*SPOILER ALERT* - If you watch, or are watching/reading "Under The Dome", then don't read on.
I've long been a Stephen King fan. It started in childhood when I read "The Shining" at age 10. It scared the bejeezus out of me, while simultaneously making me want to visit the haunted Overlook Hotel, otherwise known as The Stanley Hotel in my homestate of Colorado. Every year the Stanley (which is a historical landmark in Estes Park, a beautiful little town that is now under water unfortunately) hosts "The Shining Ball" on Halloween, which includes a costume party and a viewing of the film, which also broadcasts 24 hours a day, 365 days on year on TV's in each room. (Sidenote: The Stanley catered to the elite back in the 1900's and Margaret Brown of Titanic infamy was one of the guests. Her house is also a historical landmark in Colorado. Geek out concluded.) It is also rumored to be haunted. Several ghost hunter type shows have been filmed there, as was the mini-series of "The Shining" (the movie was shot in Oregon). I went years ago with a girlfriend and our neighbors experienced some freaky crap. But it's amazing that one book could lead legions of people to wanting to visit this place. And after reading that book, I was one of them. I was hooked and I've read several of his books since, but haven't read one in the last few years. I intend to re-read "The Shining" and "The Stand" at some point though, hopefully this winter. As much as I like his books, I tend to favor the television and movie adaptations of them because they're usually very well done. Usually. (More on that later).
"The Shining" with Jack Nicholson is of course a classic and one of my favorite movies of all time (the update was just so-so, but then you can't top perfection). "The Stand", about a superflu that takes out everyone in it's path, is as relevant today as it was then (they're also updating that into a movie, I'm not impressed). "Storm Of The Century" was the first King work written as a mini-series, instead of a book and it is also close to perfection. It centers on a tiny New England town in the midst of a hellish snowstorm that takes an even worse turn when a mysterious stranger appears. I'd watch a monkey read the Bible if it said it was "based on the novel by Stephen King". Which is why I was looking forward to his first television series, "Under The Dome". It's based on the novel of the same name, which clocks in at over 1,000 pages long. I wanted to read it when it came out but the few reviews I read were so-so and I chalked it up as one of those "before I die" kinda books. The previews for the show were great and the first few episodes were addicting. "Under The Dome" focuses on a small town (a common theme with King novels) that had an incredibly large, clear dome lowered down over the whole of it. In typical human fashion, they cope by losing they damn minds while trying to figure out what the hell the thing is. The dome is soundproof and nuclear weapon proof. The military attempts to blow it up but only succeeds in destroying everything in the vicinity except the dome itself. They seem to have no idea what it is anymore than those trapped inside it do. The characters are just meh. No one you truly want to root for, some a little too gimicky. There's a lesbian couple, one white and one black and both badly casted, who were just passing through town when the dome dropped. They have a troubled teenage daughter who turns out to be crucial to the plot. There are all of the small town folk; the townie young waitress at the diner, the older townie who owns the diner, the deputy who idolizes the sheriff but isn't really cut out to be an officer. And then there's Big Jim. If there is one well developed character in the entire thing, it's Big Jim. He's the town councilman and fancies himself its savior. From the gate, we know Big Jim has some knowledge of why this dome has come down, and that he desperately does not want it to be lifted. We also learn that Big Jim is shady as hell in just about everything he does, that he's involved in every scam or questionable racket in town. Of course, most of the town doesn't know this and trusts Big Jim with their lives, but a few know better. The episodes got less great as time went on but I stuck with it, believing there would be some kind of pay off at the end. Last night was the much hyped and much anticipated finale. And man was it not worth the time. AT ALL.
Leading up to the finale, we found out there was a mini-dome located inside the big dome (got all that?). The mini-dome has taken to four people; the diner waitress, her brother, the daughter of the lesbian couple who don't even live there (one half of which has since died of diabetes complications) - and Big Jim's troubled son, Junior. Junior was apparently super close to his mom but not so much to dad. Mom died before the viewer came into the story so we see Junior still grieving and desperately seeking the approval of his ruthless father. He both loves and loathes his father, often all in the same scene, and he's incredibly resistant to being one of the "chosen ones". We also learn Junior's mom was believed to be a bit loopy at the time of her death (which was supposedly a suicide) and painted for hours on end in her studio. Some of those paintings included a night sky with pink stars appearing to fall from it. Pink stars become a running theme; all of the chosen ones have seizure-like episodes where they utter, "the pink stars are falling" while in a catatonic state. It soon becomes clear that she may not have been so crazy after all. There is a cocoon inside this mini-dome that they believe will bring them closer to an answer once it hatches into a butterfly, as well as what looks like a giant egg shaped object they believe to be the power source of the dome. The cocoon hatches and with it comes a complete blackout inside the dome, the entire thing turning black. During all of this, the three of the chosen ones (Junior's taken dad's side at this point) encounter what appears to be the woman who died of diabetes, the mother of one of them. But all is not as it appears. The woman says, "Forgive us, we're still learning how to communicate with you and have taken on a familiar form to bridge the gap.". Aliens. OF COURSE, the finale includes aliens. Because I'm watching it at midnight, that's why. And if you know me, you know that aliens scare the hell out of me. This...thing, tells them that they need to protect the egg at all costs but provides no reason why, no idea of who to protect it from, and no explanation about the dome. She only says it's very important that they not let it fall into the wrong hands. The egg is thrown into the water and the blackness begins to give way to pink stars (the effect is fantastic). The dome goes from completely black to completely whited out from the outside and then...the credits roll. SERIOUSLY? Yep.
