Captain Trips is Coming
It is no secret to anyone who knows me that I love Stephen King. Beyond being an absolute legend of a writer, an interesting individual, and an icon in the horror world King has been part of my life as far back as I can remember. My mother is a fan and was part of a Stephen King book club; we had hard cover copies of all of his novels. I remember seeing mom’s excitement over Wizard and Glass and subsequent installments of The Dark Tower. Her love for King’s works played a huge role in my love for reading in general. My own love affair with his work began in the third grade with my first read of Eyes of the Dragon (stolen from mom’s shelf) and I’ve read a chunk of his catalog since then. Excluding the Dark Tower cycle, my absolute favorite work by him is The Stand.
The fact that I hold that book in such high regard is the reason that I feel equal parts excitement and apprehension after hearing that it will be adapted for TV again. The first adaptation, a miniseries in 1994, was pretty damned good. The upcoming adaptation is a ten episode miniseries and is being adapted for the streaming service CBS All Access. I would rather see it done by Netflix or HBO but the first adaptation didn’t suck and it was done for network TV and they aren’t going to try to stretch it into a multi season series which are both good things. At the very least, it will be better than Under the Dome.
Another thing that gives me hope is the team behind it; particularly Josh Boone who co-wrote the script and will be directing the project. I don’t know a thing about his body of work but the King himself says that he loves the script and Boone shared an anecdote in an Entertainment Weekly article that really bolsters my opinion as of now. It would seem that Boone loves this book and King’s work as much as I do and I feel like that passion will go a long in making this something that fans will enjoy.
The Stand isn’t just about a terrible disease that wipes out most of the population leaving the survivors to rebuild. It is a look at humanity’s strengths and weaknesses. It shows that all those who side with the “good” aren’t necessarily good and the same can be said about those who side with evil. The book isn’t just a post apocalyptic story; it’s a beautiful, moving, and terrifying look at humanity.
I could gush for hours on the virtues of The Stand but now is not the time for that. Hopefully, I will be doing that when this series is released and those who are familiar with it and those who aren’t will agree with me. This is my hope but we shall see. There’s currently no word on casting or a premiere date but the scripts are done and a home has been found so I would assume that next year sometime we will have a new version of one of the greatest works of all time.
