The Stand - Season 1 Spoilers

Crow159 said:

The Stand, a new miniseries on CBS All Access based on the Stephen King novel. The first episode premiered today.

I think the first episode was decent. Seemed to kind of hurry through the whole Captain Tripps global pandemic part. I'm hoping as they introduce more and more of the characters that it fills in those parts of the story.

I thought Gary Sinise was a great Stu Redman in the older miniseries so James Marsden has some big shoes to fill.

I think Alexander Skarsgard could make a really great Randall Flagg, hopefully his portrayal will meet my expectations.

I'm looking forward to episode 2.

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The story is told out of order, so you'll see Captain Trips through every character's eyes as they're introduced.

I was pretty happy with it. They updated parts ("We'll put it on Instagram") while keeping a good amount of the original dialogue (VERY noticeable at Hap's gas station).

I'm really pleased with James Marsden, who's as good a Stu Redman as Gary Sinise was. Frannie's sort of meh, but Harold Lauder's almost perfect. You can't really do a true to the book Harold, heh. So Harold is a King Crimson fan, and loves Eraserhead.

It was great seeing Nic Lea in the opening scene, and that he's in the Boulder Free Zone! I was actually sort of hoping for Terry O'Quinn at the CDC.

I am enjoying it but wondering about its comparative reception given the current pandemic. Utopia/USA is to hard for me to watch right now. (It could be due to it being a poor remake.)

I really liked the book The first episode was ok. It should be better than the prior mini-series, there’s more money invested.

They seem to say f*ck a lot for no reason. I have no issue with it, but I think they’re doing it just do say it on CBS.

Turtleboy said:

I really liked the book The first episode was ok. It should be better than the prior mini-series, there's more money invested.

They seem to say f*ck a lot for no reason. I have no issue with it, but I think they're doing it just do say it on CBS.

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I dunno, people in general seem to say f*ck a lot for no reason. They certainly did in the book.

The only thing I didn't like was Ray Flowers, he sounded like a crappy 50s movie radio host.

I'm also a big fan of the original miniseries, it wasn't perfect and had a stinky ending but story wise it was pretty dead on, especially the pandemic scenes.

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As a huge fan of the book and the 1994 mini series, I was not overly impressed with this this episode. I hated starting in the middle and jumping between the timelines, if you don't know the book and know it well it's going to be damn confusing.

Marsden is a good actor, but he's not a good fit for Stu. He doesn't have the "good 'ol boy" vibe that Stu has in the book. in the book there was almost an loser/innocence air about him that gave him the room to grow. Here he comes across to me as a hero type from the get go.

Frannie didn't grab me, but she was better than Molly Ringwald was .

Harold was closer in in personality, but physically wrong.

Whoopie Goldberg is wrong for Mother Abigail and Ruby Dee was spot on. Here I see her as Guinan from Star trek TNG. And Hemingford home is in Nebraska, not Colorado.
I'll stick with it, but I really hope it gets better. A bigger budget may get you better SFX and name actors, but if the story isn't there then it's just wasted money.

Craigbob said:

Harold was closer in in personality, but physically wrong.

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True, but not really that much you can do about it. In the book, he goes from fat slob to stud because of the exercise he gets on his way to Colorado. A lot easier to do with a book character than with a TV actor!

Craigbob said:

And Hemingford home is in Nebraska, not Colorado.

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A not-unreasonable effect, I suspect, of condensing a 1000-page book into a few hours. This means only one cross-country journey instead of two.

I didn't like Harold's skinny appearance, either, and I didn't care for the timeline jumping around like it did. I guess I'll get over it. Apparently Stephen King did.

He’s started to work out, the kid’s gonna be jacked. It shows transformation without having to lose 100 pounds.


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I watched the second ep. I don’t know if I can keep watching a show about a global pandemic. It’s too close and not the right time.

Turtleboy said:

I watched the second ep. I don't know if I can keep watching a show about a global pandemic. It's too close and not the right time.

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I get that, but it isn't affecting me that way. I've seen a couple of pandemic-themed shows lately where I get interested in the ways they get it right and wrong in light of living through an actual pandemic, but that's not even happening with this one for me (perhaps because I've been familiar with the story for so many decades?).

I wonder how much of a ratings hit it will take because some people (a lot of people?) just aren't in the mood..?

Rob Helmerichs said:

I get that, but it isn't affecting me that way. I've seen a couple of pandemic-themed shows lately where I get interested in the ways they get it right and wrong in light of living through an actual pandemic, but that's not even happening with this one for me (perhaps because I've been familiar with the story for so many decades?).

I wonder how much of a ratings hit it will take because some people (a lot of people?) just aren't in the mood..?

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Yeah, it's definitely bad luck for The Stand to debut during an actual global pandemic.

I thought episode 2 was decent but I'm still not sure if I like that the story starts in Boulder and then flashes back. I think it would be better to show it in order.

I liked seeing Nick, but to someone who hasn't read the book or seen the other miniseries, it was meaningless. To me, the whole part of Boulder was seeing the characters you love finally join up together. In this show, I dont think the full impact of this moment is being shown.

This is my favorite Stephen King book so I'm in for the duration, but I'm a little disappointed in the choices they've made in telling the story. I had high hopes for this though, so it could just be that I set the bar too high for the series.

I agree. I also loved the book. I’d like to hear the perspective of someone coming into it cold. I’m trying to think of it that way. I don’t think it makes any sense at all. Two episodes in and there isn’t a good enough explanation about why people are coming to Boulder.

Turtleboy said:

I agree. I also loved the book. I'd like to hear the perspective of someone coming into it cold. I'm trying to think of it that way. I don't think it makes any sense at all. Two episodes in and there isn't a good enough explanation about why people are coming to Boulder.

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I've never read the book, although I'm vaguely aware of the plot. So far it's just coming across as "generic streaming TV miniseries" (it's obviously not the first thing I've seen where the action opens in media res and is then a series of flashbacks to show How We Got to This Point). I'm just assuming people are going to Boulder because they keep dreaming about Whoopi Goldberg Mother Abigail.

I think I would have rather they committed to a multi-year series and really did the book justice..... I had re-read the stand a few years ago and the journey of the groups of people across the US and all the character building that goes into that is all missed... and is not sufficiently addressed during the flashbacks. I know it's hard in a tv series to explain what characters are thinking, but there's too many things that don't make sense while they're happening and they're trying to fill in the gaps after the fact with flashbacks. I'm hoping it gets better...

That seems tedious... The original ABC mini-series was only four episodes from what my research tells me.

jsmeeker said:

That seems tedious... The original ABC mini-series was only four episodes from what my research tells me.

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Depends on how much of the book you want to cut out. Much of it, as in this series. Or most of it, as in the ABC series.

I agree, however, that the book is not terribly cinematic, and I don't think there's really any way to adapt it that would both satisfy purists and be watchable.

From these first 2 episodes, I don't think I'd really care for this show if I hadn't read the book. But having re-read it recently (I haven't even finished 2/3 of it yet) I already know the characters and have formed my opinions of them, so the flashbacks they're using aren't as confusing to me. I'll stick for the duration. Plus, Heather Graham!

Yep, I agree, it's hard to make something like this into a series... but I wish they would spend a little more time on character development. I liked the dark tower book series too and they turned that into a 90 minute movie.... you just can't really get any sense of the characters or the whole story line when they condense thousands of pages into something so short.