The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
A TV Mini-Series is a work made for television. Unlike a tv series, it tells a self-contained story that is spread across several episodes, ranging from two to more, although after around ten or so episodes it starts to blur into becoming a regular series. These episodes range from half-hour to one-hour or commonly two-hour timeslots.
The extended running time of such a format allows greater ease with storytelling than a regular feature film. It is often the favoured form for works adapted from books as the greater running time allows a more faithful treatment – a number of Stephen King works have found their best telling here. The Mini-Series has also worked well for disaster spectacles, biopics and retelling of historical and True Crime stories, and adaptations of popular classics.
Mini-series are often treated as a form of spectacle and given larger budgets than tv series in order to appeal to a wider audience. A mini-series can also serve as a pilot for a potential tv series.
Best TV of the year. A mini-series that offers an absolutely compulsive dive into the disturbing mind of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer and an exactingly detailed charting of his crimes. Evan Peters shines in the title role
Alex Garland directed-written tv mini-series that grasps at big ideas about the meaning of it all concerning a computer that can track every particle and predict past and future. This emerges as one of the finest SF work of the last few years
Stunning tv mini-series adaptation of Tony Kushner’s award-winning play about the impact of the AIDS crisis on gay culture in the 1980s, which becomes a surreal fantasy filled with appearances of angels and ghosts
One of the great tv series of the 1980s, a powerful and incisive snapshot of Thatcherite England, the backroom politics of the nuclear power industry and the environmentalist movement. A brilliantly written show featuring great performances
One of the most extraordinary works ever made for tv. From the pen of Dennis Potter, a mini-series that blends film noir, meta-fiction and autobiography
A British mini-series that offers an ingenious modernised reconeptualisation of the vampire genre, depicting the activities of a secret agency of vampire hunters
Excellent and extremely faithful tv adaptation of the John Wyndham book. This tells the story in terms of ordinary people forced to survive in a harsh world overtaken by killer plants and contains some exceptional writing
Mike Flanagan returns with his best work to date. Effectively a Catholic version of Salem’s Lot, this comes with some flat out great pieces of writing
One of the best and most original ghost stories in some time, a mini-series for the BBC set in the 1890s, this does remarkable things in entirely turning the genre on its head
This TV mini-series remake of the Frank Herbert novel is much more faithful to the essence and complexity of the book, even if it lacks the visual resplendence of the film versions
An underrated mini-series – sort of the anti-Supernatural. This creates a highly original afterlife mythology and some great characters arcs, while overspilling with wry nerdish in-humour
Mike Flanagan follows up the hit of The Haunting of Hill House with a mini-series that adapts another classic work The Turn of the Screw out into a similar kind of cross-generational ghost story. The results are extraordinary
Doctor Who writer/producer Steven Moffat’s modernised Jekyll and Hyde reworks the story in fascinatingly radical ways, while James Nesbitt gives a gleeful rafter-rattling performance
This BBC adaptation of Susanna Clarke’s book about rival 19th century magicians kicks J.K. Rowling completely out of the ring. A beautifully staged costume drama, written with a superb Austen-esque dryness of wit
An acclaimed mini-series about a frumpy woman taking gleeful revenge on the husband who abandoned her. Essentially Fatal Attraction rewritten with a feminist manifesto with hilariously barbed results
Exceptionally written UK mini-series from Doctor Who producer Russell T. Davies following a diverse family throughout the 2020s that become a projection of current trends turned nightmarish
A tv mini-series remake of William Golding’s classic novel about schoolboys stranded on a desert island and their descent into barbarism. This gets the essence of the book with a raw primality that makes for exciting viewing
A great tv mini-series where modern girl Jemima Rooper is transported back into Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice but disrupts the story with her modern ways
The most faithful version of Dracula to date. A BBC mini-series that adapts the book as a no-nonsense costume drama and even shoots in the mentioned locations, giving the impression of the story taking place as Bram Stoker visualised it
Brit Marling is one of the most intelligent creative faces of the 2010s/20s. Here she co-writes, co-directs and stars in a fascinating murder mystery set in the tech world at a futuristic retreat
Dennis Potter was the greatest writer to ever work in televisio. This mini-series is one of his most celebrated works, featuring characters bursting out into lip-synched Golden Oldie songs, making biting contrast to their downbeaten lives
You might be inclined to dismiss on the basis of its title as some of lunatic fringe YouTube conspiracy video. But what we actually have is a strong and powerfully written alternate history mini-series based around the idea of Charles Lindbergh becoming US President in 1940 and the country’s subsequent slide into fascism
One of the best Stephen King adaptations made as a tv mini-series concerning a town overrun by vampires. Director Tobe Hooper excels himself, staging the book in terms a series of captivating set-pieces
The alternate history has never fared well on film but this British mini-series is an excellent variant on the Nazis Win World War II scenario. As opposed to the similar but tedious The Man in the High Castle series, this is marvellously understated and written with superb tension
A beautifully-made post-apocalyptic story told as a mandala of threads and surprise connections that stretch over twenty years
One of the best Stephen King tv mini-series with Colm Feore as a mysterious stranger who manipulates and turns an entire town against themselves
Classic tv mini-series about rebellion in a future where Earth is controlled by giant alien tripod machines, this still holds up as something great today
One of the most conceptually ingenious tv mini-series ever created concerning a quest for objects from a mysterious hotel room that have been imbued with amazing powers.
