''The Mist'' is an American

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

- horror

thriller Thriller may refer to: * Thriller (genre), a broad genre of literature, film and television ** Thriller film, a film genre under the general thriller genre Comics * ''Thriller'' (DC Comics), a comic book series published 1983–84 by DC Comics i ...

television series developed by Christian Torpe. It is based on the 1980 horror novella of the same name by author

Stephen King Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. Described as the "King of Horror", a play on his surname and a reference to his high s ...

. The series aired for one 10-episode season on Spike from June 22 to August 24, 2017. Spike later cancelled the series on September 27 the same year.

Premise

An unexplained mist slowly envelops the town of Bridgeville,

Maine Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and nor ...

, creating an almost impenetrable barrier to visibility. The residents of the town soon learn the situation is even more precarious as unexplained anomalies and phenomena in the mist attack and kill most who enter it, trapping several groups of people in a shopping mall, a church, and a hospital. Eventually, people begin to see apparitions in the mist from their past, fears, or guilt that help or kill them depending on how they react.

Cast and characters

Main

Morgan Spector Morgan Michael Spector (born October 4, 1980) is an American actor. Spector has appeared in the TV series ''Allegiance'' (2015), '' The Mist'' (2017), ''Homeland'' (2018), and '' Pearson'' (2019), as well as the films '' The Drop'' (2014), '' Chr ...

as Kevin Copeland *

Alyssa Sutherland Alyssa Sutherland (born 23 September 1982) is an Australian actress and model best known for her role as Queen Aslaug in the History Channel television series ''Vikings'' (2013–2016). Early life Sutherland was born in Brisbane. Sutherland at ...

as Eve Copeland * Gus Birney as Alex Copeland * Danica Curcic as Mia Lambert * Okezie Morro as Bryan Hunt * Luke Cosgrove as Jay Heisel * Darren Pettie as Connor Heisel * Russell Posner as Adrian Garff *

Frances Conroy Frances Hardman Conroy is an American actress. She is best known for playing Ruth Fisher on the television series '' Six Feet Under'' (2001–2005), for which she won a Golden Globe and three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and received four Prime ...

as Nathalie Raven

Recurring

Dan Butler Daniel Eugene Butler (born December 2, 1954) is an American actor known for his role as Bob "Bulldog" Briscoe on the TV series '' Frasier'' (1993–2004); Art in ''Roseanne'' (1991–1992); for the voice of Mr. Simmons on the ''Nickelodeon'' T ...

as Gregory Romanov * Steven Yaffee as Mikhail Demidoff * Dylan Authors as Link * Darcy Lindzon as Trevor * Laurie Hanley as Ursula *

Isiah Whitlock Jr. Isiah Whitlock Jr. (born September 13, 1954) is an American actor. He is best known for his role as corrupt state senator Clay Davis on the HBO television series ''The Wire'' as well as being a frequent collaborator of Spike Lee. He has also a ...

as Gus Bradley * Romaine Waite as Kyle * Irene Bedard as Kimi Lucero * Nabeel El Khafif as Raj El-Fayed * Greg Hovanessian as Wes Foster * Mishka Thebaud as Clint Spelling * Shomari Downer as Elliot Carrillo * Zenna Davis-Jones as Giselle Rodriguez *

Erik Knudsen Erik Knudsen (born March 25, 1988) is a Canadian actor. He is known for portraying Daniel Matthews in '' Saw II'', Alec Sadler in '' Continuum'' and Dale Turner in the CBS series ''Jericho''. Life and career Knudsen was born on March 25, 1988 ...

as Vic *

Jonathan Malen Jonathan Malen is a Canadian actor, best known for providing the voice for Jimmy Z in ''Wild Kratts ''Wild Kratts'' is a live action/ Flash-animated educational children's television series created by the Kratt brothers, Chris and Martin. ...

as Ted *

Holly Deveaux Holly Deveaux is a Canadian actress. She is known for starring in the television series '' Baxter'', ''Less Than Kind'', and ''Spun Out''. Career In 2012, Deveaux was cast as Casey Anthony in '' Prosecuting Casey Anthony'', a television movie ba ...

as Zoe * Andrea Lee Norwood as Susan Parker *

Alexandra Ordolis Alexandra Ordolis (born July 9, 1986) is a Greek-Canadian actress having had roles as Sister Delphine on the 2015 TV series ''Reign'', Shelly in '' The Mist'' (2017), Ollie in '' Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments'' (2018) and Caro in '' Nurs ...

as Shelley DeWitt * Lola Flanery as Lila DeWitt

Guest

* Mary Bacon as Mrs. Carmody * John Dooks as Eric Carmody * Christopher Gray as Tyler Denton *

Philip Ettinger Philip Ettinger is an American actor who first gained attention for his supporting role as the troubled environmental activist, Michael, in Paul Schrader's ''First Reformed'' (2017). Other significant roles have been as Garrett Drimmer in the CBS ...

as Nash *

Dwain Murphy Dwain Murphy is a Dominican-born Canadian actor. He is best known for playing Eric in '' Degrassi: The Next Generation'', Giles in '' The Line'', and Bishop in '' How She Move''. Murphy has made an appearance in Tom Clancy's '' Splinter Cell ...

