11 years ago today, October 5, 2011, American Horror Story premiered. It is an American anthology horror television series created by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk for the cable network FX. The first installment in the American Story media franchise, each season is conceived as a self-contained miniseries, following a different set of characters and settings in the same fictional universe, and a storyline with its own "beginning, middle, and end." Some plot elements of each season are loosely inspired by true events. Many actors appear in more than one season, often playing a new character. Evan Peters, Sarah Paulson, and Lily Rabe have returned most frequently, with each appearing in nine of the first ten seasons, followed by Frances Conroy, who appears in eight, and Denis O'Hare appearing in seven. Other notable actors such as Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, Angela Bassett, Emma Roberts, Adina Porter, Finn Wittrock, Jamie Brewer, Billie Lourd and Leslie Grossman appearing in five of the eleven seasons.
The first season, Murder House, takes place in Los Angeles, California in 2011, and centers on a family that moves into a house haunted by its former occupants. The second season, Asylum, takes place in Massachusetts in 1964 and follows the stories of the patients and staff of an institution for the criminally insane. The third season, Coven, takes place in New Orleans, Louisiana in 2013, and follows a coven of witches who face off against those who wish to destroy them. The fourth season, Freak Show, takes place in Jupiter, Florida, during 1952 and centers around an American freak show and their struggle for survival. The fifth season, Hotel, takes place in Los Angeles, California, during 2015 and focuses on the staff and guests of a supernatural hotel. The sixth season, Roanoke, takes place in North Carolina during 2014–2016 and focuses on an isolated farmhouse haunted by the deceased Roanoke colony. The seventh season, Cult, takes place in Michigan, and centers on a cult terrorizing the residents after the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The eighth season, Apocalypse, features the witches from Coven as they battle the Antichrist from Murder House to prevent the apocalypse. The ninth season, 1984, takes place outside Los Angeles during the 1980s and focuses the staff of a summer camp reopening after a massacre 14 years prior. The tenth season, the two-part Double Feature, focuses on a family in 2021 in Provincetown, Massachusetts in its first part, Red Tide, where they meet the town's true inhabitants, and later, in its second half, Death Valley, a group of camping students who find themselves in a conspiracy involving the extraterrestrials of Asylum. In January 2020, FX renewed the series for an additional three seasons, bringing it to at least thirteen confirmed seasons.
Although reception to individual seasons has varied, American Horror Story largely has been well received by television critics, with the majority of the praise going towards the cast, particularly Jessica Lange, who won two Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award for her performances. James Cromwell and Kathy Bates each won an Emmy Award for their performances, while Lady Gaga won a Golden Globe Award. The series draws consistently high ratings for the FX network, with its first season being the most-viewed new cable series of 2011.