Trivia / American Gothic (1995)

• All-Star Cast: In terms of character actors, anyway. Not only does the main cast have a pre-fame Sarah Paulson, but the rest of the line-up consists of Gary Cole, Paige Turco, Jake Weber, Brenda Bakke, Lucas Black, and Nick Searcy. That isn't even getting into the various other well-known character actors who made guest appearances.
• Fake American: Jake Weber, as Matt Crower, does such a convincing accent its hard to believe he's really from England.
• Screwed by the Network: The show premiered at 10 PM EST on Friday nights, a fairly good time slot. There was plenty of press, promotions, a lot of hype. The show airs, gets rave reviews from critics and fans alike...and then, for no apparent reason, scheduling issues begin cropping up. Whether the executives in charge at CBS changed and wished to do away with the success of their predecessors (at the time, CBS was transitioning from the disastrous cheapskate Lawrence Tisch era of the network to Westinghouse ownership; the final year of the Tisch era had left a Fox-lite schedule with post-NFL transition disasters such as an Andrew Dice Clay sitcom and Central Park West with the new owners) didn't understand how good a thing they had, or didn't understand the show at all, all sorts of problems began plaguing the show. It would be preempted; there would be no episode shown, something else randomly stuck on in its place with no explanation; there would be gaps of several weeks in between new episodes, sometimes filled by reruns but usually not; episodes were shown out of order, or never aired at all. Then, without warning, the show was completely yanked from the line-up and vanished for many months. Granted, the show was unusual, not for everyone, and very different from most of CBS's usual fare, but with so many praising it for its daring and disturbing nature, you'd think they'd have gotten a clue. Luckily the creators knew long enough ahead of time that the plug was being pulled, and managed to wrap up the main plot points (well, sort of...). But even these final episodes were withheld for a long time, then suddenly plunked on TV one right after another as a three-hour movie 'event'.
• Playing Against Type: Sonny Shroyer as Troubled Abuser Gage Temple.
• What Could Have Been: Reportedly, Lucas and Selena were brother and sister in early plans for the show (and yes, their relationship was otherwise the same). This was dropped for breaching the network's obscenity policies. It would probably have been the answer for the question, never answered in the show, of why Lucas can't simply have a child with Selena and has to rape or seduce good girls.
• Writer Revolt: Meddling Executives demanded that Dr. Matt be written out and replaced with Dr. Billy, because they thought that Matt was too mild-mannered and that the show needed a tough, rebellious hero. The writers retaliated by deliberately humiliating the character at the end of the series, by having a major plotline in which what he thought was him bringing Selena to a Sex–Face Turn was actually Selena setting him up to be framed for killing Lucas.