The Institute

I've read the book and I'm totally onboard with expanding Tim's story. The acting is good, the direction creepy enough while teasing us with what's to come. My one complaint is expanding the stories of some of the institute staff. I don't care about these people, these are awful people and outside of the 3 main staff members and security, the rest I don't care about. I hope they don't take up too much time as 8 episodes is enough to cover the book without much filler.

I know there's some uncomfortable scenes with the children which I'm not looking forward to seeing, but it all adds to the story and the eventual Conclusion which I can't wait to see how they've shot that.

I'll stick around and this looks set to be the best King TV adaptation since The Outsider.

In this day and age of short attention spans, it is advantageous for filmmakers to not have too much exposition in the beginning. We don't need setup but cut to the chase. I would cut what happened in those 2 episodes down to less than one or punch up those beginning scenes. Maybe some scenes could have been pushed to flashbacks later. You need to hook your audience as soon as you can or lose them. One specific important character that was in the book should have been introduced earlier. Pull out the William Goldman, Sy Field, or Robert McKee. Missed opportunity is the specific social commentary in the novel seems absent here. It is a tough one to say about the actors but uninspired for some might be the best description along exhaustion. I am not sure the night shoots had a part in that. Wishing for a jolt of espresso for some. What is refreshing is normally good girl Parker and normally bad boy Barnes have a bit of a role reversal with Parker being the antagonist and Barnes being the protagonist. In true King fashion the minor quirky characters are outstanding based on the material they had to work with. Pls stop saying this is Stranger Things cause Stranger Things borrowed a lot from King novels. I am such a King and Parker(Weeds anyone?) fan that I will try to watch the rest. Don't get me started about the theme song.

It's refreshing to see tv show of almost extinct variety, one that's intentionally not made for TikTok generation with attention span of the fruit fly and inability to follow more than one line of thought at the same time, bored if there's no fight, or car chase, or cliche video effects every 5 minutes ;)

Stephen King is always hard to transfer to tv/film media, out of tens and hundreds of such deeds, very few have gone even above the half tank mark. This one looks promising - it's hard to imagine that with such a good start it will plummet. But it was known to happen ;))

Another good thing going for the show is, as it's happening in Maine, there are no (so far ;) mandatory rota, "price affordable", actors with hard to understand, heavy accents, that have no origin in the source material.

I love this book. One of my favorites from King's work in the last 10 years. When they announced this adaptation, years ago at this point, I was thrilled! Who could have known at the time that it would be sold to another network, and then severally delayed for years. Still, I was eager for this series and had high hopes. Finally, the series is released, and even though it's early on, I am having a hard time seeing this getting better from here. The pacing of the first two episodes was awful. There was essentially zero character development, even for the main characters like Tim and Luke. Everything so far seems rushed, and the deviations from the books thus far seem unnecessary. Why make Nicky's character more involved than he was? Why change Tim's journey and make it all center in Dennison? Simple things like that don't seem to have an overall impact that necessitated a deviation from the story.

I do hope it gets better.

It being one of my favourite King novels, was of course hesitant when this was announced. Recently adaptations have become a lot better, but it is still hit or miss when it comes to his books.

But I give it a solid 10/10. Stellar cast (specially the kids and Tim), remaining cast is great as well with some amazing actors, always great top see a Gillmore Girl doing something totally different. Great adaptation on an almost page for page way. The whole setting isn't far of from how I imagined the setting, main characters and of course the town in Maine (I need to visit that state someday).

Can't wait to see the rest and love that it is a limited series!