Golden Years (miniseries)

*Golden Years*
Golden Years
	Title card
Also known as	Stephen King's Golden Years
Genre	Sci-fi; Thriller;
Created by	Stephen King
Developed by	Josef Anderson
Written by	Stephen King; Josef Anderson;
Directed by	Kenneth Fink (1); Allen Coulter (2, 4, 6); Michael Gornick (3, 7); Stephen Tolkin (5);
Starring	Keith Szarabajka; Felicity Huffman; Frances Sternhagen; Ed Lauter; R. D. Call; Bill Raymond;
Theme music composer	David Bowie
Opening theme	"Golden Years"
Ending theme	"If You Won't Leave Me, I'll Find Somebody Who Will"
Composer	Joe Taylor
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	7
Production
Executive producers	Stephen King; Richard P. Rubinstein;
Producers	Mitchell Galin; Peter R. McIntosh;
Cinematography	Alex Nepomniaschy
Editors	Michael Kewley; Stephen Mark; Richard Harkness;
Camera setup	Joe D'Alessandro
Running time	232 minutes; 236 minutes (Home video);
Production company	Laurel Productions
Original release
Network	CBS
Release	July 16 –; August 22, 1991

Golden Years (also referred to as Stephen King's Golden Years) is an American television science fiction thriller miniseries that aired in seven parts on CBS from July 16 to August 22, 1991 as a part of its 1991 schedule.

Plot

Harlan Williams, an elderly janitor, is caught up in an explosion at the top-secret laboratory where he works. After surviving but discovering he is now "aging" in reverse, he ends up on the run from an operative of "The Shop".

Cast

All episodes

Keith Szarabajka as Harlan Williams
Felicity Huffman as Terry Spann
Frances Sternhagen as Gina Williams
Ed Lauter as Gen. Louis Crewes
R. D. Call as Jude Andrews
Bill Raymond as Dr. Richard X. Toddhunter

Six or fewer appearances

Stephen Root as Maj. Moreland
Philip Lenkowsky as Billy Delois
Tim Guinee as Fredericks
Graham Paul as Rick Haverford
Erik King as Burton
John Rothman as Dr. Ackerman
Harriet Sansom Harris as Francie Williams
Matt Malloy as Redding
Margo Martindale as Thelma
Stephen King (cameo/episode 5) as a bus driver^[1]

Production

King called Golden Years a "novel for television"; it originated as an idea for a novel that sat in his notebook for years.^[1] He "wrote the first five episodes and outlined the last two."^[1] King credited Twin Peaks for making it possible for Golden Years to be produced:^[1]

"Up until Twin Peaks came on, the only sort of continuing drama that TV understood was soap opera, Dallas, Knots Landing, that sort of thing. To some degree David Lynch gave them that. But he turned the whole idea of that continuing soap opera inside out like a sock. If you think of Twin Peaks as a man, it's a man in delirium, a man spouting stream-of-consciousness stuff. Golden Years is like Twin Peaks without the delirium."

The miniseries was intended to lead into a regular series, and therefore ended on a cliffhanger. CBS, however, decided not to pick up the option on the full series, and it was never realized. King asked for four hours of airtime in the following spring to finish the story, but CBS denied him this as well.^[2] The home video version changes the last few minutes of the final episode to give the story an optimistic ending.

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Applebome, Peter (July 14, 1991). "TV Gets a New Poltergeist: Stephen King". The New York Times. Retrieved 2013-05-23.
^ Albert Rolls (30 December 2008). Stephen King: A Biography. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 100. ISBN 9780313345739. Retrieved 26 October 2014.

External links

Golden Years at IMDb

[nyt91-1] Applebome, Peter (July 14, 1991). "TV Gets a New Poltergeist: Stephen King". The New York Times. Retrieved 2013-05-23.

[SK_Bio-2] Albert Rolls (30 December 2008). Stephen King: A Biography. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 100. ISBN 9780313345739. Retrieved 26 October 2014.

[1]

[2]