Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King

Bouncing between bloody good and bloody brilliant. [12 July 2006, p.D1]

The production values are exceedingly high, and you could find worse excuses to stay up past your bedtime. [12 July 2006, p.038]

Rarely does a TV series premiere as pitch-perfect as "Nightmares & Dreamscapes." But often does a second installment deflate as disappointingly as the subsequent second hour of this summer anthology of mystical imagination adapted from the stories of Stephen King...While the bubble doesn't burst completely, the bravura filmmaking of tonight's first hour sets a standard that's difficult to match on a regular basis, much less in the hour that airs immediately after. It's a "wow!" that's likely to stand as one of TV's most mesmerizing hours of the year. [12 July 2006, p.B21]

Brian Henson directed this self-contained, one-hour telefilm whose story is cleverly told, though it contains not one word of dialogue.

If Stephen King had written "The Twilight Zone," it would have looked like this. This eight-part anthology — two hourlong episodes each Wednesday for four weeks — adapts eight King stories for TV with pretty good results.

Despite some highlights, this foray into “The Twilight Zone” territory mostly lacks the requisite punch Showtime’s “Masters of Horror” delivered, primarily owing to episodes with inadequate payoffs. Limited series should spur curiosity among King acolytes, but too few of the installments really pop creatively.

The first hour, "Battleground" with William Hurt, is brilliant, but the next three are repetitive, talky or derivative. [9 July 2006, p.10]