1996: 'American Gothic' Ends its First and Last Season
This day in 1996 marked the last telecast of CBS's American Gothic. The supernatural horror series starred Gary Cole as a murderous small-town sheriff with supernatural powers, and Lucas Black — the acclaimed young star of Sling Blade — as a 10-year-old who was unaware that the sheriff had raped his late mother and was actually his biological father.
The sheriff's attempts to gain custody of the boy, Caleb Temple, were inadvertently thwarted by a newcomer doctor, played by Medium's Jake Weber, and the boy's cousin (Paige Turco) a reporter who'd recently returned to town. Sarah Paulson portrayed Caleb's elder sister who was killed by the sheriff in the pilot episode, but returned as a ghost to help protect the boy from the sheriff's influence.
The show was a critical success, but was cancelled after one season. It was executive produced by Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert; former The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries star Shaun Cassidy was the show's creator.