I have way too much jumbling around in my mind about all of this, after JUST having watched most recent ep this afternoon (having to time it so Mr. Snappy and I can watch "our shows" together) ...
I don't think I watched the 1994 miniseries which would be, on the surface, really odd since "The Stand" is one of my all-time Top 5 favorite books ... but it was also a period where my job/career had me traveling SO much and we didn't have the same kind of ability to tape/whatever to watch later ...
So all I can relate to is what I remember from my multiple rereads (including ONLY one of the unexpurgated version), and my memory is extremely corrupted by medical issues that, sadly, seemed to only affect my one "superpower," which was once a remarkable somewhat photographic and seriously detailed memory. Now it's as if someone took all the carefully details index cards in the immense file cabinet of my memory and threw them all over the floor (kind of like the guy in "Memento" ... somewhat the same condition, just less extreme than his).
But I digress ... So, we're through Episode 5. I'm trying to approach it as a huge Stephen King fan and an even huger fan of the book "The Stand" but at the same time taking it on its own merits, and assuming that whatever changes "they" made (whoever "they" are) were for reasons unknown to us.
With that in mind, just a few random thoughts (please bear with me, or don't LOL!!!!)
Having read the book multiple times and this being the first time I've seen it reimagined on screen, I'm only now realizing how "clearly" I had certain characters "visualized" ... and I can't argue with the choices made in actors but it's interesting to see who I was sort of closer on ...
Without wanting to sound cold, I imagined Frannie much more attractive. Not va-va-voom, but in a more "crunchy-granola" way but ... I think she's really NOT attractive which suspends some of my belief that these guys would be falling in love with her so quickly. Other than her possibly being the last woman of child-bearing age that they know. Creepy Harold is every bit as creepy though he could not be further from the way I remember picturing him in the book (kind of fat and blobby and dark versus skinny and greasy).
I imagined Larry as a white guy who was a "blue-eyed soul" musician and frankly that always rang a little wrong with me, so I feel like this version is what it probably should have been all along ... And YES, the worst is why-oh-why is Nadine blonde???? The black-hair-turned-white is one of the great things in the book, so this makes ZERO sense unless they're going to unleash on us some equivalent morphing ...
I don't mind/actually kinda like the gender shifts for a few "lesser" characters if for no other reason than I realize, especially reading some reviews of the show/book, how very very very white-male driven the book was to start with.
I think Alexander Skaarsgard was a great choice for Flagg. He has the right combo of compelling magneticism with an "everyman" aura.
I'm good with Nick ... I always imagined Tom Cullen as a big Iowa cornfed football-player type boy but really love the actor in this role.
I think James Marsden absolutely has the Stu subtle sexiness. LOVE LOVE LOVE Greg Kinnear in his role -- I had not realized what a sexy guy he was LOL.
I'm undecided on Whoopi. I really like her a lot as an actress/person but also think this is not an easy role to nail ... so it's not 100% for me but that may be because I don't really know what 100% would be!
So this whole post may have been a big waste of time for anyone who's actually gotten through it but it made me feel good to get it out of my system while I await the next/last nine episodes. And yeah, I'm DEFINITELY going to reread the book AGAIN once this is over.
ETA: PS ... I could write a whole other personal post re: "Don't Fear The Reaper" despite my not having seen the 1994 version of the series, based solely on my/our own personal experience with music supervision but don't want to bore people to death ... so if there's anyone who's found themselves really enjoying or at least noticing how the music choices have gone so far, let me know and I'll elaborate!!!!