NPO #11: Fixing The Dark Tower
In my review of Spider-Man: Homecoming, I made a point of mentioning the erroneous critical quotation that claimed the movie and/or Tom Holland was the "best Spider-Man ever!"
The Dark Tower came out last week on video, and after hearing what a waste of budget, inconsequential, unfaithful, disjointed, unrelatable, and other ways of calling it generally awful as a movie, I felt compelled to see what positive words might be present on the cover in this instance.
Turning over a gritty-verging-on-bland black-and-white cover image featuring Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey, the title, and not much else, I found a single critical quote without so much as a single star to accompany it. And here it is, straight from Forbes magazine contributing writer Scott Mendelson:
So, apparently The Dark Tower is so bad that a neutral, obvious, generic character description like this is the most positive thing that any critic, professional or not, has ever said about it. Between the ugly cover art and this weakly chosen "positive" "criticism," it seems like the folks at Imagine Entertainment and Columbia Pictures wanted to make sure that not one single copy of their film got sold.
It makes me wonder: did they take turns kicking each other in the balls, or just form a big circle and do it all at once?
If I circulated a blank DVD titled, Movie: The Movie, with no cover art, where the synopsis is "several actors play people who do stuff," and the critical quote on the jacket says "It delivers people as other people," would it sell better than The Dark Tower?
Okay. Enough with the crude ridiculousness. Obviously, I did not end up buying a copy of The Dark Tower. But I still hold the books, and Stephen King as an author, in high regard.
Stephen King has written some of the best horror novels in modern history, and his Dark Tower series, not to mention all of the other books and short stories he has written that connect to the series in some way (I think I've read all of them, except for The Wind Through the Keyhole because after the seventh book wrapped up everything, it didn't seem worth it), are a mind-boggling testament to his creativity. It has been said that Stephen King describes a desk with the same level of detail any other writer might describe their entire cast of characters. That can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the medium you choose to adapt it to, and in the case of The Dark Tower, it proved to be a bad idea to try cramming roughly eight thousand pages (in the series alone; perhaps another fifteen-, twenty-, or more -thousand in the connecting novels) of dense mythology, character development, and world-building into an hour and thirty-five minute movie.
Many of King's works have done more than passably well as miniseries or streamable content, and with a massive amount of material to draw from, The Dark Tower universe seems like the perfect candidate for this treatment. Given the actual graphic, gritty nature and sometimes flashback-laden structure of the series, I could picture the likes of Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz (Lost and Once Upon A Time) or Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad) attached to the project, perhaps with Joss Whedon's touch of darkly comic, apocalyptic strangeness and experience with both Marvel properties and expansive universes. It has to be a streaming service exclusive also (or appear on something like FX, SyFy, AMC, or HBO), so as not to require the toning down of the spirit of King's books (if it were on a network like ABC, for instance, language, violence, and other such viewer advisory forms of content would have to be diluted to family-acceptable levels). Plotwise, don't try to change too much. Start with the throwaway ending from the end of Book Seven, where Roland winds up back at the beginning of his journey, chasing the Man In Black through the desert, but now he has the Horn of Eld with him. Move the story forward from that point, as faithfully as possible, episode by episode, but having in mind an idea of what the Horn of Eld is or what it means to Roland, and the minor ways in which that information (or the Horn itself) could affect the natural progression of the Gunslinger novel as a season. That's another thing: Do each novel in the Dark Tower series as a season.
