Golden Years (1991)
Golden Years (1991)
Stephen King has had a long relationship with television miniseries adaptations of his works, since his novel 'Salem's Lot was adapted as a miniseries in 1979. Many of those miniseries were quite successful, especially the 1990 adaptation of Stephen King's It. After the success of David Lynch's Twin Peaks showing that a television show could be a continued drama rather than episodic, or being a Soap Opera, Stephen King had the idea of creating a television series based on an unpublished book that he had called Golden Years. The series was pitched as a limited series made of seven parts (or episodes), and was supposed to act as a pilot for a longer series, however after the seven parts were aired, CBS chose not to pick up the series.
Golden Years was created by Stephen King, who also wrote and co-wrote the series. Josef Anderson wrote the teleplay for the last half of the series, while King did the outline of the stories. Golden Years was directed by Kenneth Fink (1), Allen Coulter (2,4,6), Michael Gornick (3,7), and Stephen Tolkin (5); and aired on July 16th-August 22nd 1991 on CBS. The opening theme song "Golden Years" was performed by David Bowie.
Golden Years was created by Stephen King, who also wrote and co-wrote the series. Josef Anderson wrote the teleplay for the last half of the series, while King did the outline of the stories. Golden Years was directed by Kenneth Fink (1), Allen Coulter (2,4,6), Michael Gornick (3,7), and Stephen Tolkin (5); and aired on July 16th-August 22nd 1991 on CBS. The opening theme song "Golden Years" was performed by David Bowie.
Golden Years stars Keith Szarabajka as Harlan Williams, Frances Sternhagen plays his wife Gina Williams, Felicity Huffman plays Terry Spann, Ed Lauter plays Gen. Louis Crewes, R.D. Call plays Jude Andrews, Bill Raymond plays Dr. Richard Todhunter, Stephen Root plays Maj. Moreland, and Stephen King makes a cameo as a bus driver in episode 5. The film was well cast with some recognizable actors, Stephen Root is best known for his role as Milton in the comedy Office Space, Ed Lauter has been in over 200 roles on film and television (though I always think of him from the skateboarding film Gleaming The Cube as Christian Slater's character's dad), and Frances Williams has been in other Stephen King works including Misery and The Mist.
This isn't really a horror film, more of a science-fiction thriller, but there are some horror elements, and it ties in with Firestarter, and has a reference to The Stand, one of the minor characters later in the series is named Captain Tripps (the name of the virus in The Stand). The story is about a janitor at a secret government research facility, and one day while working Dr. Todhunter's experiment explodes and janitor, Harlan Williams, is indirectly hit by the blast. Though he wasn't injured, the side effects were causing him to begin to reverse aging, and he began to grow younger. However The Shop, and their agent Jude Andrews, wants to capture and experiment on Harlan, and they will stop at nothing to get him, including killing his wife to erase witnesses. So agent Terry Spann, with the assistance of General Louis Crewes takes the Harlan and Frances and they go into hiding, trying to keep one step of the evil Jude Andrews. But can they escape, and what will happen to Harlan as he continues to grow younger?
I really enjoyed this series, I wish the full series would have been picked up, as it would be nice to see what happens to the characters going forward. For the home video release the episodes were put together without breaks or credits, and the ending was changed slightly to wrap things up a little better, so when watching this, it feels like watching a very long film. When sitting down and watching this as a film, it does get a bit long, and dull in parts, whereas watching it in episodes it would have kept a more fresh and exciting feeling. Overall it has an interesting story, and some interesting characters. Golden Years holds around a 50% rating on IMDb, and I guess, it is to fair to say that that rating is fair. The series has its strengths, but also definitely has its weaknesses. I feel like the story itself is great and strong, but I do feel like the downside is that being so long, there are places where the story just kind of seems to drag on, but that worked for the format that it was released, but on the format that it is presented on the DVD it becomes just long and tedious. Like I said I really do like this series a lot, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is a fan of Stephen King, especially his more science-fiction works, like Firestarter, this film is a great accompaniment to Firestarter, if you wanted to learn a bit more about the mysterious agency only known as The Shop. Definitely worth checking out, great story, great characters, just have some time to kill, because this one isn't short by any means.
This isn't really a horror film, more of a science-fiction thriller, but there are some horror elements, and it ties in with Firestarter, and has a reference to The Stand, one of the minor characters later in the series is named Captain Tripps (the name of the virus in The Stand). The story is about a janitor at a secret government research facility, and one day while working Dr. Todhunter's experiment explodes and janitor, Harlan Williams, is indirectly hit by the blast. Though he wasn't injured, the side effects were causing him to begin to reverse aging, and he began to grow younger. However The Shop, and their agent Jude Andrews, wants to capture and experiment on Harlan, and they will stop at nothing to get him, including killing his wife to erase witnesses. So agent Terry Spann, with the assistance of General Louis Crewes takes the Harlan and Frances and they go into hiding, trying to keep one step of the evil Jude Andrews. But can they escape, and what will happen to Harlan as he continues to grow younger?
I really enjoyed this series, I wish the full series would have been picked up, as it would be nice to see what happens to the characters going forward. For the home video release the episodes were put together without breaks or credits, and the ending was changed slightly to wrap things up a little better, so when watching this, it feels like watching a very long film. When sitting down and watching this as a film, it does get a bit long, and dull in parts, whereas watching it in episodes it would have kept a more fresh and exciting feeling. Overall it has an interesting story, and some interesting characters. Golden Years holds around a 50% rating on IMDb, and I guess, it is to fair to say that that rating is fair. The series has its strengths, but also definitely has its weaknesses. I feel like the story itself is great and strong, but I do feel like the downside is that being so long, there are places where the story just kind of seems to drag on, but that worked for the format that it was released, but on the format that it is presented on the DVD it becomes just long and tedious. Like I said I really do like this series a lot, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is a fan of Stephen King, especially his more science-fiction works, like Firestarter, this film is a great accompaniment to Firestarter, if you wanted to learn a bit more about the mysterious agency only known as The Shop. Definitely worth checking out, great story, great characters, just have some time to kill, because this one isn't short by any means.
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