tek's rating: meh and a half

Rose Red, on ABC
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This miniseries was written by Stephen King, and for a change it's not actually based on one of his books. He wrote it as a miniseries. It aired in 2002, but I didn't see it until 2023. I'm afraid I didn't like it much, nor did I find it particularly scary. But it was at least good enough for me to watch all three parts, which I wasn't sure I would do.

So, what can I say about the plot? There's an old mansion called Rose Red, where a bunch of people have died or disappeared over the decades. A professor of parapsychology named Joyce Reardon (Nancy Travis) hires a bunch of people with various psychic abilities to go to the house with her so they can reawaken the house's dormant supernatural... uh... whatever. The most important psychic is an autistic 15-year-old girl named Annie Wheaton (Kimberly J. Brown), who is accompanied by her older sister, who is just called "Sister" (Melanie Lynskey). The most annoying psychic is a guy named Emery Waterman. Others include Cathy Kramer (Judith Ivey), Nick Hardaway (Julian Sands), Pam Asbury (Emily Deschanel), and Vic Kandinsky (Kevin Tighe). They are also accompanied by Steve Rimbauer (Matt Keeslar), a descendant of the original owners of Rose Red, who is romantically involved with Joyce. The whole first part of the miniseries is just introducing us to these and a few other characters of less importance. They don't actually enter Rose Red until part two. And so, in that and part three, they explore the place (which can change its own architecture), and experience various disturbing things. And not everyone survives to the end of the miniseries. I don't want to go into any more details, because I didn't care enough to do so. (Of course, even if I did like the miniseries, I'd probably avoid too many details because I wouldn't want to spoil anything.) I guess the visual effects were okay. And I kind of liked Annie as a character. And I'm not sure what else to say, except that there was later a prequel miniseries I have no interest in ever seeing.


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