Season One: Do a "journey to the cursed town" kind of thing for an episode, wherein Roland follows Walter's trail to the small desert town from the first book. Since watching a man walk through the desert for what feels to him like hundreds of years is boring, cut out the middleman with a flashback or two, explaining why Walter is so bad and why Roland is even after him in the first place. Spend a couple episodes on Roland snooping around town and uncovering all the insanity, depravity, and supernatural nonsense in the town, ending the arc with a big, badass gunfight and Roland walking further into the sunset, once more on Walter's trail. More flashback-laden desert-walking, and an episode or two at the way station, where, instead of Jake (who died in the key world in the novels), Roland finds Patrick Danville, who, in this continuity, was killed by Ed Deepneau when Deepneau's plane crashed into a convention center in Derry, Maine. As with Jake, Patrick remembers his death, but not his significance. This is followed by the multi-episode trek through the mountains at the end of the desert, with part one of the finale ending in Patrick's death and the season punctuated by Roland's face-to-face with Walter and a possible teaser as to the purpose of the Horn of Eld. Get Demian Bichir or Jimmy Smitts to play Roland, and maybe Christopher Heyerdahl as Walter.
Season Two: Start as the book does, with Roland on the beach, fighting off giant lobsters. He's fuzzy in the head, so do the palaver with Walter (perhaps with snippets of Wizard and Glass thrown in as they seem relevant) in flashback, ending cliffhanger-style with Roland discovering and opening the first door. Devote a few episodes to each of the doors, perhaps with a flashback episode from the point of view of each character Roland draws (Henry Dean and Rose Daniels, instead of Eddie and Susannah). Now, the King fans among you might be wondering why I'd choose to replace Eddie and Susannah with the characters I did. Simply, the continuity here has been altered. This offers the chance to give the couple the peace and closure they found at the end of the book series, rather than dragging their souls back into another epic journey through what is basically Hell. Why Henry Dean? Well, with his younger brother living happily ever after, Henry would still be at the mercy of Jack Andolini. Roland would wind up in Henry's mind instead, trying to prevent him from overdosing as he did in the books. You could still work in the bathroom scene (not on a plane this time because Patrick's death was already plane related) and the gunfight in the Leaning Tower. Rose Daniels would be drawn some time after the events of Rose Madder, still in the grips of the rage bestowed upon her by the Mid-World painting. This would be a fitting replacement for the Detta Holmes personality from the books, and given her poor experiences with men, there would be good fuel for an interesting dynamic between her and Henry (and Roland, seeing as how both he and Rose would have had recent experiences with doors to alternate worlds). Do the finale about the Death door, replacing Jack Mort with Ed Deepneau, having Roland intervene instead of Ralph. The episode could bleed into the third book a little to cliffhanger with Roland's paradox and set up the next season.
Season Three: Do this initially as a two-pronged story, switching between Patrick in Maine and Roland, Henry, and Rose in Mid-World. This will be a longer season, so focus the mid-season finale on the drawing of Patrick so that when the season returns, the second half can focus on the Lud arc, ending with the crash of Blaine and the possibility that no one survived (even though we know they all do). The book is more dense than that, but that's what the basic structure of the season should be.
Season Four: This is another point where things should deviate massively. Though the book had connections to The Stand and The Wizard of Oz, and the story was well written, almost the entire thing was flashback. An entire season of flashback with almost no appearances by the recurring cast is a sure ratings killer (unless the first three seasons are showing declining ratings already and the show is in need of a new direction and fresh cast), so keep the flashback portion mostly intact, but condense it and pepper it throughout the season. I like the idea of fan-fictioning the ka-tet directly into the events of The Stand as an alternate plot for the season, going back to the roots of the first novel and having Roland's group (who are immune to Captain Tripps for some reason) fight off and/or align with survivors of the flu before ultimately coming face-to-face with Walter again and claiming Maerlyn's Grapefruit (read: evil, pink crystal ball MacGuffin).
Season Five is where having Disney-owned properties and employees running your show comes in handy, as Wolves Of the Calla features references to Doctor Doom, Star Wars, and Harry Potter.
