Our TV critic has reviewed 9 Stephen King-related series. Here’s how they stack up
If you do anything long enough, patterns will emerge, and as I sat down to review the Apple TV+ miniseries “Lisey’s Story,” the latest television work adapted from or inspired by Stephen King’s fiction, it struck me that I had been here before, or somewhere like it, not once but many times. “Lisey’s” makes the ninth King-related piece I’ve written since 2006 (the third just since the start of last year), which also means that I have read a lot of King — a lot more than I would have otherwise — because part of the deal as a critic, to my mind, is to know what the adaptation takes from the source, what it leaves out, and what it adds, both in content and tone.
That number accounts for only half the King-based series and miniseries and movies that have aired since I started here, and a smaller fraction of the complete works for the tube. He’s a TV perennial — the first King television adaptation, the Tobe Hooper-directed “Salem’s Lot,” appeared in 1979, a year before Stanley Kubrick’s film of “The Shining.” His name sells tickets, or would if TV sold tickets.
Here, for fans of reviews of King-related television shows, are those earlier pieces, along with the review of “Lisey’s Story,” in descending order of esteem. Some shows are better than the books, some not as good. Either way, I am ready to let some other critic have a crack at him when his next one comes around — that’d be “Chapelwaite,” based on the short story “Jerusalem’s Lot,” arriving in August via Epix, with Emily Hampshire from “Schitt’s Creek” starring. (Still, with Emily Hampshire … I might change my mind.)
“Castle Rock,” which begins streaming Wednesday on Hulu, takes its name and setting from the fictional Maine hamlet that has provided a backdrop to a variety of novels, novellas and short stories by Stephen King, America’s Master of Horror.
Cynthia Erivo and Ben Mendelsohn star as the Mulder and Scully of HBO’s new procedural, adapted from the novel by Stephen King.
Ineffably beautiful? Unbearably tiresome? Despite strong performances, Stephen King’s spooky adaptation of his own novel falls somewhere in between.
Based on the 1980s theatrical franchise created by Stephen King and George Romero, the stories in Shudder’s original series have nothing clever to say about How We Live Now. They simply offer awful fun.
In one of his occasional breaks from the supernatural, Stephen King created a detective, Bill Hodges, to engage with strictly human monsters.
Television review: ‘Haven’ on Syfy
Stephen King’s 2011 time-traveling historical romance thriller “11.22.63” has been made into a miniseries by Hulu.
CBS All Access’ well-made adaptation is an improvement on the 1994 miniseries, but stills falls victim to the tale’s now-hoary concept.
Airing tonight on ABC, “Desperation” or “Stephen King’s Desperation” as it is officially unfortunately known, is like Frankenstein’s monster: a thing sewn together from parts dug up here and there -- some from the author’s own backyard.
