s stint as a mime) or beautiful (Mario Lopez’s flawless butt).
5. POPULAR
No, Murphy’s two-season WB dramedy was hardly the juggernaut that Glee was. But it did reveal to us — via memorable mean girls Mary Cherry and Nicole — his enviable aptitude for catty characters. And if you disagree with the series’ high ranking on his hit list, as Mary Cherry would say, you can just “shut your dirty whore mouth, player player!”
4. FEUD: BETTE AND JOAN
Murphy kicked off his newest FX anthology series this year with the dream team of his muse Lange and fellow Oscar winner Susan Sarandon. The result? A picture-perfect period piece that’s so heartbreaking that, by the end of every episode, you’re dying to take a hit off Crawford’s flask.
3. GLEE
Such a monster hit was Murphy’s musical dramedy that it spawned albums, concerts, a concert movie, its own reality show (The Glee Project)… and, we’d be willing to wager, just stuck “Don’t Stop Believing” in your head. What’s more, when the series was good, it was exceptional. It even won Murphy his first Emmy.
2. AMERICAN HORROR STORY: ASYLUM
The second and, to date, finest season of Murphy’s horror-anthology series drove us crazy in the best possible way — by madly stitching together a serial killer with mommy issues, aliens, Nazis, the devil and a fantastically out-of-left-field performance of “The Name Game” by Lange’s Sister Jude. All that and the baby-squirrel monologue, too!
1. THE PEOPLE V. O.J. SIMPSON: AMERICAN CRIME STORY
Evidence that the true-crime genre fits Murphy like a glove: Season 1 of his second FX anthology series set a skyscraper-high standard for all future installments, won a whopping nine Emmys (including, natch, one for its EP) and left us counting the months, weeks, days, minutes until Katrina’s 2018 premiere.
Image: Courtesy of Fox
Image: Courtesy of FX
Image: Courtesy of FX
Image: Courtesy of FX
Image: Courtesy of FX
Image: Courtesy of 20th Century Fox Television
Image: Courtesy of FX
Image: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Television Distribution
Image: Courtesy of Disney-ABC Domestic Television
Image: Courtesy of FX
Image: Courtesy of 20th Television
Image: Courtesy of FX
Image: Courtesy of FX
