In the early 2000s, USA Network was known for its light and breezy shows like Monk, Royal Pains and Psych. But in 2002, USA debuted The Dead Zone, a show that didn’t really fit into the network’s mold.
The series was based upon Stephen King’s 1979 novel of the same name, which followed a man named Johnny Smith who emerged from a years-long coma with psychic visions that could be triggered by touch.
In 1983, The Dead Zone was adapted as a feature film with the great Christopher Walken in the lead as Johnny Smith.
That movie was arguably among the best King adaptations, but The Dead Zone TV series was also great in its own right. Instead of rehashing everything from the film, the show went in its own direction with a new take on Johnny and the people in his life.
All six seasons of The Dead Zone are currently available on Amazon, and it’s Watch With Us’ pick for the one Amazon Prime Video show that you have to watch in April.
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Anthony Michael Hall Is Incredibly Compelling as Johnny Smith
Following in Christopher Walken’s shoes couldn’t have been easy for Breakfast Club star Anthony Michael Hall, but he made the role of Johnny Smith his own. Hall was particularly great in the first season when the wounds of Johnny’s lost years were still readily apparent. He conveys Johnny’s hurt feelings, his anger and his despair while maintaining an innate willingness to use his visions to save people he doesn’t even know.
Johnny’s actions and his visions drive almost every major storyline in the show. Sometimes he’s a reluctant hero, but he always steps up because he has to. The overriding story of the series is about Johnny’s attempts to ward off a vision of Armageddon he receives from shaking the hand of Greg Stillson (Sean Patrick Flanery), a rising political star who may doom the world.
Johnny’s Visions Give the Show a Unique Hook
The challenge of depicting Johnny’s powers on-screen was to keep them visually interesting. Sometimes Johnny was thrust into someone else’s perspective and other times he viewed the events as an outside observer. There were usually visual and audio cues that Johnny was experiencing a vision, but occasionally the show left those out to catch viewers off guard.
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It was refreshing that the series didn’t take very long for Johnny to convince people that his visions were real. Early in the show’s run, after Johnny’s vision about a hockey player’s potential heart problem is proven to be true, he experiences multiple visions as a crowd of strangers places their hands on him. Similarly, a later episode features Johnny and reporter Dana Bright (Kristen Dalton) in a potentially romantic scene that’s upended by his visions of their previous lovers in the same room with them.
The Supporting Cast Deliver Strong Performances
Johnny’s fate in the show is very different from his violent end in The Dead Zone novel and movie. An episode in season 2, “Zion,” demonstrated that one of the main reasons why Johnny’s destiny changed was because of his friendship with his physical therapist, Bruce Lewis (John L. Adams). Hall and Adams had a great rapport during the show’s first five seasons, and the latter was sorely missed when he wasn’t a series regular in season 6.
M*A*S*H’s David Ogden Stiers had a surprisingly nuanced role as Reverend Eugene “Gene” Purdy, a family friend whom Johnny initially suspected of killing his mother. The revelation of what actually happened to Johnny’s mom shaped his relationship with Gene throughout the series. The good reverend didn’t always make the right choices, but that just made him more interesting.
The show also went in an interesting direction by keeping Johnny’s former girlfriend, Sarah Bannerman (Nicole de Boer), in his life as one of his best friends, and by allowing Johnny to befriend Sarah’s husband, Sheriff Walt Bannerman (Chris Bruno), as well. Once Walt was shown that Johnny’s visions were real, he didn’t hesitate to use him as a resource when needed.
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The Series Expands the Narrative of King’s Novel
Johnny’s life may have diverged from the path laid out by King, but it was still going down the same road. While the majority of the episodes were standalone stories, the long-term storytelling focused on Johnny’s attempts to stop Stillson from triggering the apocalypse short of murdering the man himself.
The Dead Zone also introduced the idea that psychic abilities ran in Johnny’s family, and his biological son with Sarah, J.J. Bannerman (Spencer Achtymichuk), would eventually inherit his gift. That notion came to fruition in the sixth and final season, when the role of Johnny Jr. was taken over by Connor Price.
Unfortunately, this is a story that doesn’t have an ending. The creative team behind The Dead Zone season 6 seemed a little too convinced that a season 7 order was assured. That meant a lot of dangling threads were left unresolved, including a big cliffhanger in the final episode.
But when a show is as good as The Dead Zone was, it’s worth overlooking that flaw to enjoy a series that ran for 80 episodes. This is a show that found new layers and depth in King’s creation, and it deserves to be remembered.
The Dead Zone is streaming on Prime Video.