In an updated, alternate continuity twist, replace Father Callahan with the Doctor Sleep incarnation of Danny Torrance. This way, you have a character with the shine (in the books, it was Jake) who is also like Don Callahan in that he has had experience with vampire-like creatures and is attempting to repent for his alcoholism by using his gift to help the citizens of Calla Bryn Sturgis. Like Rose's entrance into Mid-World, have Danny come into the story after the events of his novel, using mechanics similar to how Don Callahan got there (i.e. hunted by creatures similar to those of the True Knot who are employed by the Crimson King). Using characters from other King books always gives the opportunity to include flashback material, and if he would agree to it, Daniel Lloyd should come out of retirement and play the adult Dan Torrance, reprising his role from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. Otherwise, keep to the Wolves novel's cross-dimensional travel subplot and basic Magnificent Seven plot mechanics. End this season employing variations of the book's many cliffhanger elements (the re-emergence of Dorcas, Rose's supernatural rage personality, now pregnant; Patrick and/or Danny reading their respective King novel(s)--especially Patrick and Insomnia, which would make for a nice bit of closure with Roland, who discarded Insomnia in the books because it made him feel strange). Maybe there could be some ominous deja vu situation where Roland recalls this moment from the books and realizes that he has journeyed to the Tower before--at least once.
Season Six: Song Of Susannah is the shortest, and perhaps most action-packed book in the series, and The Dark Tower is the longest. I'll get to how to best handle this shortly, but for now, this season should best be started as a "splitting up of the team" narrative, like Marvel's Inhumans, with the main plotline following Roland and Patrick through Stoneham, Maine, and featuring corporate espionage, gun battles with gangsters, and palaver with Calvin Tower and a young comic book artist named Clayton Riddell. In the book, it was Stephen King himself, but I think this would be a more accessible, more connected character choice for the meta character encounter, especially these days. In the Stephen King novel, Cell, Clayton Riddell was an up-and-coming comic book artist who was about to present his work on "The Dark Wanderer," an unpublished graphic novel series he had been working on that bears a striking resemblance to the Dark Tower narrative. In Cell, his "Dark Wanderer" art is ceremoniously burned when a psychic virus transmitted by cell phones turns most of the population into zombies. Clayton is revealed to be one of a handful of people with an immunity to this "Pulse," hinting at his mind possibly being altered by Gan so that he can receive and transcribe Roland's story, much the same way that the character of Stephen King was in the books. The setting and conversation from the book can remain much the same as written. I chose to have Patrick in this half of the quest instead of Henry because there would be more of a connection between the characters, with Roland and Patrick having bonded over Insomnia for an episode or two, and with Patrick and Clay both being artists.
Meanwhile, the subplot can follow Henry and Danny through New York as they deal with Black Thirteen (another crystal ball like the Grapefruit, but more powerful and evil, because the number thirteen and the color black) and attempt to stop the demon possessing Rose from giving birth. It's suggested in the book that Black Thirteen will be buried in the 9/11 rubble, but given the power of the ball, it would be more likely that 9/11 happened because Jake and Callahan hid Black Thirteen in the World Trade Center and its energies acted as an evil magnet, so, maybe let's have Henry and Danny do something different that doesn't cause an infamous act of terror, hmm? Maybe include a reference to the part from Doctor Sleep where the little girl predicts 9/11 as further reason to avoid doing this. Also, end the midseason finale with Dorcas giving birth and Henry and Danny walking into the vampire dive bar ambush. The second half of the season should pick up at the beginning of Book VII, with them fighting their way out of the ambush and Rose barely surviving Dorcas' pregnancy. Do the third episode of the second half of the season about Roland and Patrick recruiting Ralph Roberts from Maine (he's another character from Insomnia, who, in this continuity, would be alive, married to Lois Chasse, and raising Ed Deepneau's daughter, Natalie) and returning to End-World, ending on a heartfelt reunion of the ka-tet. In a post-credits sequence, show Walter attempting to kill Dorcas' spider-baby Mordred, but getting killed himself, finally. This sets up the course of events for the rest of the season: a "group stalked by the monster" plot that originally stretched through plot elements of the book, which I think should be used for the seventh season, and so, out of traditional sequence. After Roland kills Mordred (who is also his son and the son of the Crimson King, according to some long-simmering, convoluted spiritual plot ridiculousness from the third season), one of the creatures from End-World's branch of the True Knot kidnaps Patrick (still in possession of Insomnia) and disappears, ending the season.