To say I was livid with the finale would be a massive understatement. Finales are big events, they are to provide answers to the viewers who have dedicated 15 hours of their lives to you. Even "Lost", which was maddening in its questions and mythology, gave payoff in every premiere and finale. "Lost" is my gospel for TV shows because they mastered the push and pull of providing answers while also posing new questions that kept people coming back. In six seasons, there was never a finale that didn't advance the story. The "Under The Dome" finale was just so scattered and poorly written. I kept waiting for something to happen and when it did, it was in the last act and fell completely flat. I was unaware the show had been renewed for a second season, slated to air next summer. I hate "summer series" because they usually air a very limited number of episodes (example" TNT's "Falling Skies" airs only 8 episodes every eleven months). Usually, you only wait three months for the next season of a show to begin but with the summer ones, it's almost an entire year before they return. If that's the format you're going with, you better BRING IT. People have short attention spans, if you're only giving them one large payoff to last an entire year then it better be worth the time. And apparently, I am not the only one who felt cheated. I took to the interwebs to see what the hell that was and found a number of similarly miffed viewers. A lot of people claimed they were done with the show because it had such a mess of a narrative all season long and then provided no answers in the finale. The jury's still out for me. Entertainment Weekly had a write up with a much more intriguing wrap up; The dome is a sort of time portal that it set over the town in order to protect its inhabitants from an impending apocalypse, something that the aliens saw happen and turn back the clock to alter. The idea is that the dome will protect enough of the human race so that they can repopulate the earth after everyone else dies. See, that would be a finale. And a decent story. Once the alien thing made its entrance, I considered the possibility that the dome was to protect them from the outside for some reason. That's the logical jump to make. And I guess that could still happen next season, but I doubt it.
Still feeling cheated, I decided to Google the book and its ending. King has said the series will have a different conclusion (if the ratings aren't significantly lower next year and it's canceled before it can reach a conclusion) than the book did so I figured there was no harm in looking it up. The book has 4-star reviews on Amazon but if you go through them, you will see A LOT of people giving it one or two star reviews due to a couple of factors. The first being that the book portrays the inhabitants of the town as stupid small town folk who don't know nothin' bout the big cities. Another criticism is that the book is chocked full of talk demonizing Republicans, which seems a bit out of place in a story like this. Big Jim is as political, shady and greedy as a politician can get but still, remember you're writing for a large audience and they don't care about your own politics. But the biggest criticism of all has to do with the ending. In the book, the ending is as follows: Multiple townspeople touch the mini-dome and have visions that lead them to the conclusion that aliens placed the dome over the town. Specifically, juvenile aliens placed it there as a form of entertainment, a human ant farm of sorts. This is their toy and they watch everything that goes on for no reason other than their own amusement. In the book, Big Jim is heavily involved in the production of meth and a shootout at the yard where he produces it results in an explosion that kills most of the town. Those who aren't blown up begin to die off from the toxic fumes produced by the explosion. What's a survivor to do? Well, two of them are somehow able to make contact with an adolescent female alien (yes, that's what they call her in the book). It goes on to say that one of these survivors expresses that the town is full of "real sentient beings with real little lives" and then, "by sharing a painful childhood incident with the single female alien, she convinces her to have pity on them.". Apparently, the alien is more open to the idea of letting them go because she is, "no longer accompanied by her friends and thus not caught up in their peer pressure.". The dome lifts and the town, or what's left of it anyway, is freed. Oh, and Big Jim dies of a heart attack. Um...wow. Just wow. First off, what the hell kinda story from your childhood do you share with an alien? "You know, I was bullied too as a child but I didn't put a dome over a small town"? Second, it's a shame peer pressure exits in every universe and on every inhabited planet. Third, a heart attack is too good for Big Jim. I'd rather see his crimes found out and then let the townspeople do what they will with him. The ending of the book is almost comical in how ridiculous it is. The ending of the show remains to be seen but anything would be an upgrade over this. Plus, my beloved "Twilight Zone" did an episode quite similar to this and did it MUCH better. And, here's the kicker, it actually made sense (what a concept!). This has not been one of Mr. King's shining moments thus far. He's said to be writing next season's premiere. I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing now. My faith has been shaken ya'll.
