It's dead! It's dead! Under the Dome, a television series based on Stephen King’s book (but not really like the book at all) was all about a giant scrubbing bubble that encased a small town in Maine, or maybe North Carolina, and the absolutely inane things that happened to the television actors trapped inside. It aired on CBS from 2013 to 2015 before being canceled as its viewership declined from "the most-watched summer drama premiere on any television network since 1992” with about 13.5 million viewers in season one to about 4 million viewers by season three.
I recapped seasons one, two, and three for Tor (now Reactor Magazine) before God, in his infinite mercy, canceled the show and saved me from permanent brain damage. Under the Dome executive producer Neal Baer said, "I always feel like critics ... if they could do it better, they'd be writing the show…It's really easy to criticize, and it's really hard to develop a show." And he’s not wrong. He’d go on to produce Cheerleader Death Squad and Baking Impossible whereas I am still going on and on about Under the Dome, so clearly my wounds have not yet healed.
In re-reading my recaps of UtD, you can clearly track my decline. I start as a bright, happy, alert young man, writing paragraphs like:
There are a lot more changes between the book and the show, and in almost every case the CBS version does it better. This series may only run 13 episodes but they’re taking their time and not showing their cards up front the way King did in his book, but don’t get me wrong: this show is still stuffed with television clichés. Characters threaten to reveal vital plot information but only manage to utter a cryptic half sentence before falling down dead. Duke (Jeff Fahey), the police chief, has his heart problems foreshadowed so heavily that by the time his pacemaker finally explodes it feels more like a foregone conclusion than an actual surprise. The two most attractive white people on the screen instantly have sexual tension, and they both turn out to be vital to the plot.
Oh, sweet summer child, you had no idea what awaited you. By episode two things were feeling shaky but I was still holding on like a champ, writing "I’m not sure where this is going, but I’m still willing to wait it out.” However, you can tell that I’m starting to feel the burn a bit with the start of the recap for episode three:
By this week’s episode, Under the Dome is one badly rendered CGI minotaur away from being a SyFy original movie, only longer and with Dean Norris. I wrote that sentence to express my dismay with this show in an amusing way so that I can register my dislike but not seem humorless or grouchy. And I wrote that sentence because, like the residents of Chester’s Mill, I now feel a need to explain everything I say as obviously as possible. “Pass the ketchup, because I need ketchup to put on my fries because I like them better that way.” But despite this show’s dependence on stating the obvious, there are still some compelling mysteries.
Those aren’t the greatest jokes but they are still recognizable as human communication. By season three, I was turning out passages like this:
Q: Is breathing important? Last episode, Julia kissed Barbie until he was cured of alien hive mind and now he wants to go and act like a spy. “Take my Prius,” Julia says. “Why?” Barbie asks. “Because Toyota: Let’s Go Places.” So Barbie purrs off on silent little Prius wheels to learn that Scarecrow Joe is the only kid who stayed awake in Chester’s Mill science class and that’s earned him a spot inside the alien slave labs where he has to make sense of Christine’s schematic while she’s away getting her lips smoothed. Guided by this drawing of what could be a cat’s butthole, Joe is supposed to build a machine that will destroy the Dome. Why do the aliens want to destroy the Dome? Because it is calcifying and soon they won’t be able to breathe. Barbie likes breathing and so he convinces Joe to stay right where he is, getting beaten up by Junior and sneered at by Uncle Sam.
A: Breathing is important.
If you could understand any of that, then my condolences to your loved ones. UtD quickly became a snake made of nonsense eating its own tail as plot point piled up on top of plot point to form a Jenga tower of ridiculousness which could make you go blind if you stared at it for more than five seconds. If you would like to stare into the sun and suffer the way I did, here are the recaps laid out for your convenience (but in reverse order, because I’m sneaky like that).
SEASON THREE
Episode 1 & 2, "Move On," "But I'm Not"
Episode 3 & 4, "Redux," "The Kinship"
Episode 5, "Alaska"
Episode 6, "Caged"
Episode 7, "Ejecta"
Episode 8 [No recap was posted because, well, GOP debate]
Episode 9, "Plan B"
Episode 10 & 11, "Legacy"
Episode 11 & 12, "Love is a Battlefield," "Incandescence"
Episode 13, "The Enemy Within"
SEASON TWO
Episode 1, "Heads Will Roll"
Episode 2, "Infestation"
Episode 3, "Force Majeure"
Episode 4, "Revelation"
Episode 5, "Reconciliation"
Episode 6, "In the Dark"
Episode 7, "Going Home"
Episode 8, "Awakening"
Episode 9, "The Red Door"
Episode 10, "The Fall"
Episode 11, "Black Ice"
Episode 12, "Turn"
Episode 13, "Go Now"
SEASON ONE
Episode 1, "Pilot"
Episode 2, "The Fire"
Episode 3, "Manhunt"
Episode 4, "Outbreak"
Episode 5, "Blue on Blue"
Episode 6, "The Endless Thirst"
Episode 7, Four Episodes in One
Episode 11, "Speak of the Devil"
Episode 12, "Exigent Circumstances"
Episode 13, "Curtains"