Season Seven: Patrick's been kidnapped, Henry and Danny still have Black Thirteen, Roland is all moody and contemplative in the aftermath of losing Patrick (maybe having flashbacks to the books when he loses Jake?), Rose and Henry are working through their newly discovered trust issues, and Clayton Riddell's life could be in danger. This shaken dynamic flows through most of the first half of the season, as the tet invade the Devar-Toi, a research facility where agents of the Crimson King are using the True Knot, humans with the shine, and victims of the Pulse (zombified humans who were given psychic abilities) as weapons to break the Beams holding up the Dark Tower. Danny is almost captured, but the King's agents are stopped by Black Thirteen, which also wipes out the True Knot and almost kills Danny and the rest of the shine-gifted prisoners. On instinct, Roland blows the Horn of Eld, which somehow negates the effects of the Pulse and subdues Black Thirteen. The tet frees all of the remaining prisoners, including Ted Brautigan from Hearts In Atlantis, Dinky Earnshaw from Everything's Eventual, and Sheemie Ruiz from Mejis (the Mid-World equivalent of Mexico?) in the Wizard and Glass flashbacks of Season Four. Realizing they still have to get rid of Black Thirteen and prevent Clayton Riddell's death, they split up again, with Henry and Rose taking Black Thirteen to her home timeline--with the suggestion that they might not be coming back--and Roland and Danny heading to then-present-day Boston to rescue Clay. I haven't worked out what the circumstances of Clay's death might have been, but as for Rose and Henry's side of the journey, they make their way to her home, and to the tree that had suppressed her supernatural rage at the end of Rose Madder. After they bury Black Thirteen under the tree (which siphons off dark energies), Henry and Rose get a happily ever after, just like Eddie and Susannah did in the books. This time, with Roland and Danny remaining on the quest instead of Roland, Susannah, and Oy, the tet encounter Joe Collins/Dandelo, the True Knot creature who abducted Patrick in the Season Six finale. Things can progress pretty much the same from then on, with Roland and Danny recovering Patrick from Dandelo and continuing on their journey to the Dark Tower. After the showdown with the Crimson King at the Tower, Danny and Patrick decide to return home together, and Patrick gives Roland the Insomnia novel before using his gift to draw himself and Danny a door out of Roland's world. Unlike the books, Roland keeps Insomnia and the Horn of Eld with him as he journeys up the steps of the Dark Tower. Before opening the door at the top of the Tower, Roland lays the novel--the keystone book to the Dark Tower--at its threshold and blows the Horn of Eld one final time. Cue the happy ending.
Future Seasons?: Maybe Roland walks through the doorway and finds his childhood friends and family (now grown as old as Roland himself) in an All-World unaffected by the Crimson King. Maybe he just finally gets to rest in peace. Maybe the series is as popular by this point as the books had been, and he walks into a new quest. There are numerous characters in King's books that could have been Walter in disguise, and since the publication of the seventh book, several of his standalone novels have featured villains in red who could be avatars of the Crimson King, so it could turn into a season big-bad type of series from this point, like Supernatural, with Roland teaming up with a growing cast of King's protagonists against different monsters. There's nothing saying the new ka-tet can't be called back into action, either, right?
In an earlier draft of this, I considered keeping Stephen King and his part of the story intact in the series, with his son, Joe Hill, playing the young King. Had the character lineup stayed the same, I would have suggested David Mazouz as Jake, Aaron Paul as Eddie Dean, Kerry Washington as Odetta/Detta/Susannah Holmes, Morena Baccarin as Mia, and either David Soul or John Lithgow as Father Don Callahan. This final draft is not perfect, as it's been awhile since I've read any of King's books, but it does some interesting things with the character dynamics and story where the books utilized too much cosmic coincidence and treated the characters and plot device items as disposable after their usefulness had passed.
