I know what you’re all thinking about right now: why did I classify this as a sort of first thoughts about Castle Rock? It’s because it took me a month after watching it to finally write all about it. And you know what? I don’t have a lot to say about the show, because I don’t care to talk about it. Before I discuss about how I feel about Castle Rock, I should start by sharing my thoughts on Stephen King.
When it comes to Stephen King, I don’t really care for him. As a Christian, he seems to be very questionable as to how he utilizes anyone who believes in God throughout his writings, and I still don’t know where he truly lands. Sure, he admits that he’s neutral about it, but most of his works does show otherwise, such as Carrie and The Mist. But for everything he has done, according to the movies that I have seen, I feel as if he works best when he’s at his limits. To me, his limits are drawn towards his dramas. My examples of these are The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption, and my personal favorite, Stand By Me. However, whenever he does a horror story, it always turns out to be stupid beyond belief. I saw parts of The Shining tv series as a child, but I don’t remember too much about. But then when I revisit the show as an adult, holy crap, was that show so bad! I tried watching Dreamcatcher one time, and I couldn’t bring myself to watch more than 30 minutes of that idiocy. As you can tell, my history with Stephen King as always been polarizing.
So, what do I think about Castle Rock? When I first saw the show, I thought it was okay. I didn’t think it was bad, but I thought it might be good enough to show it to my friends. They may not be huge Stephen King fans, but I know one of them who’s a huge Lost fan (which I might get to very soon). But no, after watching it with him, I started to seen more issues with this show. The first problem that we spotted was the over excessive amount of Stephen King references from his other works in the first episode. I know that his show is suppose to be all of his books into one show, but I got sick of it right away. The other problem was killing off Terry O’ Quinn’s character early on. Yeah, I know that was suppose to be part of the plot, and that he appears more into the flashbacks in the series, but I prefer if he was one of the major supportive characters in the show. And the worst part of the show, and the reason for why me and my friend couldn’t finish the first episode together, was that it drags, especially for a drama/horror series. Yeah, if you want to see the most interesting part of the episode, you have to sit all the way till the last few minutes of the first episode.
You’re probably wondering why I haven’t talked about what the show is about, but even I have a problem with that. The show is suppose to be about a lawyer who helps out prisoners and goes back home in, that’s right, you guessed it, Maine! Not just in Maine, but in a small town called Castle Rock, that just so happens to be both dominantly white, and racist against black folks! ….I don’t know why! I mean, yeah, the town looks like it’s white enough to be made out of Wonder Bread, but I don’t know why it has people who don’t like the only black person in the show, who is also the main character. His name is Henry Deaver, and if you ask me, I prefer if the Shawshank warden, Warden Porter, was the main character, because the only thing that Henry Deaver this character has to provide for us is that he shares the same name as the prisoner who was kept isolated, underground from the whole world. Seriously, most of these characters are either boring, or are just recycled from other characters from other movies and/or tv shows, whether or not if they’re from Stephen King’s works. Warden Porter provides us more of an interest and stands out more than everyone else, only because I feel that she is doing more than everyone else in this show that is interesting, like figuring out about the isolated prisoner, what is his past, so on, and so on.
Yeah, I’m just going to leave it at that. I don’t have a lot to say about this show, and I wouldn’t care enough to re-watch it for a Rerunagade review either, especially for Rerunaween. I know some people like this series, so maybe you might like it, if Stephen King is for you. I, on the other hand, don’t care for it. I thought that J.J. Abrams might of somehow made this show better, despite his flaws in the past. But no, he just made a very slow, dull show for me. Again, I don’t hate Stephen King, I just seen his other works that I believe are better than others, and I can say the same thing for J.J. Abrams too.
Some Review Site 