I don't know how I got started on it, but I'm busy sleeping through the TV miniseries version of The Shining with that guy from Wings and Rebecca DeMornay. It tries to stick as closely to the book as possible and is a perfect example of why books are books and films are films. It's not fair to say it's utter shit, but it bears all the hallmarks of unnecessary stupidness that seem to contaminate network TV.
The guy from Wings was a horrible choice as Jack Torrance. There's no way to not compare him to Jack Nicholson's character in the Kubrick version despite the two adaptations being so dissimilar. He's just goofy and it's hard to take him seriously. He doesn't come off as a boiling cauldron of compulsion and conflict clinging to sanity by his fingernails while making his last, knowingly futile effort to be a good family man and get his life back on track. Instead, he's just kind of an obnoxious dick. Like, if you saw him acting that way in a grocery store you probably wouldn't be too afraid to walk up to him and tell him to quit acting like a fuckhead.
Can the same be said of Nicholson's Jack Torrance? God no. You'd just say, "fuck it, that guy's definitely gonna kill some people but it ain't gonna be me," as you walked quickly out of the store.
As far as the unnecessary stupidity goes, there's just lame cheesy attempts at spookiness. For example, the family walks in the front door of the hotel and after they do, the bench on the porch starts rocking back and forth on its own. I just imagined one of the key grips drilling a little hole through the wall to attach a string to the bench and then being told to pull on the string at the right time. It's full of stuff like that. Who are the ghosts trying to scare with that? Other ghosts?
Anyway, I'll watch on because I can fall asleep to it and not care what I miss, or the lack of continuity that occurs when I try to get back to the approximate point in the show where I fell off into a very "meh" sleep the night before.