Let me know what you think of my fixing of The Dark Tower in the comments and hit those social media "like" buttons down below. The Tremors review is still a watch and a work in progress, so get those dial-tuning fingers ready and tune in when the shaking starts.
This is your local Ticketmaster and Fixitmaster,
signing out.
The Dark Tower came out last week on video, and after hearing what a waste of budget, inconsequential, unfaithful, disjointed, unrelatable, and other ways of calling it generally awful as a movie, I felt compelled to see what positive words might be present on the cover in this instance.
Turning over a gritty-verging-on-bland black-and-white cover image featuring Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey, the title, and not much else, I found a single critical quote without so much as a single star to accompany it. And here it is, straight from Forbes magazine contributing writer Scott Mendelson:
"It delivers Idris Elba as an action hero."
It makes me wonder: did they take turns kicking each other in the balls, or just form a big circle and do it all at once?
If I circulated a blank DVD titled, Movie: The Movie, with no cover art, where the synopsis is "several actors play people who do stuff," and the critical quote on the jacket says "It delivers people as other people," would it sell better than The Dark Tower?
Okay. Enough with the crude ridiculousness. Obviously, I did not end up buying a copy of The Dark Tower. But I still hold the books, and Stephen King as an author, in high regard.
Stephen King has written some of the best horror novels in modern history, and his Dark Tower series, not to mention all of the other books and short stories he has written that connect to the series in some way (I think I've read all of them, except for The Wind Through the Keyhole because after the seventh book wrapped up everything, it didn't seem worth it), are a mind-boggling testament to his creativity. It has been said that Stephen King describes a desk with the same level of detail any other writer might describe their entire cast of characters. That can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the medium you choose to adapt it to, and in the case of The Dark Tower, it proved to be a bad idea to try cramming roughly eight thousand pages (in the series alone; perhaps another fifteen-, twenty-, or more -thousand in the connecting novels) of dense mythology, character development, and world-building into an hour and thirty-five minute movie.
Many of King's works have done more than passably well as miniseries or streamable content, and with a massive amount of material to draw from, The Dark Tower universe seems like the perfect candidate for this treatment. Given the actual graphic, gritty nature and sometimes flashback-laden structure of the series, I could picture the likes of Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz (Lost and Once Upon A Time) or Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad) attached to the project, perhaps with Joss Whedon's touch of darkly comic, apocalyptic strangeness and experience with both Marvel properties and expansive universes. It has to be a streaming service exclusive also (or appear on something like FX, SyFy, AMC, or HBO), so as not to require the toning down of the spirit of King's books (if it were on a network like ABC, for instance, language, violence, and other such viewer advisory forms of content would have to be diluted to family-acceptable levels). Plotwise, don't try to change too much. Start with the throwaway ending from the end of Book Seven, where Roland winds up back at the beginning of his journey, chasing the Man In Black through the desert, but now he has the Horn of Eld with him. Move the story forward from that point, as faithfully as possible, episode by episode, but having in mind an idea of what the Horn of Eld is or what it means to Roland, and the minor ways in which that information (or the Horn itself) could affect the natural progression of the Gunslinger novel as a season. That's another thing: Do each novel in the Dark Tower series as a season.
Season One: Do a "journey to the cursed town" kind of thing for an episode, wherein Roland follows Walter's trail to the small desert town from the first book. Since watching a man walk through the desert for what feels to him like hundreds of years is boring, cut out the middleman with a flashback or two, explaining why Walter is so bad and why Roland is even after him in the first place. Spend a couple episodes on Roland snooping around town and uncovering all the insanity, depravity, and supernatural nonsense in the town, ending the arc with a big, badass gunfight and Roland walking further into the sunset, once more on Walter's trail. More flashback-laden desert-walking, and an episode or two at the way station, where, instead of Jake (who died in the key world in the novels), Roland finds Patrick Danville, who, in this continuity, was killed by Ed Deepneau when Deepneau's plane crashed into a convention center in Derry, Maine. As with Jake, Patrick remembers his death, but not his significance. This is followed by the multi-episode trek through the mountains at the end of the desert, with part one of the finale ending in Patrick's death and the season punctuated by Roland's face-to-face with Walter and a possible teaser as to the purpose of the Horn of Eld. Get Demian Bichir or Jimmy Smitts to play Roland, and maybe Christopher Heyerdahl as Walter.