Danish tv mini-series co-directed by Lars von Trier set in a haunted hospital. This comes with a blacker-than-black sense of humour in its interwoven character strands plus moments that are genuinely eerie
Mini-series that reconstructs the old Battlestar Galactica into smart and intelligent SF with strong characters, a gritty realism and sensational effects. A tv series followed and became one of the best SF shows of the 2000s
Absolutely delightful and charming BBC series about a family of miniature people who live in secrecy inside the walls of human houses. The best of several versions of the popular books
Hallmark tv mini-series adaptation of the classic tales has been granted a decent budget that allows the stories to emerge with lavish spectacle and the fantasy to fly with exceptional regard
BBC mini-series retelling of Bram Stoker’s Dracula that deconstructs and widely expands on sections of the book to create something relentlessly modernistic, sometimes in ways that take you aback
The ‘true story’ bit is contentious but this tv mini-series was the first production to take the Frankenstein story back to the way Mary Shelley told it. Lavishly produced and with a fantastic cast
Very impressive British mini-series about a woman exorcist. This dispenses with the usual head-turning, barf-bag theatrics and feels like the first theologically thought out work of its type, one that largely eschews horror effect to come together as a superbly well-written story
A standout tv mini-series that updates old mad scientist clichés into the era of Jane Goodall as scientist Charles Dance creates a human/gorilla hybrid child and tries to raise it as his own son
A smart, intelligent tv mini-series that conducts a murder mystery that ranges between the 1890s and 2050s, before arriving at an ingenious and clever SF explanation
This BBC tv mini-series starts out seeming a mystery about the disappearance of a child as the investigating heroine makes the jolt realisation that she is the missing child, before the show edges over into occult conspiracy. Very nicely written and beautifully directed with a line-up of standout performances
The Enfield Haunting is a supposedly true-life haunting that most audiences are familiar with from The Conjuring 2; this is an earlier tv mini-series treatment that offers a more realistically grounded telling
BBC mini-series based on true-life serial killer John Reginald Christie that was earlier filmed as the classic >i>10 Rillington Place. Tim Roth steps into the role and the show adopts an exacting feel for the period to portray Christie’s crimes with considerable effect
An exhaustive and very accurately detailed tv mini-series based around the Yorkshire Ripper, a serial killer who targeted prostitutes in the north of England between 1975 and 1981
An eight-episode tv mini-series based on true-life necrophile/grave robber Ed Gein. This expands the story out and considerably embellishes the facts but is one of the most outrageously out there pieces of tv watching you will ever come across
Beautifully made and written Hallmark tv mini-series directed by Steve Barron that brings to life a variety of different Native American myths and legends
A tv mini-series that offers a dark, adult and definitely not family friendly version of the oft-filmed Charles Dickens tale that reinvents the original in quite astonishing ways
TV mini-series based on Marion Zimmer Bradley’s book that offers a revisionist take on the Arthurian legends, telling the story through the eyes of the women of the saga
Stephen King adapted mini-series and one of the best. A dark Coming of Age tale, Tim Curry makes an unsettling Pennywise (in doing so popularised the figure of the killer clown)
Fascinating work from Rainer Werner Fassbinder, one of the earliest depictions of Virtual Reality on screen and one that sets most of the genre’s tropes in place
Fascinating British mini-series about a series of modern-day Jack the Ripper copycat killings, one where the writers have clearly done their research
Lush, beautifully produced version of the Agatha Christie murder mystery from the BBC to celebrate Christie’s 125th anniversary. The story is a chamber mystery with guests in an isolated house being bumped off – sort of Big Brother with dead bodies
Compulsively watchable Ryan Murphy mini-series about a family whose life is torn apart by a sinister letter-writing campaign. A true story that gets far most bizarre than most fiction
BBC tv mini-series remake of the classic Richard Adams novel about talking rabbits on a quest. To get it over with, the animation is not the high-end quality that we have been spoiled with by Pixar et al. On the other hand, what remains is an excellent faithfully told version of the story
