Saw parts of Rose Red on TV. The first hour of Sunday's installment, and maybe forty-five minutes or so of Monday's.

I dusted off the rabit-ears especially for this event. Our reception is pretty bad here, what with the mountains and all, and we kicked the cable company and the satellite providers out of our house with a vengeance. As a result, we don't watch much TV, and that's just fine with us.

But, as I said, I pulled out the rabbit ears and managed to tune in the ABC station across Lake Washington to get a somewhat fuzzy broadcast of ABC's televised premiere of Stephen King's Rose Red. I was under no delusion that it would be the pinnacle of television movie making. Rather, I had worked as a backgrounder during the filming in Seattle, and wanted to see how the final product of all that work. Not all my work, of course: I was just a backgrounder. But, after seeing all of the work of the cast and crew toiling away to make Pioneer Square into a believable 1907 version of Seattle, well... I was curious as to how well they pulled it off.

For all that, the flashback scenes to 1907 Seattle looked just fine. It was also nice to see my friend dressed up as the constable who clubbed a man in front of the saloon where I, dressed as a workman, was loading a coach with crates and barrels. Note: I do not appear in the final cut of that scene. But, it was still kind of cool to see three seconds of that footage finally make it onto the television screen after going through take after take after take. My friend the constable looked right good and menacing, so there's something.

(It's possible I appear in other scenes; I recognized many of the shots in which I was a backgrounder, but the reception was so fuzzy, I couldn't tell if I actually appeared in any of them.)

Given how little the flashback scenes in Seattle added to the final production of the mini-series, I'm curious as to why they bothered at all. Those were VERY expensive shots they took, and the computer work necessary to eliminate some of the buildings in the background and add some others, well, that couldn't have been cheap. Yet, those scenes felt like an afterthought, and it's hard to imagine why they thought they added to the telling of the story.

But that's not my big beef with what I saw of Rose Red. My big beef is: it's just plain awful! The character development for which Stephen King is known? Completely absent. The acting talent? Missing in action. Originality? None to speak of.

None of this surprised me in the least, of course. Previous ABC movies based upon Stephen King works -- including those with a screenplay written by the man himself -- have been near universally weak. Still...

We know that good movies can be made based upon SK's work. The Shining (Kubrick's version), The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, Misery, Dolores Claiborne, and even The Dead Zone worked quite well. I'm told Stand By Me was also excellent, but I haven't seen it. Creepshow had some fine moments, even if it was primarily camp. Carrie remains a classic. And, as television mini-series go, the original Salem's Lot wasn't half bad.

Yet ABC manages to turn out one weak turn after another. The Tommyknockers. It. The Stand. The Shining (remake). Storm of the Century. All of these had the potential to be excellent. All of them failed.

(Although, truth be told, none of them are as bad as some of the worst theatrical releases made, such as Christine, Pet Semetary, Sometimes They Come Back, Children of the Corn... well, okay, there was one big stinker. The Langoliers. That one was pretty awful.)

So, what's the deal? If ABC is intent upon blowing the money to make a big production of a Stephen King story, why don't they do it right? One would think that The Stand or The Dead Zone or Hearts in Atlantis would make for excellent mini-series treatment.

I don't have an answer to this question. I don't know enough about how television movies are made, nor do I think it would matter even if I knew. But, sometimes, it's kinda nice to think...

What if Peter Jackson (director of the Lord of the Rings) filmed a trilogy of movies based upon The Stand?

What if Frank Darabont (director of The Green Mile) took a stab at a multi-part Hearts in Atlantis? (note: the recent movie "Hearts in Atlantis" is really only the film version of one of the five shorter works that comprise the book, "Low Men in Yellow Coats." It doesn't even contain any of the elements from the title short story.)

What if M. Night Shyamalan (director of The Sixth Sense) attempted The Dead Zone?

How about James Cameron directing The Running Man?

Mmmm. Those could be good.

Then again, what if Woody Allen directed Needful Things? Ack!

When I sell the movie rights to The Do Over, I'll have to be careful... to go to the highest bidder, of course.

:-)