The Forgotten '90s Sci-Fi Miniseries Stephen King Fans Need To Watch

Stephen King isn't a big fan of "The Tommyknockers." This 1987 novel leans more into sci-fi than horror while sporting a decent premise, but King has looked back on the experience with a tinge of regret. While King thinks that this bloated novel is somewhat awful, he believes there's a taut story hiding among the book's 700-or so pages. I'm inclined to agree, as "The Tommyknockers" already has a solid narrative foundation that examines the corruptive nature of power and the horrors of unchecked technology.

With its inspirational roots in Lovecraft's "The Color Out of Space," the novel takes an unconventional approach to the crash-landed spaceship trope, where the freshly transformed humans lack moral discernment or the ability to gauge emotional depth. If King ever chooses to revisit "The Tommyknockers," it has the potential to be scathing and timely, considering the rise of unregulated AI usage and the ethical bankruptcy (among other horrifying effects) that comes along with it.

But what about an adaptation that can (potentially) improve upon the flaws of its source material? Well, "The Tommyknockers" did inspire an eponymous ABC miniseries, but this drab adaptation failed to impress critics and audiences alike. In fact, it is so devoid of creative spark that King felt the miniseries didn't engage sincerely with the novel's themes. This is true enough, as the show feels shallow in its treatment of the book's central addiction metaphor and in its approach to the characters inhabiting the strange town of Haven. That said, "The Tommyknockers" does have its promising moments, which go hand in hand with some performances that certainly deserve to be highlighted. If we take the key mystery at face value, where entire families are torn apart in the face of the great unknown, "Tommyknockers" might even manage to move you.

Western fiction writer Bobbi (Marg Helgenberger) and her poet boyfriend Gard (Jimmy Smits) seem to live an idyllic life on the outskirts of Haven, but all is not well. While Bobbi experiences writer's block, Gard, a recovering alcoholic, is on hiatus from writing. But their mundane problems take a more surreal turn once the duo unearth something odd from the ground, after which townsfolk start exhibiting bizarre symptoms. Telepathy becomes commonplace all of a sudden, and folks start inventing new gadgets, as if blessed with a higher intelligence. But these "gifts" are a double-edged sword, as a child disappears soon after, and people start losing their minds while getting more obsessed with the act of inventing new gadgets. This transition into becoming less human-like is unconsciously dubbed "becoming," and the hospital rooms filled with the recently traumatized whisper something in unison: "Tommyknockers."

Gard is exempt from "becoming" like others, perhaps due to an accident that hinders his addiction to the luminescent green light emitted by, well, everything. A chunk of the town's absurd shenanigans feels semi-serious, where killer soda machines come to life along with sentient dolls that try to attack their owner. Smits' measured performance keeps things grounded, as his character is the sole voice of reason in a town that is slowly being controlled and sapped of its lifeforce. On the flipside, Helgenberger's Bobbi embodies reckless self-destruction, channeled through the character's insistence on succumbing to alien powers. These outlandish impulses are made believable with Helgenberger's dynamic performance, which is reason enough to give "The Tommyknockers" a chance.

There's genuine humor and pathos worth experiencing in ABC's "The Tommyknockers," even when the journey is deeply flawed and thematically incomplete to begin with.