Stephen King series proves brief is better

The new anthology features eight hourlong episodes.
By JOANNE WEINTRAUB
MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL
Television should have done "Nightmares & amp; Dreamscapes" years ago.
Just think: If someone had succeeded with a bright, brisk Stephen King anthology series in, say, 1990, it might have spared us any number of 10-ton Stephen King mega-miniseries since then.
No "Langoliers"! No "Storm of the Century," "Rose Red" or "Kingdom Hospital"! Think of the hours we could have saved.
Ah, well, what's past is past. Maybe TNT's dandy new King thing will inspire the networks to daring feats of brevity in years to come, sparing us who know how many deadly ordeals.
"Nightmares" features eight hourlong dramas, two every Wednesday night through Aug. 2, adapted from the short stories in a trio of King anthologies: "Nightmares & amp; Dreamscapes," "Everything's Eventual" and "Nightshift." The combined cast ranks as the best for any King screen project ever, film or TV: William Hurt, William H. Macy, Steven Weber, Marsha Mason, Samantha Mathis, Greta Scacchi, Jeremy Sisto, Henry Thomas, Ron Livingston, Richard Thomas, Kim Delaney and more.
A standout
Of the six episodes available for screening, my favorite is "Umney's Last Case" (July 19), which features the delightful spectacle of Macy, easily the series' standout actor, playing opposite himself as a fictitious 1930s private eye and his creator, a 21st-century crime novelist. Like several of the other entries, it suffers from a weak ending, but that barely dims the sparkle of an hour in which Macy, writer April Smith ("Chicago Hope") and director Rob Bowman ("The X-Files") evoke both their Raymond Chandleresque hero and his sushi-loving, laptop-toting alter ego with such panache.
The wry, sardonic "Umney" represents King the fantasist, not the horror master. "The Road Virus Heads North" (July 26), starring Tom Berenger as another suspiciously King-ly writer, is more conventionally grisly. "The End of the Whole Mess" (July 19), with Livingston as a filmmaker documenting the apocalypse, and "The Fifth Quarter" (July 26), starring Sisto as an ex-con with big plans, give us King wagging his finger and reminding us to be careful what we wish for.
This week's shows
The top half of this week's doubleheader, "Battleground," is a somewhat predictable but nevertheless watchable hour starring Hurt as an assassin hired to get rid of a toy magnate. You don't have to be Chucky the evil doll to figure out what happens after Hurt takes out his target, but the execution of the idea, so to speak, by director Brian Henson ("Farscape") is nifty -- and Hurt is so eloquent that I didn't realize for several minutes into the episode that the whole thing takes place without a word of dialogue.
"Crouch End," the second hour, ends the way you think it will, too, but it's nicely done. Claire Forlani ("Meet Joe Black") and Eion Bailey ("Band of Brothers") have lovely chemistry as an American couple in London who accept a sinister dinner invitation and live to regret it. It's a prime example of an idea that works as a one-hour drama but would have been awful padded out to two hours or, heaven forbid, even longer.
"Battleground," the toy story, will be presented without commercials, but the other episodes, including "Crouch End," will have the usual interruptions.
"Nightmares & amp; Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King" airs at 9 and 10 p.m. Wednesday on TNT. It will be repeated at 11 p.m. and midnight Thursday.