12/17/2020
CBS All Access caps off our COVID-dominated 2020 with the premiere of a new miniseries adaptation of Stephen King's post-pandemic allegory about good and evil.
On the page, Stephen King's
The Stand (1978) is a study in horrifying momentum. It's so propulsive that King was able to add hundreds of pages 12 years after its original publication without sacrificing the celerity of a narrative that keeps moving from one climax — a burgeoning plague, humanity mobilizing in Boulder, the final stand — to another. It's generally clear, and it's always churning along.
CBS All Access' new adaptation of
The Stand is a car on cinderblocks. It looks great. If you glance under the hood, you can see all of the work that's been done on the engine. But no matter how ready it seems to peel out onto the road, it isn't going anywhere. Very rarely is the Benjamin Cavell-steered adaptation, with Josh Boone directing the pilot, actively bad, but it's very frustrating.