As if playing three separate
characters throughout the season
wasn’t enough work for Sarah Paulson,
she also directed episode six, ‘Return to
Murder House’.ReviewS Tv
American
Horror Story:
Apocalypse
Witch, please
Release Out now
Showrunner Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk
Cast Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, Billie Lourd,
Kathy Bates, Adina Porter, Cody Fern,
Jessica Lange
Distributor FX
Certificate 18
Format VOD
American Horror Story’s
latest season centres on the idea of
foreseeing death and destruction and
putting a plan in place to prevent it.
Combining elements from ‘Murder House’ and
‘Coven’ for ‘Apocalypse’, it revolves around
Antichrist Michael Langdon, whose desire to
bring about the end of days can only be stopped
by witch Cordelia Foxx and her magic mates.
Kicking off with the titular event, it later
jumps back in time to explore what lengths
the spellbinding sisters took to thwart it.
It’s basically Final Destination, only more
A Discovery Of
Witches
Vampires and witches and
demons, oh my!
Release 3 December
Showrunner Lachlan MacKinnon,
Kate Brooke
Cast Matthew Goode, Teresa Palmer,
Owen Teale, Trevor Eve, Alex Kingston,
Lindsay Duncan, Louise Brealey
Distributor Sky
Certificate 15
Format •Based on the books by Deborah
Harkness, this bewitching tale follows
Diana Bishop (Teresa Palmer), a
witch and historian who finds herself
embroiled in a conflict between factions of witches,
vampires and demons after she discovers a book
believed to hold the secret to eternal life. Despite
trying to ignore her witch heritage, the discovery
of this ancient Ashmole text means that getting her,
and that book, becomes everyone’s top priority.
Diana knows nothing of the fragile truce that’s
existed for centuries between witches, vampires
and demons and is not afraid to follow her instinctsover ancient rules that dictate she stick to her own
kind. She only trusts her new ally, vampire Matthew
(Matthew Goode), and their search for the truth
behind the book, and plenty more besides, soon
blossoms into something more romantic.
Full of passion, politics and power-grabs,
this story is far more layered than your average
star-crossed lovers tale. Diana and Matthew are
both interesting and well-realised characters and
you believe the love between them immediately,
which makes everything that follows far easier to
swallow. Diana is no wallflower in need of rescuing
and Matthew is no hero. Together, they make up a
fascinating partnership and in that lies the greatest
strength of this enchanting series.A Discovery Of Witches explores many different
themes, from loyalty to your own kind and
relationships between different groups to changing
the status quo. The locations are utterly gorgeous,
too, and only add to the deliciousness of the series,
from the timeless beauty of Oxford to the lavish
properties of Venice and France.
On top of this, there is fun with spells and
witchcraft, vampire science and some killer sexual
tension and chemistry. We’d say it’s the perfect
guilty pleasure but there’s no guilt here.
Amanda Keats
ridiculous as it unravels clumsily towards a
meaningless conclusion.
Newbies Mallory (Billie Lourd) and Coco
(Leslie Grossman), who both discover that
they’re more than timid personal assistant and
bossy billionaire, make for great new additions
but it’s the old favourites that save the show
from being a complete mess. It is brilliant to
see Sarah Paulson’s Cordelia – now confident as
Supreme – take charge, Emma Roberts’ Madison
Montgomery bring bitchy back and Frances
Conroy’s Myrtle Snow rock that orange crimped
hair once again. It’s just a shame that the show
regards them as figures to pose and deliver one-
liners rather than three-dimensional characters.
American Horror Story’s need to indulge fans
has never been so evident, from Jessica Lange’s
Constance Langdon declaring to a snooping
Madison that ‘this is [my] f***ing house’ to
having Stevie Nicks show up and perform
for seemingly no real reason. AHS isn’t an
exploration of dark and interesting things such
as ghosts, trauma or social downfalls anymore;
it’s merely here to offer up a series of ‘YAAAS
QUEEN’ moments for audiences to Tweet about.
While the visuals and costumes this seasonare some of the best the show has seen since
‘Hotel’ (those witches sure know how to serve
some looks), it’s clear that AHS is running out of
creative steam, having used up all of its twisted
imagination. If only Falchuk and Murphy could
have envisioned how messy their show would
wind up being, perhaps they could have done
something to save it. The only thing we can
hope for now is that its end is nigh.
Amy West
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