Season Two: Start as the book does, with Roland on the beach, fighting off giant lobsters. He's fuzzy in the head, so do the palaver with Walter (perhaps with snippets of Wizard and Glass thrown in as they seem relevant) in flashback, ending cliffhanger-style with Roland discovering and opening the first door. Devote a few episodes to each of the doors, perhaps with a flashback episode from the point of view of each character Roland draws (Henry Dean and Rose Daniels, instead of Eddie and Susannah). Now, the King fans among you might be wondering why I'd choose to replace Eddie and Susannah with the characters I did. Simply, the continuity here has been altered. This offers the chance to give the couple the peace and closure they found at the end of the book series, rather than dragging their souls back into another epic journey through what is basically Hell. Why Henry Dean? Well, with his younger brother living happily ever after, Henry would still be at the mercy of Jack Andolini. Roland would wind up in Henry's mind instead, trying to prevent him from overdosing as he did in the books. You could still work in the bathroom scene (not on a plane this time because Patrick's death was already plane related) and the gunfight in the Leaning Tower. Rose Daniels would be drawn some time after the events of Rose Madder, still in the grips of the rage bestowed upon her by the Mid-World painting. This would be a fitting replacement for the Detta Holmes personality from the books, and given her poor experiences with men, there would be good fuel for an interesting dynamic between her and Henry (and Roland, seeing as how both he and Rose would have had recent experiences with doors to alternate worlds). Do the finale about the Death door, replacing Jack Mort with Ed Deepneau, having Roland intervene instead of Ralph. The episode could bleed into the third book a little to cliffhanger with Roland's paradox and set up the next season.
Season Three: Do this initially as a two-pronged story, switching between Patrick in Maine and Roland, Henry, and Rose in Mid-World. This will be a longer season, so focus the mid-season finale on the drawing of Patrick so that when the season returns, the second half can focus on the Lud arc, ending with the crash of Blaine and the possibility that no one survived (even though we know they all do). The book is more dense than that, but that's what the basic structure of the season should be.
Season Four: This is another point where things should deviate massively. Though the book had connections to The Stand and The Wizard of Oz, and the story was well written, almost the entire thing was flashback. An entire season of flashback with almost no appearances by the recurring cast is a sure ratings killer (unless the first three seasons are showing declining ratings already and the show is in need of a new direction and fresh cast), so keep the flashback portion mostly intact, but condense it and pepper it throughout the season. I like the idea of fan-fictioning the ka-tet directly into the events of The Stand as an alternate plot for the season, going back to the roots of the first novel and having Roland's group (who are immune to Captain Tripps for some reason) fight off and/or align with survivors of the flu before ultimately coming face-to-face with Walter again and claiming Maerlyn's Grapefruit (read: evil, pink crystal ball MacGuffin).
Season Five is where having Disney-owned properties and employees running your show comes in handy, as Wolves Of the Calla features references to Doctor Doom, Star Wars, and Harry Potter.
In an updated, alternate continuity twist, replace Father Callahan with the Doctor Sleep incarnation of Danny Torrance. This way, you have a character with the shine (in the books, it was Jake) who is also like Don Callahan in that he has had experience with vampire-like creatures and is attempting to repent for his alcoholism by using his gift to help the citizens of Calla Bryn Sturgis. Like Rose's entrance into Mid-World, have Danny come into the story after the events of his novel, using mechanics similar to how Don Callahan got there (i.e. hunted by creatures similar to those of the True Knot who are employed by the Crimson King). Using characters from other King books always gives the opportunity to include flashback material, and if he would agree to it, Daniel Lloyd should come out of retirement and play the adult Dan Torrance, reprising his role from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. Otherwise, keep to the Wolves novel's cross-dimensional travel subplot and basic Magnificent Seven plot mechanics. End this season employing variations of the book's many cliffhanger elements (the re-emergence of Dorcas, Rose's supernatural rage personality, now pregnant; Patrick and/or Danny reading their respective King novel(s)--especially Patrick and Insomnia, which would make for a nice bit of closure with Roland, who discarded Insomnia in the books because it made him feel strange). Maybe there could be some ominous deja vu situation where Roland recalls this moment from the books and realizes that he has journeyed to the Tower before--at least once.
