The production itself is one part beer commercial, one part 'Twin Peaks.' Tatyana M. More than merely far-fetched, 'Fall Into Darkness' supplies a collection of unctuous characters who consistently do the least-likely thing, as if their brains are being controlled by a toddler pushing buttons. His first adaptation to make it onto TV is 'Fall Into Darkness,' an original teenfilm based on the bestseller of the same name about young rock climbers and the evil things they do. Having conquered the world of adolescent literature, Pike is now setting his sights on network primetime, where the audience is larger and the frustrations undoubtedly greater. Stine and Michael Crichton rolled into one, with a mind-numbing 35 million copies of his 'more than 55' books in print, whatever that means (56, perhaps?). To older teenagers, the thriller novelist is Stephen King, R.L. If you have never heard of Christopher Pike, you must be well over the age of consent. Ali, Jonathan Brandis, Charlotte Ross, Sean Murray, Paul Scherrer, Jason Nash, Allan Morgan, Deborah Lacey, Marco Sanchez, Brian Markinson, Benjamin Ratner. White production designer, William Strom director of photography, Miklos Lente music, Cory Lerios, John D'Andrea editor, Jonathan Braun casting, Junie Lowry-Johnson, Sid Kozak, Ron Surma, Linda Labelle sound, Larry Sutton. Executive producer, Kenneth Kaufman co-executive producer, Christopher Pike producers, Stephanie Hagen and Harriet Brown supervising producer, Ann Kindberg associate producer, Debbie Smith director, Mark Sobel writer, J.B.

(25), 9-11 p.m., NBC) Filmed in Vancouver, B.C., by Patchett-Kaufman Entertainment in association with Christopher Pike Prods. Also, the novel's life-affirming finale makes for a nice change in a genre that is often relentlessly gory. Still, the author's loyal fans may well appreciate this particular variety of watered-down spirituality. With its lugubrious writing (``His wife had recently left him for a filmmaker of animal documentaries'') and predictable storyline-not to mention some achingly bad song lyrics in its first section-this novel is not exactly vintage Pike.

After a stop-over with the psychic crone Jack calls his mother, Teresa begins to suspect that her unplanned trip has led her into realms not charted on any map. En route to the Bardos Club, their ultimate destination, Jack and Poppy take turns telling the tale of two star-crossed lovers while Teresa chronicles her failed romance. On the road, the girl picks up two strange hitchhikers: the sexy magician Freedom Jack and his dour, chain-smoking companion, Poppy Corn. When Teresa discovers that her boyfriend Bill has dumped her in favor of her best friend, she jumps into her car and takes off into the night.

The heavy metal aesthetic teams up with wishy-washy New Age mysticism in this reworking of the film It's a Wonderful Life.

Fall into darkness by christopher pike