as Bryan Hunt *

Neal Huff Neal Huff is an American actor from New York City. In April 2018, he performed as Willie Oban in the Broadway revival of ''The Iceman Cometh''. In December 2018, Huff began performing in ''To Kill a Mockingbird'', adapted for stage by Aaron Sor ...

as Dr. Bailey *

Peter Murnik Peter Murnik (born December 14, 1965) is an American actor known for roles in '' Justified'', '' JAG'', '' Pensacola: Wings of Gold, Martial Law'', and '' ER''. He also had a role in the 1998 movie '' Hard Rain''. Early life and education Mur ...

as Mike Copeland *

Marylouise Burke use both this parameter and , birth_date to display the person's date of birth, date of death, and age at death) --> , death_place = , death_cause = , body_discovered = , resting_place = , resting_place_coordinates ...

as Anna Lambert *

Shane Daly Shane Daly (born 19 December 1996) is an Irish rugby union player for United Rugby Championship and European Rugby Champions Cup side Munster Rugby, Munster and, internationally, for Ireland national rugby union team, Ireland. He plays primaril ...

as Duncan Garff * Nikki Barnett as Sandy Garff * Kevin O'Grady as Officer Pundik *

Derek McGrath Derek McGrath (born June 4, 1951) is a Canadian actor and writer. Life and career McGrath was born in Timmins, Ontario. His career began as Linus in '' You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown''. He is known for his roles in ''Cheers'' as Andy Schroed ...

as Benedict Raven * Teagle F. Bougery as Clay Greyson

Episodes

Production

Development

Following the release of

Frank Darabont Frank Árpád Darabont (born Ferenc Árpád Darabont, January 28, 1959) is an American film director, screenwriter and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. In his early career, he was primarily a ...

's film adaptation of '' The Mist'' in 2007, executive producers

Bob Weinstein Robert Weinstein (born October 18, 1954) is an American film producer. He is the founder and head of Dimension Films, former co-chairman of Miramax Films and The Weinstein Company, all of which he co-founded with his older brother, Harvey. He ...

and

Harvey Weinstein Harvey Weinstein (; born March 19, 1952) is an American former film producer and convicted sex offender. He and his brother, Bob Weinstein, co-founded the entertainment company Miramax, which produced several successful independent films includ ...

announced plans to develop a miniseries based on the film. In November 2013, Bob Weinstein announced that a 10-part miniseries would begin production under their Dimension Television banner. It was unclear if film director Darabont would be involved in the series and the development remained stagnant for a period of time. In September 2015, nearly two years after the project was announced, Dimension Television announced they had signed screenwriter Christian Torpe to pen the entire series. In February 2016, Spike picked up the pilot. In April 2016, it was announced a deal had been reached with Spike to air the entire series. In July 2016, the production company announced the series had been cast and gone into production in

Halifax, Nova Scotia Halifax is the capital and largest municipality of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, and the largest municipality in Atlantic Canada. As of the 2021 Census, the municipal population was 439,819, with 348,634 people in its urban area. Th ...

Financing

The ten episodes of the first season were reportedly produced on a budget of approximately . The government of Nova Scotia announced in July 2016 that it would contribute for the series. The production marks the biggest entertainment production ever to shoot in the province.

Casting

In July 2016, Dimension Television announced Morgan Spector would play the lead character of Kevin Copeland. Other cast members announced included Frances Conroy, Alyssa Sutherland, Zenna Davis-Jones, Gus Birney, Dan Butler, Luke Cosgrove, Danica Curcic, Okezie Morro, Darren Pettie, Russell Posner and Isiah Whitlock, Jr.

Ratings

After the pilot episode received strong ratings, viewer numbers rapidly declined. The series averaged a rating of 0.14 in adults aged 18–49, and 462,000 viewers per episode in Nielsen's Live+Same Day ratings. The series was canceled in September 2017.

Reception

Critical reception

The series received mixed reviews from critics, who praised its atmosphere and special effects, but criticized its story, performances, underdeveloped characters and unfaithfulness to the source material. On

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

, the series has an approval rating of 60% based on 47 reviews, with an average rating of 5.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "''The Mist'' absorbing atmosphere and solid special effects struggle to overcome a generally uninspired story and performances." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the series has a weighted average score of 54 out of 100 based on 25 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Chris Scott of ''

The New York Observer ''The New York Observer'' was a weekly newspaper printed from 1987 to 2016, when it ceased print publication and became the online-only newspaper ''Observer''. The media site focuses on culture, real estate, media, politics and the entertainmen ...

'' described it as "relentlessly bleak, mean, and downright sadistic at nearly every turn", linking this with the falling ratings over the series' course. ''

Indiewire IndieWire (sometimes stylized as indieWIRE or Indiewire) is a film industry and review website that was established in 1996. The site's focus was predominantly independent film, although its coverage has grown to "to include all aspects of Holl ...

'' reviewer Ben Travers described the plot as predictable and characters as "pretty awful", leaving viewers "rooting for the mist instead of those running from it". Ed Power of ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

'' felt that it was a middling effort for King's works, and that it benefited from sticking to familiar horror themes and tropes.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mist, The (TV series) 2017 American television series debuts 2017 American television series endings 2010s American drama television series 2010s American horror television series 2010s American science fiction television series English-language television shows Serial drama television series Television shows based on works by Stephen King Television series by The Weinstein Company Television shows filmed in Halifax, Nova Scotia Television shows set in Maine American thriller television series