Season Six: Song Of Susannah is the shortest, and perhaps most action-packed book in the series, and The Dark Tower is the longest. I'll get to how to best handle this shortly, but for now, this season should best be started as a "splitting up of the team" narrative, like Marvel's Inhumans, with the main plotline following Roland and Patrick through Stoneham, Maine, and featuring corporate espionage, gun battles with gangsters, and palaver with Calvin Tower and a young comic book artist named Clayton Riddell. In the book, it was Stephen King himself, but I think this would be a more accessible, more connected character choice for the meta character encounter, especially these days. In the Stephen King novel, Cell, Clayton Riddell was an up-and-coming comic book artist who was about to present his work on "The Dark Wanderer," an unpublished graphic novel series he had been working on that bears a striking resemblance to the Dark Tower narrative. In Cell, his "Dark Wanderer" art is ceremoniously burned when a psychic virus transmitted by cell phones turns most of the population into zombies. Clayton is revealed to be one of a handful of people with an immunity to this "Pulse," hinting at his mind possibly being altered by Gan so that he can receive and transcribe Roland's story, much the same way that the character of Stephen King was in the books. The setting and conversation from the book can remain much the same as written. I chose to have Patrick in this half of the quest instead of Henry because there would be more of a connection between the characters, with Roland and Patrick having bonded over Insomnia for an episode or two, and with Patrick and Clay both being artists.
Meanwhile, the subplot can follow Henry and Danny through New York as they deal with Black Thirteen (another crystal ball like the Grapefruit, but more powerful and evil, because the number thirteen and the color black) and attempt to stop the demon possessing Rose from giving birth. It's suggested in the book that Black Thirteen will be buried in the 9/11 rubble, but given the power of the ball, it would be more likely that 9/11 happened because Jake and Callahan hid Black Thirteen in the World Trade Center and its energies acted as an evil magnet, so, maybe let's have Henry and Danny do something different that doesn't cause an infamous act of terror, hmm? Maybe include a reference to the part from Doctor Sleep where the little girl predicts 9/11 as further reason to avoid doing this. Also, end the midseason finale with Dorcas giving birth and Henry and Danny walking into the vampire dive bar ambush. The second half of the season should pick up at the beginning of Book VII, with them fighting their way out of the ambush and Rose barely surviving Dorcas' pregnancy. Do the third episode of the second half of the season about Roland and Patrick recruiting Ralph Roberts from Maine (he's another character from Insomnia, who, in this continuity, would be alive, married to Lois Chasse, and raising Ed Deepneau's daughter, Natalie) and returning to End-World, ending on a heartfelt reunion of the ka-tet. In a post-credits sequence, show Walter attempting to kill Dorcas' spider-baby Mordred, but getting killed himself, finally. This sets up the course of events for the rest of the season: a "group stalked by the monster" plot that originally stretched through plot elements of the book, which I think should be used for the seventh season, and so, out of traditional sequence. After Roland kills Mordred (who is also his son and the son of the Crimson King, according to some long-simmering, convoluted spiritual plot ridiculousness from the third season), one of the creatures from End-World's branch of the True Knot kidnaps Patrick (still in possession of Insomnia) and disappears, ending the season.
