I hadn't really been following the development of this series. I knew it was a thing and that the idea was to incorporate several of Stephen King's books, taking advantage of the "shared universe" aspect of his library, but as far as the characters or plot, I was pretty much going in blind.
Having just seen the pilot, I have to say I'm intrigued. The episode did a good job of pulling you in with a strong sense of atmosphere, an effective soundtrack, a strong cast, and some compelling plot points.
The plot centers on Henry Deever, an attorney who gets called back to his hometown after receiving a call from a Shawshank guard regarding a mysterious person found in the sewer tunnels of the prison.
Deever himself has a bit of a history in the town, having vanished without a trace for almost two weeks during a cold winter and then returning unharmed with no memory of what happened. It makes him a great audience identifier, being an outsider who is just coming into town, but also helps fuel some mystery and intrigue about the show's upcoming plot.
"The Kid" (the aforementioned found person) is also a barrel of intrigue. Skarsgard doesn't say much, but he still manages to make his unnamed character rather memorable. He's much creepier here than he was in "It". I'm guessing he's the villain of the piece, what he did to the guards lends credence to that, but it's too soon to say one way or the other.
Speaking of, if he could have done that, why bother waiting around this whole time? We'll see.
I was surprised by the amount of humor that the episode employed. It doesn't go too far with it. There are only a couple of one liners here and there and a lot of it is of the dry variety, but it was definitely a plus.
Really, the only negative criticism I have is putting together a very strong supporting cast and not really doing enough with them. Scott Glenn as Alan Pangborn is given the most to work with. He's fun to watch. I did get some "Stick" vibes from this take on the character, but that could just be me.
Sadly, Terry O'Quinn and Frances Conroy are pretty much wasted, with only a minute or two of screen time each. I'm hoping both get more screen time in some fashion as we move deeper into the show. It would be a shame for two such strong presences to go unused.
Still, this was a strong start. The next two episodes have already dropped so it shouldn't be that long before I dive into another episode. At first I found that strange, I was expecting one episode a week. The more I think about it, though, the more sense it makes. It gives you a good binge to get started and subsequently get pulled in. This episode alone did a solid enough job on that front, in all honesty, but I'm still looking forward to what's to come.
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