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You've never seen anything like American Horror Story on TV before. And you may not want to see it now. But fans of the horror genre - not the splatter trash of the Saw or Chainsaw Massacre series, but the creepy, psychological, and, yes, sexy, gory stuff of classics like Rosemary's Baby or The Shining - won't be disappointed. FX, still No. 1 on basic cable for challenging, edgy material, has teamed up again with Nip/Tuck's Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuck on Horror Story, which premieres Wednesday at 10 p.m. The pair, also responsible for Fox's Glee, have a tendency to start strongly and then get a little lost, but that needn't concern us here, since we're at the beginning, and Horror Story is as gripping as anything on TV. You may find yourself looking for something to grip when the doll (or are they real?

Chris Rock will produce a late-night show for FX this summer, the cable network announced Wednesday. Six episodes have been ordered of the so-far-untitled show starring comedian W. Kamau Bell , a founding member of the group Laughter Against the Machine. Bell, according to FX, "will dissect politics, pop culture, race, religion, the media and sex in a weekly half- hour. " The Fox-owned cable channel earlier announced that its new late-night show with Russell Brand, "Strangely Uplifting," will premiere June 28, on the same night as Charlie Sheen's new sitcom, "Anger Management.

Wilfred is a comedy about a dog named Wilfred and his neurotic neighbor who (along with all the viewers) sees Wilfred as a man in a dog suit. It's a really terrible dog suit. I'm trying to be straightforward here because the show, premiering Thursday at 10 p.m. on the FX cable network, is so twisted. It's crude and hilarious and clearly aimed at a young male audience. Wilfred pants after his tennis ball, thrown over a high fence. TV executives think the young male audience is just as desirable and hard to find.

Francis X. McManus, 68, a retired chemist at Sun Chemical Corp., died Thursday while visiting a son in Spring Valley, Calif. Mr. McManus was born in South Philadelphia and grew up near St. Monica's Roman Catholic Church, at 17th and Ritner Streets. He graduated from Bok Technical High School and served in the Navy during World War II. After Mr. McManus returned home after the war, he began a 40-year career at Sun Chemical, where he mixed inks and paints. He was one of the first residents of a new suburban community just north of the city, Levittown.

10 tonight FX Tommy and Sheila (Denis Leary, right; Callie Thorne) discover the truth about their own relationship when they find themselves in hot water with Janet and Mickey (Andrea Roth, Robert John Burke).

10 tonight FX Desperate for ways to earn quick cash, Hank and Britt (Donal Logue, left; Michael Raymond-James, right) set out to capture Mongo, an escaped convict, for a big reward.

7:30 tonight FX Tom Cruise performs some remarkable physical stunts under the guidance of director John Woo in this 2000 sequel also starring Dougray Scott as the bad guy and Thandie Newton (right) as a woman with romantic links to both men.

7 p.m. FX Bearing the typically fast pacing of films by producer Jerry Bruckheimer ("Armageddon") and director Tony Scott ("Top Gun"), this 1998 action saga casts Will Smith as an attorney on the run.

10 tonight FX The sitcom starts its sixth season, as Mac (Rob McElhenny, right) pulls out all the stops to protect the sanctity of marriage, while the rest of the gang reap the rewards of marital bliss.

Chris Rock will produce a late-night show for FX this summer, the cable network announced Wednesday. Six episodes have been ordered of the so-far-untitled show starring comedian W. Kamau Bell , a founding member of the group Laughter Against the Machine. Bell, according to FX, "will dissect politics, pop culture, race, religion, the media and sex in a weekly half- hour. " The Fox-owned cable channel earlier announced that its new late-night show with Russell Brand, "Strangely Uplifting," will premiere June 28, on the same night as Charlie Sheen's new sitcom, "Anger Management.

I ASKED members of this year's Daily News Everybody's a Critic panel to weigh in on their favorite new shows and to share their worries about the ones that might not make it. Here's what some had to say: "I am totally riveted by 'American Horror [Story],' " wrote Janet Brinkman of South Philadelphia, who also gave props to Showtime's "Homeland. " "Each week is crazier than the next, but I need to know what's next. " " 'Homeland' is the best new show in quality by far. But 'American Horror Story' has the best viewing experience, as it is fun to trash it when it's at its worst and yet easy to obsess over in moments when it is a very guilty pleasure," wrote Robert Dougherty, of Northeast Philadelphia, who's saving his cancellation concerns for "established cult favorites 'Community' and 'Fringe.' " Other fans of the FX hit: Center City's Craig Liggeons, who likes ABC's "Revenge" even more, for its "quick payoffs, and a potentially damning 'Oh, man, she's caught!

