The Tommyknockers (miniseries)

The Tommyknockers
Promotional poster
Based on	The Tommyknockers by Stephen King
Screenplay by	Lawrence D. Cohen
Directed by	John Power
Starring	Jimmy Smits Marg Helgenberger
Music by	Christopher Franke
Original language(s)	English
Production
Producer(s)	Jayne Bieber Lawrence D. Cohen
Cinematography	Dan Burstall David Eggby
Editor(s)	Tod Feuerman
Running time	181 minutes
Distributor	American Broadcasting Company
Release
Original release	May 9, 1993 - May 10, 1993

The Tommyknockers is a 1993 television miniseries based on the novel of the same name by Stephen King. It was directed by John Power, and starred Marg Helgenberger and Jimmy Smits in the two lead roles.

Bobbi Anderson (Helgenberger), a Western fiction writer, and her boyfriend, Jim "Gard" Gardner (Smits), a poet, live with their dog, Petey, on the outskirts of Haven, Maine. Anderson suffers from writer's block and Gardner is a recovering alcoholic who currently is not writing. One day, they stumble over a manmade stone object protruding from the ground. They begin excavating the object and discover a series of connected cubes made of an unknown alloy.

The other town inhabitants include postal worker Joe Paulson (De Young), who constantly cheats on his wife, Deputy Becka Paulson (Beasley), with his co-worker, Nancy Voss (Lords). Most people in town dislike Voss for her adulterous ways, and only Paulson seems unaware of her husband's activities. Bryant Brown (Carradine) and his wife, Marie (Corley), run a local diner. Marie's father, Ev Hillman (Marshall), lives with them and helps care for the couple's sons, 10-year-old Hillman "Hilly" (Woods) and seven-year-old Davey (McIver). Sheriff Ruth Merrill (Cassidy) watches over the town. She is also an avid doll collector. Trooper Butch Duggan (Ashton) is Merrill's liaison with the state police, and shows little respect for the small-town sheriff.

As Anderson and Gardner unearth more of the object, the local townspeople begin to undergo subtle changes. Insomnia becomes common, along with rudimentary telepathy. Some individuals begin inventing wild gadgets using kitchen tools, batteries, small appliances, and other odds and ends. Some of the inventions include an automatic letter sorter, a telepathic typewriter, and a BLT sandwich maker that creates the sandwiches from the raw ingredients. These inventions have a green glow when active. Gardner is astonished when Anderson's "telepathic typewriter" is able to create a well-written novel about buffalo soldiers. Anderson also begins to compulsively dig around the artifact, revealing more and more of it. Gardner, however, experiences no creative or mental effects, and is deeply worried about her behavior. Gardner has a metal plate in his head from a skiing accident, and Anderson believes that might be inhibiting whatever is "improving" the others. Even the children start showing changes: Hilly Brown constructs a "magic machine" which he demonstrates at his birthday party. The device makes several inanimate objects disappear and then reappear, but when Hilly makes his brother Davey disappear, the boy does not come back. Believing Davey ran off, Sheriff Merrill leads the town in an unsuccessful search for the child. Marie, despondent over his disappearance, becomes hysterical due to her insomnia. Bryant loses interest in his missing son, and works on his BLT sandwich maker.