Why Scream Queens Failed According To Co-Creator Brad Falchuk
Despite having a passionate fanbase, some shows just fizzle out. It happened to "Firefly," "Twin Peaks," and "Deadwood," just to name a few. A more recent series to join these ranks is the horror-comedy "Scream Queens," which was created by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Ian Brennan. The show — which aired from 2015 to 2016 for two seasons — followed a series of murders on a college campus and at a hospital, with the results being sometimes gruesome and often very funny. But why didn't the show work when so many other efforts from the trio were able to bear fruit?
"Scream Queens" co-creator Falchuk opened up to The Hollywood Reporter about the show's untimely demise and explained why he thought the series ultimately didn't work out. "We were hitting on narcissism — that's what the show is about — and, a few years later, people would've recognized it a little bit more," the writer-producer explained. "It was hard because viewers were like, 'Why are these people all so terrible?' They were all terrible! That's what we were trying to say."
It's easy to see where Falchuk is coming from here. After all, in our current small-screen atmosphere, some of the most popular shows on television, like HBO's "Succession" and Netflix's "The Fall of the House of Usher," are almost exclusively populated with awful but very entertaining characters.
Falchuk thinks a streaming service might have been a better fit
Brad Falchuk also suggested that "Scream Queens" may have done better had it found a home on a streaming service instead. "It wasn't working. People weren't watching it," he admitted. "But I've never had more fun. Fox might not have been the right place for it, and I think it was a little ahead of its time. It probably belonged on a streamer," he concluded.
Even if "Scream Queens" didn't join the ranks of previous Falchuk series like "American Horror Story," "9-1-1," and "American Crime Story" as a megahit series, the producer can still lean on past hits that are clicking with new viewers. "I don't know how 'Scream Queens' is doing, but it's on Hulu. 'Glee' is just constant," he said. "There are always 14-year-olds to start watching 'Glee' and to get obsessed."
With the recent resurgence of heroines returning to major horror franchises, it's not all that hard to imagine "Scream Queens" doing better as a film or working more effectively in our current television sphere. This is especially true when you consider how well a film like "Bodies Bodies Bodies" — with similarly awful characters — was received by fans and critics alike. Sadly, with "Scream Queens" having been off the air now for seven years and the show's creators busy with other projects, it's unlikely that fans will see the series reemerge.