MSN Looks At Stephen King TV The Good And The Really Bad



MSN Entertainment reports that  Under The Dome came out swinging, coming out as the second-highest rated drama debut this year (per Nielsen).  

The article, by Barbara Card Atkinson, goes on to discuss the good and the bad of Stephen King TV.

I found this note on The Dead Zone series interesting:
They did this one right, too -- at least for a while. The series starred Anthony Michael Hall as a psychic loner, and the series premiere broke records for the USA Network at the time, attracting 6.4 million viewers. The series ran six seasons, but viewer numbers had dropped enough that a seventh season was abandoned with no series finale. 
Reading the lists of Good and Worst -- I found out I like a lot of Stephen King TV that no one else does.  I thought both the Tommyknockers  and The Shining were great.  The Tommyknockers felt a bit soap operish at times and too closed in -- things Under  The Dome has avoided thus far -- but I still  like the story.  Oh, and the spaceship in Tommyknockers was a disappointment.  But that moment when the kid does a magic trick and makes his brother disappear. . . and then can't bring him back! -- that was great television.

I also liked the 2002 Carrie a lot. I thought it managed to bring new ideas to the story while remaining pretty faithful to the book.

I do think this note  on Bag of Bones was insightful on Atkinson's part:
"This miniseries ran three hours, which might have been an hour too long, or several hours too short. More time would have allowed for better character development; less time might have forced a much-needed pace tightening."
And also Atkinson gives this interesting explanation to the mediocre  response to The Shining miniseries, "it was another case where the novel was so dense with backstory and internal experiences (and audiences missing those creepy twins and bloody elevators) that it couldn't be roundly brought to the screen."

When it comes to The Shining, I've hoped for a directors cut that would restore some scenes that Garris cut out.

Even with a love  for bad Stephen King television -- I cannot offer and defense for The Langoliers.

THE GOOD:
IT
THE STAND
SALEM'S LOT
THE DEAD ZONE

THE WORST:
THE SHINING.
THE TOMMYKNOCKERS
STORM OF THE CENTURY
CARRIE
SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK
ROSE RED
THE LANGOLIERS
NIGHTMARES & DREAMSCAPES
BAG OF BONES

3 comments:

  1. Interesting piece, and I rather like her observations on the Garris Shining.

    I think she's onto something, and it might explain Roger Ebert's positive yet lackluster response to the film version of Misery.

    Basically, it's a "Tyranny of Images" where the audience expects the film to do the thinking for them, which is sort of a contradiction, really.

    ChrisC

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  2. Good article. But like most articles of its type, there is plenty to disagree with.

    I loved Nightmares and Dreamscapes and thought Storm of the Century was absolutely brilliant and by far the finest writing King ever did for the small screen.

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  3. I'll defend the Langoliers, if only because I thought Bronson Pinchot did a surprisingly credible job with Craig Toomy and that the whole production was undercut by the FX (so awful, especially imagining what could be done now), and by Mark Lindsay Chapman, who played Nick.

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