I'll be honest, I don't remember hearing about this big budget mini-series of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick before. But If they do it authentically enough, they'll be guaranteed millions of DVD sales and rentals by high school and college kids who damned sure aren't going to read the book for English class.

It's being put together by Germany's RTL, Austria's ORF and Robert Halmi's RHI. That means it's an RTLORFRHI production, which makes me ROFLMAO. Unfortunately, viewers in the USA are SOL as it currently has no network deal here.

That could change with this big casting news. The $25 million Moby-Dick mini-series has brought William Hurt and Ethan Hawke aboard. They'll be playing the obsessed Captain Ahab and defiant first mate Starbuck, respectively. It looks like there'll be a lot of CGI and effects representing the whale, which is a shame because we could have had a lot of politically incorrect fun casting that role. Maybe SYTYCD's Mary Murphy could be the voice of the whale, which would explain Ahab's obsession to shut it up permanently.

'Vampire Diaries' sets a CW ratings record, Maura Tierney drops out of 'Parenthood' to continue her cancer treatment, 'Oprah' heads to the radio, and more of today's top TV headlines.

I'm a fan of Stephen King's writing, though more specifically, I enjoy his short stories. I've read a few of King's larger works, but sometimes I just need a quick beginning-to-end read in one night, and books like 'Skeleton Crew,' 'Night Shift' and 'Nightmares & Dreamscapes' fit the bill nicely.

TNT has a new series debuting next week that pays homage to several of King's short works, titled Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King. Though the title matches that of one of King's compilations of short stories, there are episodes covering stories from other books of King's as well.

Case in point, the premiere episode, 'Battleground,' comes from King's 1978 book, 'Night Shift.' Does the episode do the 10-page story justice? Read on for my thoughts.