Monday's premiere of American Horror Story: Hotel on M-Net Edge was truly horrific. And
not for the right reasons.
It wasn't scary nor freaky nor terrifying at all. Instead it was annoying, indulgent, non-sensical and a total letdown i.e. it S.U.C.K.S.
I've been mad about the show since the first season so I was expecting to be hooked on Hotel too but that was before it became clear that it's a completely different series now.
Their first mistake: making the entire thing about Lady Gaga. Their second mistake: calling it Hotel. They should have called it The Lady Kaka Show instead.
All she does is swoon around in her samey costumes in between shagging Matt Bomer in an orgy of
gratuitous blood. I rolled my eyes throughout the tediously long-winded scene because it was so transparent and contrived. I could literally hear the creator Ryan Murphy or Gaga or whoever conceptualised the scene going on about how "shocking" it would be and the outraged responses it would get. Puhlease.
What annoyed me even more is that The Parents Television Council made a stink about the scene - they sent letters, complained etc. - and I really wish they hadn't because they gave the show what it wants!
I don't want the show to get anything it wants because it's given me nothing that I want. I really imagined it was going to be very different.
There are so many subtle and overt aspects to a hotel that can be seen as eerie and terrifying and yet they haven't picked up on any of them. I don't know why they even bothered to set it in one because it's simply used as an excuse to bring together a bunch of different characters whose relationships don't make sense. They may as well have set it on a farm.
I was also expecting something dramatically different from Kaka because I was under the impression she was going to act. It would have created a coolness factor for her if she'd transformed into a totally different character that caused us to go "wow". It's her acting debut and yet she's just the same as we always see her which has had a fundamental impact on the show.
I got the distinct sense that the season has been created to impress her. Instead of her fitting into the concept, the show has changed concept to make her the star so it's not American Horror Story anymore.
Everyone else gets side-lined, the other characters are all trying to be "Gaga'esque" and there's no Jessica Lange to save it. I actually wondered if it's why she didn't do the season... maybe she caught a hint of how things were going and it's why she didn't do it?
She dodged a bullet and I'm going to too. I was planning on watching the second episode to see if things start to make sense but after thinking about it I've decided not to because there's only so much horror I can take.