TNT’s new Stephen King anthology series, NIGHTMARES AND
DREAMSCAPES, had me worried. Nothing has
been more damaging to the legacy of Stephen King than Hollywood. To be fair, he’s had a couple movies nominated
for Oscars (not the least of of which is THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION). But seven times out of ten the movies took
perfectly good books and destroyed them. Essentially, other than SHAWSHANK, I’d say
only CARRIE, THE SHINING, STAND BY ME, and THE DEAD ZONE came anywhere close to
the quality of the original books. So
when a basic cable channel announces it’s producing a series of adaptation of
King short stories, there is little reason for optimism. However, my frown was turned upside down by
the first of the series, BATTLEGROUND. I
have one word: wow. As for the rest of
the series…well…more to come as new episodes are aired.