Fox has just ordered another series from Ryan Murphy, the man behind "Glee," one of the network's recent success stories.
Murphy also created FX's "American Horror Story," which pulled in more than 10 million total viewers for its most recent season premier, making it the record holder for total viewers on the station.
That kind of success might be why Fox has so much confidence in Murphy that they completely bypassed the pilot stage and gave his next show a straight-to-series order.
Murphy is teaming up with "Glee" producers Ian Brennan and Brad Falchuk to make an anthology series called "Scream Queens," described as a "comedy-horror" show that revolves around a series of murders on a college campus.
Lately, anthology series that reboot the story every season with a fresh cast, like "True Detective," "American Horror Story" and "Fargo," have been incredibly successful with both audiences and critics. All of those shows landed at least one Emmy nomination.
And it looks like Murphy has similarly big ambitions for his new show. The Hollywood Reporter quotes him saying, "We hope to create a whole new genre — comedy-horror — and the idea is for every season to revolve around two female leads."
That all sounds well and good except for one thing: comedy-horror is far from a new genre.
There are many films that fit into that category, such as "Zombieland," "Shaun of the Dead," "Scream" and countless other titles spanning back decades.
On the small screen, there was a little show called "Buffy The Vampire Slayer," which was also a female-driven horror show with some comedy thrown in. So it's not like Murphy is breaking new ground here.
But in Murphy's defense, his show seems to be a bit more grounded in reality. The scares in his series will come from murder plots, not supernatural beings like zombies and vampires.
A writer for Cinema Blend is still not impressed. "'Scream Queens' is already starting to sound like a drag, an overworked, reworked idea reminiscent of a lot of the stuff the writer, producer and director has put together in the past."
Regardless, this series will give Murphy three shows on the air at the same time: "American Horror Story," "Scream Queens" and the upcoming "American Crime Story." That's a pretty impressive TV presence.
This video contains images from Getty Images.