Nick Willing conducts the first of his SF revampings of popular tales. Here The Wizard of Oz is reworked into a Steampunk fantasy with some startling reinterpetations of the familiar characters
Excellent British tv mini-series that tells the story of true-life serial killer Dennis Nilsen who preyed on gay men in London in the 1980s. David Tennant gives an electrifying performance in the title role
Tightly wound British tv thriller where Jemma Redgrave has a big secret that her ex is a jailed serial killer and she now cannot be certain if her son or fiance is responsible for a murder
TV mini-series in ten two-hour parts that deals with UFOs, covering several generations from the 1940s to the present. An interesting take on UFO encounters with the benefit of some phenomenal performances
British tv mini-series reminiscent of And Soon the Darkness about an English couple who have their children abducted by sinister strangers while holidaying in France. From the director of Ginger Snaps
British tv mini-series ghost story that takes place across three different eras – in 1944, 1975 and 2012. More of a mystery than a scare show but drawn with a beautifully wistful feel for place and time
TV mini-series adaptation of Aldous Huxley’s classic dystopian novel. Developed by Grant Morrison, this freely adapts the novel but does a strong and intelligent job of reimagining it in contemporary terms
The first sequel to Chocky, the classic mini-series about a boy with an alien invisible companion, this expands the concept out with the introduction of other children
Lively and undeniably likeable Hallmark mini-series that celebrates Irish myth. Giddily silly nonsense conducted with a boisterous energy
Strong and effective UK tv thriller where Stephen Tompkinson becomes obsessed with the girlfriend who went missing years earlier after he thinks he sees her again
Lars von Trier returns to finish off his haunted hospital saga The Kingdom after a 25 years absence, despite the death of several principals, and again milks the same darkly hilarious vein
A strong and worthwhile serial killer thriller mini-series from the BBC with a killer targeting victims with the names and professions of the apostles
Mike Flanagan horror mini-series adapted from Christopher Pike’s book, this is set around a group of patients in a hospice who form a group to tell each other horror stories
TV mini-series from the great Dennis Potter in which the lead character in a smutty novel by an aging writer rebels against her fate. As always with Potter, this blurs fiction, meta-fiction and autobiographical elements
Stephen King writes the script for a TV mini-series adaptation of what he considers to be his best book about a widow who discovers a secret parallel world
Following on from his reworking of The Wizard of Oz in Tin Man, this is a tv mini-series where Nick Willing rather fascinatingly reinterprets Alice in Wonderland in SF terms
Bollywood conducts a reasonable attempt to make its own equivalent of the zombie film in this mini-series about people at siege from undead British colonial soldiers awakened
Fascinating tv mini-series set around the notion of a generation ship – the show explores the scenario in interesting ways then proceeds to put some wild spins on what we think is happening
BBC mini-series about two lovers on a killing spree that works through some great performance and engaging character arcs
A fairly reasonable tv mini-series adaptation of Lewis Carroll – a version that excels in terms of design and in using The Jim Henson Workshop to bring the Wonderland creatures to life
An impressive line-up of genre names came together for this big event mini-series that sets out to offer a conclusive explanation for the Bermuda Triangle in a plot that juggles an entertaining stew of wild ideas involving timewarps, alternate timelines and government cover-ups
A UK TV mini-series that borrow much from The Wicker Man in a complex and fascinating story about the discovery of folk religion on a small island and becoming caught up in pending rituals
TV mini-series about British serial killing husband and wife duo Fred and Rosemary West. While not uninteresting, this merely depicts the aftermath of Fred’s arrest and the relationship with a volunteer helper
Stephen King expressed dissatisfaction with the way Stanley Kubrick handled his novel and here remakes it as a tv mini-series that adheres more closely to the book. While Kubrick’s film is far better, this is not bad where even the perpetually awful Mick Garris subdues his tendency to overdo everything towards some subtlety
Creepy UK tv mini-series with David Tennant as a psycho boyfriend obsessed with Kate Ashfield
