In the “Notes” section of Nightmares & Dreamscapes, he doesn’t detail the origins of the story, but instead simply credits it to Richard Bachman (the pen name he used to publish The Running Man and Thinner, among others) or George Stark (the evil alter ego of author protagonist Thad Beaumont in King’s 1989 novel, The Dark Half).īachman’s voice can be identified by the dark, cynical edge that Constant Readers don’t typically find when Stephen King writes under his own name, and that tone is pervasive in “The Fifth Quarter,” which chronicles a man’s dual mission to get revenge following the death of a friend, and recover the loot from a heist pulled off by the men responsible. Jeremy Sisto, who was fresh off his role in the hit HBO series Six Feet Under, stars as Willie Evans (a protagonist renamed from the short story), and Samantha Mathis makes her second appearance in a Stephen King adaptation following her role as Susan Norton in the miniseries remake of Salem’s Lot.Īs for “The Fifth Quarter,” the voice Stephen King uses is technically original, but it’s still foreign. The show enlisted a writer with experience in the genre to pen the teleplay, hiring Night Moves and Rob Roy screenwriter Alan Sharp – and Rob Bowman, who helmed the phenomenal “Umney’s Last Case,” was put in the director’s chair for his second Nightmares & Dreamscapes episode.

It’s not precisely a “Dreamscape” while all of the other episodes are “Nightmares ” it’s a crime thriller.

Its inclusion, it could be argued, is somewhat representative of the diversity in Stephen King’s writing, which is far less about monsters and gore than wide audiences give him credit for.

“The Fifth Quarter,” aired as the sixth episode of the show following the premiere of “The Road Virus Heads North,” is the sole exception to this broad genre categorization.

Nightmares & dreamscapes battleground