Review and social Commentary - Bag of Bones

by Mr. Blunderson

Growing up as a child of the 80's I remember when the world practically stopped for the television mini-series. There was always that gradual marketing build up lasting for months gleefully whipping the potential viewing audience into a frenzy.  A new mini-series was like Christmas but without the awkward family moments.  There was still an issue of naughty or nice as one could not risk missing out by being grounded from the television for the conclusion of V the Final Battle or a single minute of Lonesome Dove or even The Thornbirds if you were one of those lucky children who's parents were away in the evenings.

Missing an episode meant being left out of countless conversations that could go on for days or even weeks.  It didn't matter if you were a housewife, steel worker, or even a student at my elementary school in the tiny little town I grew up in.  It was all that mattered.  If you missed the train you were an outcast.

But something has happened over the last 20 years, something most disturbing and sad.  The mini-series doesn't mean shit anymore.  Not a damn thing.

Not to imply that every mini-series that comes out these days is horrible.  Infact I can think of a handful that seem to be more than worthy of defending if only I had taken the time to watch them.

But why bother?  It's a different world.  If you miss it you can catch it "On Demand", watch it on your DVR, or god forbid Netflix which is great but all that underlines a massive problem with the technology at our disposal these days.

How inticing can anything be if there is no chance of actually missing out?  And if there is no chance of missing anything then the undeniable conclusion is that there is no way you can be a smug little bastard because your parents happened to be cool enough to let you watch Shogun or Masada (by the way, thanks mom and dad, you rocked).  It will only be a few days before the rest of your class can torrent it if they hadn't already.

But those days are over, as is the class system that existed based solely on what television you could see and I'll be the first to admit that is most likely a good thing.  Full disclosure, I was always close to the bottom.  I mean, we just had the TV with rabbit ears and roof top antennae with a handful of local network affiliates and two PBS stations.  Sure I can't complain because at least I lived in a house with a functioning TV, even if we needed pliers to change the channel.

Then came the advent of the cable box and the appearance of the elite television bourgeois.  God I hated those fuckers.  My family didn't get cable until right before I moved out of the house.  But the good news is that long before I was old enough to strike out on my own even those cable douche bags had to suck it and kneel before the Zod of an even higher class of TV snobs.

You know of whom I speak...  those jerks with the satellite dishes.

But the world has changed.  All you really need to level the playing field is have an internet connection.  The TV class system has been destroyed (and again, I'm not against that part of it) but with it came some unexpected and earth shattering consequences.

One such victim was the mini-series.

The world no longer has time to stop or even give a damn.   We'll catch up on it when we feel the need to care.  And when we do we'll probably watch it on our smartphone or tablet computer.  Yuck.

The last mini-series I even gave a damn about was The Stand, based on Stephen Kings epic novel telling the tale (quite epically I might add) of the survivors of a virus that quickly wiped out the majority of the population.

I initially enjoyed the adaptation mostly because it starred Lt. Dan and Molly Ringwold (hey I grew up in the 80's I'm still allowed to have a crush on her--I WAS DUCKIE!!!) and because the production was shot for the most part in my tiny corner of the world.  Places I drove past every day were suddenly on the TV screen in a very real way (and not in a fake way like Fletch even though I LOVE that movie).

But that was 17 years ago.  Being a small brick of nostalgia that supports the memories of my younger years in a good way I have revisited it from time to time.  Every time I see it I like it less.  With each subsequent viewing I choke on a little more schmaltz.  I get to thinking that that director Mick Garris is less of a genius and more of a douche for filling nearly the entire run-time with sappy sentimentality... something that as I grow older I seem to resent more and more especially when it is blatantly manipulative in the cheapest of ways.

You gotta earn that shit.

All of this is a very long way of getting to Bag of Bones, a mini-series (also directed by Garris) on A&E that came and went without me hearing ANYONE mention it except for my wife.  We discussed seeing it because we have fond memories of the book, which we both consider among Stephen Kings best.

We TiVo'd it and waited for a good time to watch it.  And boy was it worth the wait...

NOT.

Sophomoric scripting, horrible casting (especially Pierce Brosnan... REALLY???) and some of the clunkiest editing I have ever witnessed not to mention some cheap-ass CGI.  I saw better CGI in Dragon Wars... no lie.  Don't waste your your time, it's a massive steaming pile, which is also how I will rate it on the Mr. Blunderson scale.  Do yourself a favor, you want to see a good ghost story, watch The Changeling staring George C Scott.  Sure it's dated as hell but it's still a better use of your eyes, brain, ears, AND precious time than the festering bag of shit that A&E produced .