Season Seven: Patrick's been kidnapped, Henry and Danny still have Black Thirteen, Roland is all moody and contemplative in the aftermath of losing Patrick (maybe having flashbacks to the books when he loses Jake?), Rose and Henry are working through their newly discovered trust issues, and Clayton Riddell's life could be in danger. This shaken dynamic flows through most of the first half of the season, as the tet invade the Devar-Toi, a research facility where agents of the Crimson King are using the True Knot, humans with the shine, and victims of the Pulse (zombified humans who were given psychic abilities) as weapons to break the Beams holding up the Dark Tower. Danny is almost captured, but the King's agents are stopped by Black Thirteen, which also wipes out the True Knot and almost kills Danny and the rest of the shine-gifted prisoners. On instinct, Roland blows the Horn of Eld, which somehow negates the effects of the Pulse and subdues Black Thirteen. The tet frees all of the remaining prisoners, including Ted Brautigan from Hearts In Atlantis, Dinky Earnshaw from Everything's Eventual, and Sheemie Ruiz from Mejis (the Mid-World equivalent of Mexico?) in the Wizard and Glass flashbacks of Season Four. Realizing they still have to get rid of Black Thirteen and prevent Clayton Riddell's death, they split up again, with Henry and Rose taking Black Thirteen to her home timeline--with the suggestion that they might not be coming back--and Roland and Danny heading to then-present-day Boston to rescue Clay. I haven't worked out what the circumstances of Clay's death might have been, but as for Rose and Henry's side of the journey, they make their way to her home, and to the tree that had suppressed her supernatural rage at the end of Rose Madder. After they bury Black Thirteen under the tree (which siphons off dark energies), Henry and Rose get a happily ever after, just like Eddie and Susannah did in the books. This time, with Roland and Danny remaining on the quest instead of Roland, Susannah, and Oy, the tet encounter Joe Collins/Dandelo, the True Knot creature who abducted Patrick in the Season Six finale. Things can progress pretty much the same from then on, with Roland and Danny recovering Patrick from Dandelo and continuing on their journey to the Dark Tower. After the showdown with the Crimson King at the Tower, Danny and Patrick decide to return home together, and Patrick gives Roland the Insomnia novel before using his gift to draw himself and Danny a door out of Roland's world. Unlike the books, Roland keeps Insomnia and the Horn of Eld with him as he journeys up the steps of the Dark Tower. Before opening the door at the top of the Tower, Roland lays the novel--the keystone book to the Dark Tower--at its threshold and blows the Horn of Eld one final time. Cue the happy ending.
Future Seasons?: Maybe Roland walks through the doorway and finds his childhood friends and family (now grown as old as Roland himself) in an All-World unaffected by the Crimson King. Maybe he just finally gets to rest in peace. Maybe the series is as popular by this point as the books had been, and he walks into a new quest. There are numerous characters in King's books that could have been Walter in disguise, and since the publication of the seventh book, several of his standalone novels have featured villains in red who could be avatars of the Crimson King, so it could turn into a season big-bad type of series from this point, like Supernatural, with Roland teaming up with a growing cast of King's protagonists against different monsters. There's nothing saying the new ka-tet can't be called back into action, either, right?
In an earlier draft of this, I considered keeping Stephen King and his part of the story intact in the series, with his son, Joe Hill, playing the young King. Had the character lineup stayed the same, I would have suggested David Mazouz as Jake, Aaron Paul as Eddie Dean, Kerry Washington as Odetta/Detta/Susannah Holmes, Morena Baccarin as Mia, and either David Soul or John Lithgow as Father Don Callahan. This final draft is not perfect, as it's been awhile since I've read any of King's books, but it does some interesting things with the character dynamics and story where the books utilized too much cosmic coincidence and treated the characters and plot device items as disposable after their usefulness had passed.
Let me know what you think of my fixing of The Dark Tower in the comments and hit those social media "like" buttons down below. The Tremors review is still a watch and a work in progress, so get those dial-tuning fingers ready and tune in when the shaking starts.
This is your local Ticketmaster and Fixitmaster,
signing out.
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