'The Stand': Inside That Massive Change From Stephen King's Novel James Minchin/CBS CBS All Access' 'The Stand' Executive producer Benjamin Cavell speaks with The Hollywood Reporter about a critical structural difference between the CBS All Access thriller and the original book on which it's based. Without the context of Stephen King's novel on which the limited series is based or even the previous 1994 miniseries, viewers of CBS All Access' The Stand may find themselves as lost as the survivors of the Captain Trips pandemic. In King's The Stand, a deadly plague wipes out virtually all of humanity, save for a small few. Most of these folks find themselves drawn by dreams to one of two communities: a safe zone in Boulder, Colorado alongside a woman named Mother Abigail (Whoopi Goldberg), or the post-apocalyptic remnants of Las Vegas alongside the charismatic monster Randall Flagg (Alexander Skarsgard). The book chronicles the lives of the people working their way toward the two communities, before descending into a murky battle of good and evil between Abigail and Flagg's flocks.