American Horror Story season 6 episode 1 review: My Roanoke Nightmare is a lesson in professional trolling

The anthology show continues its tradition of consistently pulling the rug from under fans with a strange theme and new format - to glorious effect

*WARNING: SPOILERS FOR AMERICAN HORROR STORY SEASON 6*

American Horror Story's creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk have refined professional trolling into the most elegant of arts.

In fact, I have a theory no truly great Horror Story episode can exist without some vague level of frustration. Or least some veil of perplexion. Maybe that's why I exist in the alien minority that actually enjoyed Hotel; I can't help but indulge Murphy and Falchuk's every mischievous whim, and the strange thrill of a weekly rug pull and a slap in the face.

In a TV landscape which constructs narrative like the most intricate lattice, like the thinnest of tightropes - where every line, look, or breath must deliver two-fold payoff down the line - there's something intoxicating about American Horror Story's willful, gleeful absurdity.

You can almost hear Murphy and Falchuk cackling away with every twist; oh, did your favourite character die abruptly mid-season? No worries, they'll be back next week as Rudolph Valentino. By the way, Rudolph Valentino is a vampire now.

It's that kind of unfazed attitude which so brazenly continues here; specifically, with season 6's refusal to reveal the anthology series' new theme until the first episode, choosing instead to unleash a flurry of deliberately misleading teasers ahead of time. A move that, again, managed to prove in both parts addictive and infuriating. The cackles in the background continued.

What was eventually unveiled proved unimaginably left-field; no one could exactly have foreseen the faux-documentary style, inspired by paranormal reality shows such Paranormal Witness, which structures the unveiled American Horror Story: My Roanoke Nightmare. Gone went the usual straightforward narrative format; swapped for talking heads and a claim that it's all been "inspired by true events".

The episode opened on couple Shelby (Lily Rabe) and Matt (André Holland) recounting to camera their traumatic paranormal experience in a desolate North Caroline farmhouse, after attempting to escape the city's terrors in the wake of a sudden tragedy. Their confessions are intermixed with dramatic reenactments of the pair's toils - which sees the couple played onscreen by The People vs. O.J. Simpson's Sarah Paulson and Cuba Gooding Jr.

It's clear from the season premiere that Murphy and Falchuk are responding in part to the criticisms - and dropping ratings - for Hotel; there's a return here to the slow-burn, old school horror which characterised the earlier seasons, making this episode fairly notable in how little it actually reveals. Past slamming doors, Blair Witch homages, and a sinister pig man; there's still a vast majority of the mystery to be slowly unfurled over the coming episodes.

Yet, expert trolls Murphy and Falchuk would never leave us with a simple return to Murder House's taut, nightmarish tone - hence the dramatic (and charmingly ludicrous) format change. The American Horror Story of season 6 is both lovingly familiar and entirely alien; it manages to service its fans' desires while slapping them in the face.

Episode 2's preview suggests the documentary format is here to stay; I'm not entirely convinced the structure works, especially when the show's nightmarish surrealism is exactly what marks it out on the TV landscape, making it strange to see it fractured by half-hearted attempts at realism. But, then again, its perpetual unpredictability makes it near impossible to guess where exactly the show is about to take us.

Like peering into the rabbit hole, the season premiere offers just enough intrigue, glee, and frustration to make it a prime addition to the American Horror Story family. Welcome back, you delightful televisual troll.

American Horror Story airs Wednesdays at 10PM in the US on FX, and airs on FOX UK the following Friday at 10PM.