Stephen King on TV

The Los Angeles Times looks at the television adaptations of Stephen King's work.

From the piece...

One of the very best versions of a King story is also one of the briefest: Brian Henson’s wonderful “Battleground,” a one-hour episode in the 2006 King anthology series "Nightmares and Dreamscapes." With a teleplay by Richard Christian Matheson (based on a King story that first appeared in "Cavalier"), “Battleground” stars William Hurt as a hitman who, after killing the CEO of a toy company, finds himself attacked by a battalion of toy soldiers. Hurt’s icy performance is brilliant, as are the fantastic digital effects by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, in a high-tech chamber piece all the more remarkable for having no dialogue whatsoever.

Director Mick Garris is King’s most established collaborator on TV projects, directing “The Stand” (1994), “Quicksilver Highway” (1997), “The Shining” (1997), “Riding the Bullet” (2004), “Desperation” (2006) and now “Bag of Bones.” A&E’s two-night miniseries focuses on the story’s deeply felt emotional elements as well as its supernatural ones — a writer dealing with his wife’s sudden death; a single working mother in a custody battle with her child’s grandfather; the legacy of racism in a small New England town. These are the specters that give Stephen King’s work its power.