Brad Falchuk
Brad Falchuk is a writer, born 1971.
Brad Falchuk's name is almost always the second one on the card. Born in Newton, Massachusetts in 1971, he wrote and executive-produced Nip/Tuck, and out of that came a working partnership with Ryan Murphy that has produced more hours of American television than almost any writing team of the last two decades: Glee, American Horror Story, Scream Queens, Pose, The Politician, The Brothers Sun, and with Tim Minear the 9-1-1 franchise. He holds a Primetime Emmy in the limited series category.
The division of labour between the two men is invisible from outside, but the shows share a grammar you can pick out at a glance. They run hot. They change register inside a single scene. They are structurally unstable by design, and they treat a musical number, a jump scare and a sincere monologue as interchangeable tools. American Horror Story turned that instability into a format by resetting cast and story every season. Glee attempted it week to week and burned out doing it.
Pose is the answer to the obvious criticism. Same team, same appetite for melodrama, but aimed at a subject large enough to carry it, and the result is the least cynical thing either of them has made. The most recent work keeps the machine running, with The Brothers Sun in 2024 and 9-1-1: Lone Star extending the franchise, and Falchuk now hosts the series Famous Last Words. He is married to the actress Gwyneth Paltrow.
TV (11)
Where to start with Brad Falchuk
Go to POSE first, without hesitation. It is the best thing the partnership made, and the one where a taste for melodrama stops being a stylistic tic and starts doing real work.
American Horror Story is the format innovation and the most influential title on the list. The first season is the tightest, and the anthology reset is what let the show survive its own excesses. Glee is the cultural artefact, wildly uneven, and the honest advice is to watch season one and stop.
9-1-1 is the pure procedural pleasure, ridiculous on purpose and completely unashamed, with 9-1-1: Lone Star as the spin-off. Scream Queens is the misfire worth arguing about, too pleased with itself but genuinely funny in stretches, and The Brothers Sun is the odd one out and the most conventionally well-made.