Horror icons Stephen King and Mick Garris paired up to bring King’s colossal tale of good and evil set against a backdrop of a world ravaged by a superflu to the small screen in a television mini-series event.

Airing over four nights, the six-hour tale worked to be as faithful to the source material as possible… it was adapted by King himself. And while some of the dialogue ends up being a little melodramatic and movie-of-the-week, it ends up getting the feel of the book down pretty well. At last, for what you could do on the team with broadcast standards being what they were.

The first night, The Plague, debuted on 8 May, 1994, and introduces us to a few of the main characters that will populate the story.

After a super virus is accidentally released, it spreads across the country thanks to an unsuspecting carrier and begins to work its way across the globe from there. We are introduced to Stu Redman (Gary Sinise), a Texan who seems to be immune to the bug, which catches the eye of the floundering and collapsing government.

There’s a deaf-mute, Nick (Rob Lowe), wandering the roads, who comes across some trouble. We meet Frannie (Molly Ringwald), who is the muse of a lovelorn would-be younger suitor, Harold Lauder (Corin Nemec). There’s a debt-ridden rocker, Larry Underwood (Adam Storke), who’s travelled all the way to New York from LA to get away from his financial worries.

These characters and more will be drawn to sides of a coming war, a way between good and evil. The good is personified by Mother Abigail (Ruby Dee), and the evil by the Walking Dude, the Man in Black, that recurring villain of the King-verse, known in this reality as Randall Flagg (Jamey Sheridan).

Both Nick and Stu have dreams of Mother Abigail calling them and all their friends to her farm. While the Walking Dude strolls the highways and byways of America, sometimes as a man, sometimes as a raven, keeping an eye out for those he can use.

The plague wipes out millions, and now the battle lines will be drawn as the stage is set for The Stand.

It’s a fairly solid retelling of the novel, though constrained by television standards and budgets. Some of the visual effects were even rough at the time. But the project drew a lot of attention and garnered great ratings. The first episode also featured some great cameos, Ed Harris, Kathy Bates, Jeff Goldblum, and yes, even Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

I haven’t watched this version of the story in decades. It’s solid and has a great cast. Sure, some of the dialogue is clunky, but it’s a good story, and I can’t wait to see it all play out. I don’t remember much of it from the last time I watched it, though I remember parts from both the miniseries and the novel.

The Stand continues next time with The Dreams.