lisakeys2003 As a considerable Stephen King fan, especially of his short stories, I was anxious to see this series. I bought the DVD set as I don't have cable and have watched it several times. While I agree with much of the content in the reviews, I have some notes to add. I guess I will go through each show... 1. Battlefield: Excellent. Special effects were of high quality. Agree with another reviewer that the people downstairs probably would've heard something...... 2. Crouch End: One of my very favorite of SK's short stories, however, I will regretfully agree that Claire Forlani's acting was atrocious and it did not translate well to the small screen at all. I completely agree with the commenter who said that what they envisioned in their mind while reading was much better than what was presented. I did enjoy the Melbourne scenery, though! 3. Umney's Last Case: Not my favorite short story, but well done thanks to William Macy. 4. The End of the Whole Mess: Rang true to the original story and was well executed. Yes, he could've done a bit more research on the La Plata population, but I guess time was of the essence. 5. The Road Virus Heads North: A great story by SK, remember it really effecting me when I read it, and quite frankly, this one really bit the big one. Something was missing for sure. 6. Autopsy Room 4: Good suspense, but I don't really think in real life that the hospital staff would be that disrespectful, inappropriate or pathetic. The attempts at sexual tension over the body were laughable. 7. They Got a Hell of a Band: Good story, but really should have picked a different story all together. It didn't really translate well. 8. The Fifth Quarter: Good story, well presented. Not horror, of course, but good just the same. Relatively happy ending for King. Hardly recognized Cody from Let Me In, what a great little actor he is.I wish they would do another, though. Call me a sucker for punishment.

Calvin Hobbs I did not get a chance to watch it on TV so i bought the DVD. I liked the series a lot and it was scary, but... DO NOT!!! Buy this on DVD. Even though it was good i think it is a waste just because i only really liked a couple of the episodes. I suggest you rent it or catch it again if they show it again. I would like them to make another season but whatever. In order from best to worst these are my favorites (there are also ratings on each episode): 1.BattleGround (10 out of 10)Awesome!!!! 2.Autotopsy Room 4 (9 out of 10)Very suspenseful andthought out 3.Ulmneys Last Case (7 out of 10)Interesting 4.The End ofthe Whole Mess (7 out of 10)Very Interesting 5.The Fifth Quarter (Six out of 10)Okay not great but the most realistic out of all of them 6.You Know They Got A Hell Of a Band (4 out of 10)I only liked itbecause of all the icons they showed 7.The Road Virus Heads North (4 out of 10)The most scary but just not that good 8.Crouch End (1 out of10 it was just horrible!)CRAP!!!! TOATAL CRAP!!!!

aeo I just saw the third week of Stephen Kings' Nightmares and Dreamscapes mini series; meaning, I saw 6 episodes so far. I have to say that the stories are really weak. I have read Stephen King's Skeleton Crew, a collection of his short stories that was published way back. I recall most of the stories were average to poor but there was one that was really excellent, if not outstanding.What I'm trying to say is that just because this mini series is from a collection of stories from Stephen King does not mean that it will be any good. In fact, if his previous collection of short stories are of any indication, then most of this mini series will be average to poor.In Stephen King's defense, I have not read these new short stories. Perhaps they are good as stories in a book and not readily adaptable to television, or perhaps it was the fault of the scriptwriters in trying to write an interesting script. Who knows. Also, these short stories may have been made exclusively for this mini series and not not for print purpose. Maybe that may have been the problem. If Stephen King had submitted these crap stories to an editor, I am sure the editor would have immediately told him to make it more interesting because as is, it is simply boring.What is clear from all of this is that the problem is with the stories/script and not the actors and actresses because this mini series has some excellent people acting on it.Seeing this mini series really makes me appreciate those old "Twilight Zone" series. Each series was only half an hour but it was compelling and riveting. I don't understand why this mini series could not accomplish similar feat. I am sure this mini series had a good deal of money to make a good mini series but unfortunately, something must not have clicked.For instance, this week there were two episodes shown. The first involved a horror story writer who buys a picture drawn by an artist who committed suicide. The writer begins to see changes in the picture as he is driving homeward. Feeling uncomfortable, he throws away the painting but it keeps appearing near him. Also, the portrait of an individual in that picture is killing people and is out to kill him. (I will not even mention the second episode for this week involving criminals and their loot because it was even more boring than this episode!)This premise is interesting and so the story should be good but after seeing it, I was frustrated because there were too many gaps in the story as well as extraneous materials that was shown that did nothing to help the story. After the last scene, I was left with more questions than answers.I tried for 3 weeks to get into this mini series but it was just too aggravating due to poor stories/script. If this was a movie, I would have recommended that people should wait for the movie to come out on cable or such. I would not even recommend that it be rented in your video store. However, given that this is on TNT, a cable channel, I would say if you have not seen it already, then try it for one week. If you do not like it that week, then you will not like the past series nor the future ones, since they all share the same boring trait.

jim47-1 Umney's Last Case: I'm not a big fan of Stephen King: that would be my wife. But I've read enough of his shorter fiction to have a feel for his work, and I really enjoyed this segment; it worked very well. William H. Macy was perfectly cast and Jacqueline McKenzie was very good, as well. Yeah, it's a silly premise, but once you suspend disbelief, it was very well-crafted. The ending was exactly right: no real conclusion, just the realization by both principles that the tables had turned. If only they had done The Stand, or Firestarter as well as this. If I have a quibble, it would be with some of Mrs. Landry's actions, which seemed a bit weird even for a King story. Overall, this is a 9 out of 10.The End of the Whole Mess: As for the second story of the second evening, this was not as engaging, but it still worked fairly well. I liked the idea of doing it as a documentary, but this also meant that some time that could have been used in developing the ideas in it was wasted on showing Ron Livingston's character, Howie, telling the story. I'm sure that this is how King wrote it (I've not read the story), but I think they could have just set it up and run with it, cutting back to seeing Howie talking maybe half as much as they did. But this is a small complaint. The story isn't as creative as the first one of the evening, but it worked well, as far as it went. There are some internal inconsistencies as well, which made it harder to like it. Perhaps the fact that it was grimmer than the first one made it easier to be critical of it. I'll give this a 7 out of 10.