A Stephen King scripted tv mini-series about the investigation into a haunted house. This is not quite a classic in the vein of its model The Haunting but is a solid and effective entry
Following Tin Man and Alice, another of Nick Willing’s ingenious rewritings and rationalisations of classic children’s tales in science-fiction terms. Here the essentials of Peter Pan are transported to another planet
Mini-series made for the BBC that seems to have closely studied the late 80s/90s psycho-thriller – Fatal Attraction, Single White Female. Morven Christie is a pregnant mother who takes a leave of absence from work only to discover that her replacement appears to be plotting to kill her
The fourth and final of Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass stores, which shows the professor as an old man in decaying future Britain trying to deal with an alien force manifest through ancient megaliths. A surprisingly bleak and cynical end to the saga but still with the greatness of Kneale’s writing
Quite good British tv mini-series psycho-thriller in which calculating Hermione Norris sneaks her way in and takes over the home of Julie Graham stealing her husband and gaslighting her
A British children’s tv mini-series about a mysterious dinner service that presages the playing out of a Welsh myth, this is seen as one of the original influences on the Folk Horror genre
Mind-twisting mini-series where videogame designer Stephen Dillane is wound into a series of reality and illusion games
TV mini-series remake of the 1959 nuclear war film. With no longer the need to make messages as in the original, the story has been expanded out with a lush romantic sweep
TV mini-series that adapts eight Stephen King short stories. As with any anthology, the stories vary in quality but are generally quite reasonable
Follow-up to Lars von Trier’s haunted hospital mini-series The Kingdom. The story is continued, although the plot seems rickety and either drops elements or veers off on other tangents as though it is being made up as people go along
A TV mini-series adaptation of the Arthur Conan Doyle lost world story, this has been produced by the BBC as a glorious period adventure with CGI dinosaurs
Stephen King adapted mini-series in which James Franco finds a mysterious door that leads back to 1960 and sets out to prevent the assassination of President Kennedy
Adapted from a Kingsley Amis novel, this BBC mini-series is a ghost story for arts audiences. Albert Finney is great as a philandering hotelier who must deal with the appearances of an 18th Century sorcerer
What approach can this Hallmark mini-series take that hasn’t been exhausted by the numerous other Hercules films? Answer: Simply tell the Greek myth as it was written. At which it does not too badly
The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was a multi-media phenomenon that has developed a cult. The tv series with a less-than-stellar BBC budget was not the most effective incarnation of these but still hits the wittily absurd nerve of Douglas Adams’ humour
The first in a series of Terry Pratchett Discworld adaptations for tv. This makes the odd choice of adapting one of the more complex and darker of Pratchett’s usually comic books but it works fairly well overall
Modestly effective tv mini-series about the crew of a British submarine in the 1980s being taken over by the ghosts from a World War II submarine
Halfway reasonable Stephen King adapted tv mini-series. This has been placed in the directorial hands of King’s worst adapter Mick Garris who at least holds his worst tendencies in check
A version of the H.G. Wells novel conducted as a mini-series of six half-hour episodes from the BBC. This is the most faithful adaptation of the book so far
German mini-series about the hunt for an escaped killer that consists of three films, each telling the stories of different characters that weave into the main narrative
Mini-series adaptation of a novel by John Wyndham, best known for The Day of the Triffids, concerning a young boy who develops an invisible alien companion. Imagine a version of Harvey retold by way of E.T.
Modest and well-made British children’s tv mini-series about the mysterious psychic connection between two twins each unaware of the other’s existence
The second live-action tv adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books (in fact combining two books). This is uneven and oddly padded but beautifully produced
Mike Flanagan mini-series that expands on the story to incorporate a host of other Poe stories. More like another of Mike Flanagan’s cross-generational ghost stories by way of tv’s Succession with a lot of Poe-esque margin notes