We Care a Lot

Apparently like six million or so other people, I watched the new rendition of Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot this week. For the most part, I think it was a good telling of the story, although it didn't scare the bejesus out of me like the book did. Chalk that one up to broadcast television standards, I guess. Mark Petrie, I thought, was particularly well-cast. Andre Braugher didn't really seem old enough to be a teacher of Rob Lowe's Ben Mears character, but I could live with that.

Having just read King's The Wolves of Calla, though, I had a couple of issues with James Cromwell's Father Callahan. First, and I don't remember from the book of 'Salem's Lot, his recollections of this time made him seem like a much more despicable character than the made-for-TV movie portrayed. Also, the end of the movie confuses the bigger timeline when you consider Calla, but I'll assume the screenplay didn't. That's a minor quibble.

Elsewhere on the dial, I loved seeing Andre 3000 from Outkast on the season finale of The Shield. Took me a couple of seconds, but his voice was ultimately unmistakable. I didn't love that FX ran past 10:00 central time by about a minute, maybe less, so my TiVo chopped the very last scene. I'm still getting used to changing the default recording time.

And I've never seen Jon Stewart light into a guest the way he did Stephen Hayes the other night. Wow.