How Long to Watch “American Gothic”?

There's dirty work afoot in the deceptively tranquil South Carolina village of Trinity during the first and only season of the weekly CBS "scarefest" American Gothic. Evil sheriff Lucas Buck (Gary Cole), who possesses strange powers enabling him to get away with all sorts of mayhem while convincing everyone that he's the nicest guy in town, gets things off to a rousing start when he murders teenager Merlyn Ann Temple (Sarah Paulson), frames her dad for the crime, and attempts to adopt Merlyn's 10-year-old brother Caleb (Lucas Black)--who, unbeknownst to either Caleb or the rest of the town, happens to be Buck's illegitimate son. The combined efforts of the town's new doctor Matt Crower (Jake Weber) and Caleb's muckraking journalist cousin Gail (Paige Turco) keep Caleb out of Lucas' clutches. . .at least temporarily. Meanwhile, Buck's long-suffering, basically honest deputy Ben (Nick Searcy) , the only person fully aware of what the Sheriff is up to, ineffectually offers a helping hand to his ex-wife, whose new husband is an abusive lout; Trinity is threatened with a swarm of flesh-beating beetles; the ghost of Merlyn Ann appears to offer advice to Caleb, who is a bit confused inasmuch as she'd never bother to talk to him while he was alive; a gun-toting woman (Veronica Cartwright) shows up in town insisting that she's Caleb's real mother, and that Lucas had raped her years earlier; the normally level-headed Gail is herself seduced by the libinous Lucas; Dr. Billy Peele (John Mese) shows up in town to battle an epidemic and ends up in the sack with Lucas' sluttish girlfriend Selena (Brenda Bakke); and kindly Dr. Crower is forced to battle the hitherto hidden demons within him after a terrible car accident. With all this going on, it any wonder that the otherwise affable Caleb would suddenly experience a change in personality--triggered by the inherently evil powers within him--and become a potential murderer himself? Of the 22 episodes of American Gothic, only 18 were actually telecast by CBS; the remaining four have since been packaged into the series' DVD release.