Paul Maxfield

King's works rarely translate well to the screen and The Stand is no exception. I just watched the first episode which is a mess. Being familiar with the book inevitably leads to disappointment when certain scenes or details are omitted or handled poorly by those involved in the adaptation. This first episode was missing way too much, as if in a hurry to get somewhere. The book is over 1000 pages. Take your time with it. On the other hand, I'd imagine that not being already familiar with the book would make this first episode really confusing, especially with the unnecessary non-chronological story-telling and flashbacks, as well as certain gaps in the story. The worst crime, though, is character development, or lack of it. For some reason, the characters that make sense when reading King almost always come off as unbelievable when you actually get to see and hear them. In this series, they are tragically underdeveloped. The motivations that drive any of these characters is unclear or very surface-level. In case you couldn't tell the second he showed up, fpr example, Harold is a creep, and that's all you really get to understand about him. There aren't any redeeming qualities or internal struggles that drive him. He's just a creep. So it goes for the rest of the characters. It leaves everyone very one-dimensional when they could and should be far more complex. At the very least, it's an improvement over the extremely cheesy 90s series (and timeliness does add to the creepiness-factor in a good way). So, yeah, I'll still watch the rest of the series because I'm a King fan, and hopefully it will get better. However I have to say, I feel like I'm looking forward to another 8 hours of disappointment.