FORCES  OF  EVIL
All is not what it appears to be in the rural community of Trinity, South Carolina. If you take a look behind the postcard-pretty enclave of ante-bellum houses, manicured lawns and perfect Southern accents, it will reveal a town which is being tormented and seduced by the ominous presence of one man, Sheriff Lucas Buck.

It is not long before audiences of the CBS drama series American Gothic are lured in and trapped like flies in the spider's web of evil and deceit the sheriff has spun around the town. In the opening minutes of the program a father turns and attacks his emotionally disturbed daughter Merlyn Temple when she keeps insisting that "someone's at the door'.

Merlyn's brother Caleb manages to escape and goes for help, but before he can return, Sheriff Buck and his deputy arrive on the scene. For a moment, it looks as though Buck is comforting the injured Merlyn, but then he snaps her neck. Clearly he is someone that the townspeople want on their good side.

Dubbed by The New York Times as 'the most daring new show of the season', American Gothic made its American debut on September 22, 1995. Created, written and produced by Shaun Cassidy, the show's executive producers are Sam Raimi, Robert Tapert (the same creative minds behind the phenomenally successful series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess) and Robert Palm.

The idea for the series came from Cassidy's own children, who began to ask their father the age-old question about why things happen as they do in today's world. He began to ponder over the definition of evil and how it might manifest in such a way as to evoke fear in people and ultimately control them. Out of this, he created American Gothic and the character of Lucas Buck, who is played in sublimely evil fashion by actor Gary Cole.

With the role of Lucas Buck, Cole has succeeded in creating a character that is inherently evil and, yet, at the same time, masks his true intentions with good deeds. Despite the fact that he kills Merlyn, Buck is more interested in manipulating and controlling people rather than killing them. After all, would the town of Trinity make as appealing a plaything to the sheriff if all the townspeople were dead?

Buck also has a wicked sense of humor. In the first episode he strolls past dungeon-like jail cells happily tapping the bars with a pen and whistling the theme song of a 1960's American television series The Andy Griffith Show. And who says evil cannot have a good time on the job?

After young Caleb's sister is killed and his father jailed the sheriff begins to exhibit a bizarre parental interest in the boy and insists that he be given custody of Caleb. Buck must first overcome opposition by Doctor Matt Crower, one of the few townspeople he does not control. Another person standing in his way is Gail Emory, a former Trinity resident who now works as a newspaper reporter. Discovering that her cousin Caleb is being threatened by Sheriff Buck, she returns to her home town and sets in motion a series of confrontations that will have terrible consequences.

From the beginning, Cassidy and the rest of the production team set out to make American Gothic a little bit different from other programs currently on American television. As the story unfolds, audiences discover more unholy secrets that have laid dormant in Trinity for years. They will also bring to wonder about the relationship between Lucas and Caleb and eventually ask themselves "is blood thicker than water?"

Michael Lange, who directed three episodes of The X-Files, also worked on two episodes of American Gothic and found the experience to be very rewarding. "It's not like The X-Files in terms of the storylines, but American Gothic has a similar tone and some of the same elements that work so well in The X-Files. It's a very dark, cynical and sometimes mean-spirited program, which is all intentional. The producers really expect a lot from a director in terms of input into the show's style and its scripts. That's sort of unusual and I enjoyed that. It was a good show to work on."

Despite a promising start American Gothic soon succumbed to low ratings and a broadcast schedule that even Sheriff Buck would find hard to follow. The program was relegated to television limbo with the hopes that its remaining four episodes not seen in the States would be broadcast there during the Summer.

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