Late-to-the-game American Horror Story questions....

The wife and I have been watching AHS Season 1 this week. (Yes, I know, it's at season 6 now. We just don't watch current TV shows very often because of what I call "The Carnivàle Effect". That is to say, I'm still pretty damned bitter about how "Carnivàle" ended and am reluctant to start a new show until I know it's going to last.) It's actually taken us multiple tries over the last year to get this far because, for a show with horrific murders, tantalizing mysteries, crazed ghosts, and Jessica Lange (easily the best thing about the show so far), it felt rather...dull over the first few episodes. But it's picked up a bit of steam over the middle third of the season, so we're finishing it off this weekend. I do have a couple questions going forward, though:

1) What later seasons would people recommend? Are any of them more -- for lack of a better word -- compelling than others?

2) In a related question, does it matter if they're not viewed in order? I understand the concept of an anthology show, but looking over the cast list reveals some actors appear in far more episodes than a single season would contain, so that raises the question of whether there's some sort of specific continuity taking place and whether a binging viewer would be best served watching the seasons the order they originally aired.


Thanks for any advice.