The latest season of American Horror Story is coming soon, and while Ryan Murphy has promised us a tribute season, it might not be exactly what you’re expecting.
Murphy recently released a new show with FX on Hulu called The Shards, so he’s been out promoting that. While he’s on his press tour, there’s been plenty of news about the upcoming thirteenth season of American Horror Story. Now, in a recent interview with Variety, it was confirmed that there will be 13 episodes, but they will be shorter.
The standard American Horror Story episode tends to run for about 45 minutes, but there have been times when episodes have been shorter or longer. Even so, a whole season of shorter episodes isn’t super exciting and feels almost like a “gotcha!” moment.
The reason I say this is that we know at this point we will be getting a lot of characters back from previous seasons that we love. Murphy even spoke about it with Variety:
“I know which ones the fans liked the most. They love ‘Murder House’, ‘Asylum,’ ‘Coven,’ ‘Freak Show,’ and they loved ‘Cult’...some of them [the actors] will be playing two characters from two different seasons in the same scene. Evan [Peters] was, at one point, playing two different characters and talking to himself. So it was really fun and tricky to make, and I loved that. I’ve edited almost all of them, and I think they’re really good.”
I mean, of course fans would be excited for a season like that. It’s combining the best seasons of the show before it arguably began to sort of roll down a long, long hill. I will say that I’m one of the few who did enjoy both Hotel and Roanoke. But I can see why fans liked Cult more after it was released, especially considering the political landscape at the time.
Why this isn't super great news
I do get the fact that a lot of the cast members who have returned to this series are older and have other projects, and there are always scheduling conflicts. I also understand that the shorter episodes may mean a tighter story, and if so, I won’t be upset.
That being said, if this is another season where it feels like it’s a strong premise and then it just sort of falls apart, like Double Feature, then I really don’t even want the shorter episodes. Or if it's really just a bunch of cameos with no real story. At least dedicate some more time to the chaos of it all.
There have already been some first looks released that show the characters back in action, along with several cast members who haven’t been on the show in years. They’re building a sufficient amount of hype. I just hope it lives up to it.
This season has already had a few curveballs, too. Unfortunately, Ariana Grande dropped out of the cast due to her ongoing tour. It also felt like for a time that season 13 would be the last, as season 14 wasn’t confirmed.
However, Murphy said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter that he’s already thinking ahead on what to do next:
“I’m working on season 14 as we speak in terms of, ‘What’s the idea?’ and ‘Who wants to be in it?’”
With that in mind, it looks like season 14 is in active developmen, but I don’t know if it’ll ever live up to the hype surrounding season 13. And I think we’ll find out soon enough if these shorter episodes will truly be worth all of it.
American Horror Story premieres on FX on Sept. 24, 2026.
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