Believe it or not, the title of FX's new series, American Horror Story , is actually an understatement. Grotesque, terrifying, brutal, and kinky, American Horror Story makes The Shining look like The Waltons . "It's really amazing to me that this is on television and not on film," says horror expert Marina Levina, an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Memphis. "I've been really surprised at how far they've been able to take things.

* AMERICAN HORROR STORY. 10 tonight, FX. * GEORGE HARRISON: LIVING IN THE MATERIAL WORLD. 9 tonight and tomorrow, HBO.   IN A COUNTRY full of people stuck in houses they can't afford and can't sell, you don't have to look far to find a horror story. The American Dream-turned-nightmare isn't nearly scary enough for "Glee" producers Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, whose latest production, FX's "American Horror Story," mines its blood-spattered genre for one cliche after another to tell the story of a couple whose lack of due diligence - starting with a failure to Google their prospective new address - results in the worst case of buyer's remorse since the Lutz family moved into that house in Amityville.

You've never seen anything like American Horror Story on TV before. And you may not want to see it now. But fans of the horror genre - not the splatter trash of the Saw or Chainsaw Massacre series, but the creepy, psychological, and, yes, sexy, gory stuff of classics like Rosemary's Baby or The Shining - won't be disappointed. FX, still No. 1 on basic cable for challenging, edgy material, has teamed up again with Nip/Tuck's Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuck on Horror Story, which premieres Wednesday at 10 p.m. The pair, also responsible for Fox's Glee, have a tendency to start strongly and then get a little lost, but that needn't concern us here, since we're at the beginning, and Horror Story is as gripping as anything on TV. You may find yourself looking for something to grip when the doll (or are they real?

Inquirer television critic Jonathan Storm is reporting from the television critics' press tour in Beverly Hills, Calif. These items are taken from his blog "Eye of the Storm," at www.philly.com/eyeofthestorm . Riding into the 2011-12 fall season with a big role on a CBS drama, Margo Martindale is enjoying a successful period in her career. The actress, who has appeared in more than 75 movies and TV shows, did a crackerjack job last season as Kentucky family crime boss Mags Bennett on FX's Justified . This fall, she plays the assistant to a hotshot surgeon whose dead wife has been giving him advice about lightening up and paying more attention to his patients.

RESCUE ME. 10 tonight, FX. DAMAGES. 10 tonight, DirecTV's Audience Network. SOMETHING happens tonight on TV that couldn't have happened a year ago: "Rescue Me" and "Damages" are going head to head at 10 p.m. And though Glenn Close can be pretty scary, I'm afraid it's not going to be much of a fight. In one corner, we have Denis Leary, a long drink of water (or maybe something stronger) whose rowdy firefighter dramedy "Rescue Me" returns for its seventh and final season on FX. In the other, we have Close, petite but powerful, and with a jaw of steel.

SUITS. 10 tonight, USA. WILFRED. 10 tonight, FX. LOUIE. 10:30 tonight, FX. USA WANTS to own my summer. And I just might let it. If only FX, TNT, HBO, Showtime and a bunch of other networks weren't trying to do the same. A few years ago, it would have been difficult to feel overwhelmed by the number of decent TV choices in June, a month when I used to schedule a vacation to get away from the horror of Little or Nothing to Write About. Instead, my DVR will soon be begging for a vacation, once I've reprogrammed it to pick up all the shows that were somehow dropped during Comcast's latest change of interface.

Wilfred is a comedy about a dog named Wilfred and his neurotic neighbor who (along with all the viewers) sees Wilfred as a man in a dog suit. It's a really terrible dog suit. I'm trying to be straightforward here because the show, premiering Thursday at 10 p.m. on the FX cable network, is so twisted. It's crude and hilarious and clearly aimed at a young male audience. Wilfred pants after his tennis ball, thrown over a high fence. TV executives think the young male audience is just as desirable and hard to find.

FILLMORE, Calif. - East of the I-5, Henry Mayo Drive swings past Valencia Travel Village, clotted with hundreds of trailers and RVs, where the snowbirds stay in winter. Then it skirts the Chiquita Canyon Landfill and its huge earth movers and compactors, organizing garbage into mountains. Migrants work the lettuce fields as the road changes counties, crossing from Los Angeles to Ventura, and changes its name to Telegraph Road. You're traveling to a wondrous land whose boundaries are those of imagination.