The Stand - the mini series

March 28, 2008

Posted in: Reviews, TV

Tags: acting, Bill Fagerbakke, book, career, crowd, dislike, Duma Key, Forrest Gump, Gary Sinise, internet, Molly Ringwald, Nebraska, New York, Parker Lewis, Patrick Starfish, Read, Rob Lowe, series, stephen king, Stu Redman, The Shinning, The Stand, The Talisman

I was hoping to have timed it better, but it just didn’t work out. I know, this post is almost a week old too (well that I should have written it a week ago). But I just can’t stand it anymore.

Sometime ago I recall Stephen King saying he would rather work with TV rather then movies, in context with his stories. When I first heard that I thought “What? No way, you can’t get all the gore and stuff on TV”. I wish I could find a quote of it, but this was years ago, and before the internet took off in any way, shape or form (like early 90’s). At any rate, I still hold to what I thought back then. It just wouldn’t work, he remade The Shinning for TV and, well it rightly sucked, same with his TV version of It. I was sorely disappointed and it just added to my growing dislike for his “progression”.

Lately, I’ve been getting back into his works. With Duma Key, and The Stand. There might be some more down the road I’ll read again, but it’ll be mostly his older works, I’ve been salivating to re-read The Talisman, one of my all time favorites. So since I’m getting towards the end of The Stand, I thought I’d watch the mini series that was done for it also. I was really hoping to finish them closer together, but it wasn’t meant to be. Good thing too…

It’s been a long time since I saw the mini series. As I watched it this time around, it struck just how awful it really was (the show, not the book). They cut a lot out, and trimmed it and even completely changed a few things. So the entire time (up to where I am in the book), I would be yelling at the TV about how it didn’t happen that way, or they did this not that.

But it didn’t stop there. There were, for the most part actors that were either at the end of their career or at the beginning (and end) or just hadn’t gotten on the radar yet.

The main, Stu Redman was played by Gary Sinise, who after this show starred in a more memorable roll in the movie Forrest Gump. His acting was, probably the better of the bunch - but even then, I’m not saying much. Another notable would be Molly Ringwald, you older crowd might remember her from the brat pack days, but I’ll use what my wife asked explain my thoughts on her. “Why was she famous?”.

There’s others in there, include the kid who played Parker Lewis can’t lose (who remembers that show?), and Rob Lowe, but nothing very memorable.

First to my eye was the simple low budgetness of it. Sure it’s TV, and it was done in the early 90’s, but man was it low. From the craptastic scenes in New York, to complete theatrical like set of Nebraska. This is yet another reason I think Movies would be a better way to go.

The acting, as I mentioned before was just plain awful. From the pitiful job done by Rob Lowe as a deaf/mute to Bill Fagerbakke playing the same roll he played on Coach, or as the dimwitted Starfish on Spongebob (the blonde guy, yeah I thought you might recognize that name).

Alright, so I guess I can wrap this up with one word and that is moon. As in M-O-O-N that spells “teh suck”. As in this tv show sucked big. It seemed disjointed and rushed. Coupled with bad acting and a cobbled together story that was broken into 4 parts. It just really didn’t do the book justice.

The ending in this show seemed pretty weak too (in the context of the show), along with the seemingly weak bad guy. It just seemed so easy to defeat in the end that it was pitiful.

My recommendation, do not watch! Read the book instead and never sulley your mind with the garbage that was this TV show!

Posted in Reviews, TV