STREAMING: RATCHED, HANDSOME DEVIL, MORE.

Series 1, Fox 21 (on Netflix)

Gorgeously written and directed, this creepy, American Gothic melodrama will freak and enthral; another triumph for Ryan Murphy.

It’s a TV prequel to the 1975 feature film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest based on a 1959 novel, banned in high schools, about a crim who pleads insanity and is sent to an asylum run by Nurse Mildred Ratched, when he eventually leads the inmates to revolt.

This story begins in 1947 and introduces us to Nurse Ratched en route to apply for a job at Lucia State Hospital where, we’ll learn, lesbian fornicators can be “cured” with a lobotomy.

But before that, though, a crime… “My car broke down just down the road – can I use your phone?” Instantly, we’re in Rocky Horror territory, the music swells and the camerawork and lighting plunge us into Hitchcock territory; Murphy clearly relishing the ride as much as Hitch ever did.

Sarah Paulson is brilliant in the lead role, unnerving yet empathetic, even beatific, as the wretched Ratchet. Other superb players include Cynthia Nixon as a sapphic seducer, Sophie Okonedo clearly going for an Emmy, Sharon Stone and a damn monkey, and Charlie Carver, whose horrendous facial scarring is never explained. Judy Davis is deliciously camp as Nurse Betsy Bucket: “I’ll soak the sodomy right out of them!” she promises prior to a hydrotherapy session. She’s in danger of running out of lemons to suck.

The production design is superb; not a white coat in sight. They’re all teal like the cars and the walls. The whole world is given an uneasy colour palette to throw us as much off-balance as the crazy people in it.

Murphy says three more seasons will finally dovetail into the 1975 film. Can’t wait. (8 episodes)