Stephen King Is Getting Into Jamie Dornan's Thriller Series On Netflix

This week, you may have read about Stephen King expressing frustration about the delayed release of Gary Dauberman’s Salem’s Lot – which he describes as “quite good” and “old-school horror filmmaking” – but if that’s the only development out of the King world that you’ve seen from the last few days, you’re only skimming the surface. There are also a few other developments of which fans should make note, and I’ve brought those stories together in this week’s edition of The King Beat.

With this being the twenty-seventh edition of this column, it feels perfectly appropriate that there is a new update about the developing Max original series Welcome To Derry, and the brilliant miniseries Storm Of The Century celebrated its 25th anniversary this week, but before getting into those headlines and my Recommendation Of The Week, let’s first spotlight the streaming series that has recently captured Stephen King’s attention: The Tourist starring Jamie Dornan.

A few weeks ago, Stephen King shared high praise for Season 5 of Fargo, taking to Twitter to call it “amazing, offbeat, and riveting.” If you have since taken his recommendation to watch it and appreciated the suggestion, now there is a new series to check out that has received the King stamp of approval. The Tourist technically isn’t a new show, as its first season premiered a couple years ago, but it’s now new to Netflix, and it has gotten the author hooked.

After debuting in the UK on BBC One in January 2022, the series started streaming on HBO Max a few months later, but it switched platforms this past December in advance of Season 2’s arrival, and it’s now been made available to Netflix subscribers. New episodes of The Tourist won’t be available until the end of the month, but Stephen King has begun the process of catching up with what already exists, and he Tweeted this past Saturday that he was invested instantly after watching the first episode.

InThe Tourist, Jamie Dornan stars as an unnamed man visiting the Australian outback. Seemingly without reason, he finds himself pursued by a driver in a tractor trailer, and after he gets T-boned, he wakes up in a hospital without any idea who he is or what he was doing prior to the collision. With the help of a young local police officer named Helen Chambers (Danielle Macdonald), he starts to retrace his steps and encounters both sympathy and danger.

Watching the first episode of The Tourist with Stephen King’s sensibilities in mind, it’s easy to understand why it appeals to him. There’s a significant geographical distance between the Australian outback and the municipalities of Maine, but there is a shared small town energy that comes from the friendly locals the protagonist encounters. At the same time, there is a darkness that is lingering over the mystery and shady individuals comingling with the good people.

In the last few days, Stephen King has dug further into the show, and on Wednesday , he co-sponsored an opinion about one of The Tourist’s key characters. Bev Vincent, who has written multiple books and articles about King’s work, Tweeted that the one character he hates more than the show’s central villain (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson's Billy) is Greg Larsen’s Ethan Krum – Helen’s fiancée. King seconded the take in a Quote Tweet:

The six-episode first season of The Tourist is available to stream now, and Season 2 will premiere on the streaming service this Thursday, February 29.