Rosemary's Baby May 11 & 15, 9 p.m., NBC.
The new miniseries version of Rosemary’s Baby is a serviceable adaptation of Ira Levin’s 1967 novel, with some decent performances and a handful of creepy moments, but it’s perfunctory and lifeless compared to Roman Polanski’s 1968 film version, which is one of the greatest horror movies ever made.
For that reason alone, this new Rosemary’s Baby, written by Scott Abbott and James Wong and directed by Agnieszka Holland, is doomed from the start, and probably could have only set itself apart by departing radically from the source material. Instead, the two-part miniseries is mostly faithful, expanding a few subplots and updating details to the present day.
The biggest change involves moving the setting from New York City to Paris, and while that distances the new version from Polanski’s film, which is one of the most iconic NYC movies, it adds little to the plot or atmosphere. Zoe Saldana is solid as Rosemary, who finds herself impregnated with a potentially unholy fetus, but the supporting cast is pretty unremarkable, especially Suits’ Patrick J. Adams as Rosemary’s weak-willed husband Guy. The creators of this show are shooting for a timeless horror classic, but they end up with something more along the lines of 666 Park Avenue.
