An eight-episode series available Friday on Apple TV+ The astonishingly prolific King adapts his 2006 novel “Lisey’s Story” into an eight-part Apple TV+ series, and that’s great but also a little troublesome, as the author might have been too close to his own work (one of his most personal stories) to trim the excess exposition off the bone. “Lisey’s Story” feels overstuffed at times and might have been even sharper and more terrifying if it had clocked in with five or six total episodes, but this is still an elegantly haunting journey with memorably raw and real performances from three of the best actresses in the world Julianne Moore, Joan Allen and Jennifer Jason Leigh as sisters whose bond has to stay strong enough to withstand the relentless onslaught of a crazed stalker, not to mention the dangers lurking in a world just outside the borders of reality. Clive Owen is also a standout as a Stephen King-esque author who has achieved enormous success, weal
Stephen King is consistently exceptional at starting stories and adaptations of his work are increasingly unsuccessful at ending them. “Lisey’s Story” is another example, like CBS All Access’ “The Stand” and HBO’s “The Outsider,” that proves the rule. Apple TV+’s adaptation of what King has described as his favorite novel is lushly produced, thoughtfully cast, and initially easily watchable. The moments that are meant to be frightening are; the moments that are meant to be romantic are. And yet the back half of this miniseries is so bogged down by inconsistent pacing, drawn-out scenes, muddled plotting, and a frustratingly anticlimactic ending that all the good “Lisey’s Story” delivers before that collapse ends up overshadowed.
“Behind every great man is a great woman,” as the saying goes, and when he wrote
Lisey’s Story,
Stephen King wanted to pay tribute to his wife, Tabitha. While King claims the book isn’t a replica of his own personal life, he’s made it clear that
Lisey’s Story was also, in some ways, Tabitha King’s story. On top of that, the prolific writer has said for years that he wanted to turn
Lisey’s Story into a TV series.
King finally gets his wish with the Apple TV+ series
Lisey’s Story, a maddeningly muddled saga that starts off remarkably strong before going completely downhill. King is on hand to write all the scripts, something he’s never really done before for a TV series, and it shows. There’s nothing episodic here. It’s one sprawling story; a novel uncomfortably stretched across eight episodes.