Although they’ve become much more common and almost pedestrian in the streaming era, I’m a sucker for the “TV Event of the Season” nature of old school miniseries usually on major networks and frequently seek them out whenever I can. So my question is which are your favorites?
For me as a horror junkie, it should be no surprise my top 3 are all Stephen King adaptations. IT (1990) which I own on DVD, Salem’s Lot (1979) which I own on both DVD and Bluray, and finally The Stand (1994) which I own in a glorious VHS boxset.
I’ll spare the thread from my anime OVA opinions and keep it to live-action.
Obligatory Chernobyl mention. It’s as good as everyone keeps saying it is. For a personal favorite, Midnight Mass was like a slow-rolling nightmare. Great show.
The Dahmer miniseries was well made and acted, but it really creeped me out how much they sexualized Dahmer and leered at him, the Menendez Brothers miniseries was even worse in that regard. As a true crime junkie I also didn’t like how many basic facts all of them have gotten wrong or invented for viewership that didn’t actually happen (the man who wrote the book, literally, on Ed Gein has torn that one to shreds, the great Harold Schecter)
Yeah, he has a certain way of telling stories, that’s for sure.
On the subject of true crime miniseries though, I still think the best film or series of many attempts to tackle the Ted Bundy story was 1986’s The Deliberate Stranger in which Mark Harmon played Ted. It is a really solid miniseries that last I checked can be found on the Internet Archive (it isn’t streaming anywhere), still has flaws like they all do, but it is more complete than like the adaptation of The Stranger Beside Me or the weird “is he guilty or not” Netflix movie.
I really liked The Haunting of Hill House, given these responses I’m guessing I really need to watch the other two finally. My parents’ Netflix account rarely works for me anymore, but next month I’ll be down visiting them and maybe I can fit Midnight Mass in while I’m actually there in their house.
I’m going to list some shows that weren’t miniseries by choice that I really liked.
Invasion (2005, not the Apple show) really grew on me. Yes it was an alien invasion show, but I appreciated that it was more of a “we just need a place to live” take than a “world domination” Doctor Who’esc show. Also Florida for the sake of wildlife and fauna (not Florida stupid) made it feel like such a refreshing setting.
Caprica, the doomed Battlestar Galactica spinoff, I adored. It was a cyberpunk show about the creation of the Cylons, with elements of a gangster family drama. Gosh it only needed 2-3 seasons, but it was tragic to see it end after 1. /me shakes fist at SciFi
Speaking of cyberpunk, The Peripheral TV series based on the William Gibson “Jackpot” series. The heavy southern accents of some of the characters were jarring at first, but they worked as you grew to know the characters as a family of discarded soldiers. My understanding is that the show was cancelled primarily due failings of production under early COVID, not due to it being bad or unloved. Fingers crossed Apple is able to see their Neuromancer series thrive.
