Widescreen: 'The Stand' tries too hard

The CBS All Access adaptation of Stephen King's "The Stand" would be the most-discussed thing on television right now if A) it was on a more popular streaming service and B) uh, it was good.

The timing couldn't be better for a sprawling American saga about two religious factions at odds in the aftermath of a killer pandemic. The cast - including pitch-perfect choices such as James Marsden as down-home hero Stu Redman, Alexander Skarsgard as evil incarnate Randall Flagg, and Whoopi Goldberg as beacon of hope Mother Abagail - is top-notch. But writer-director Josh Boone ("The New Mutants") made the baffling decision to tell King's tale out of chronological order, breaking with the precedent of both the novel and the 1994 ABC miniseries starring Gary Sinise.

The result may only be comprehensible to the initiated. I can follow the time-shifting narrative because I'm very familiar with the story, but even I tapped out when the third episode asked us to follow three different characters' narratives, each with flashbacks of their own. (It's as if Boone watched the first few seasons of "Lost" and thought they needed to be more complicated!)

I've been wishing for a "grown-up" screen adaptation of "The Stand" since finishing King's 1,152-page unabridged version of the novel in high school, and have gotten excited for previous attempts that never made it to production. What would the version by the "Harry Potter" duo of David Yates and Steve Kloves have been like? Or the one with Ben Affleck in the director's chair? Or Boone's earlier attempt with Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey as Flagg and Stu?

We'll never know, and I'm still curious to see how Boone will handle the story's Las Vegas climax, a scene that was almost laughable in 1994. So perhaps I'll jump back on board Trashcan Man's ATV for the Feb. 4 penultimate episode directed by "Hannibal" alum Vincenzo Natali.

Until then, I'll be searching my mom's basement for the VHS tapes of the ABC version. I'm sure they'll still work, right? (Wait, do I even have a VCR?)

• Sean Stangland is an assistant news editor who is hoping for a new adaptation of "Needful Things" at some point.