CBS dropped a dome on a small town in June 2013 and got the biggest summer drama premiere any network had seen since 1992. Under the Dome ran three seasons and 39 episodes before signing off on September 10, 2015. The ratings fell hard after season one. The show is still worth the trip.
Trailer, via IGN.
Chester’s Mill Goes Dark
Brian K. Vaughan developed the series from Stephen King’s 2009 novel, and the setup is a clean hook. A transparent, indestructible dome seals Chester’s Mill off from the world. Military forces, the government and the media gather outside and try to break it down. Inside, resources shrink and tensions rise.
The cast carries the load. Mike Vogel plays Dale “Barbie” Barbara. Rachelle Lefevre is Julia Shumway. Dean Norris plays James “Big Jim” Rennie, and Alexander Koch is Junior Rennie. Colin Ford and Mackenzie Lintz round out the younger pair as Joe McAlister and Norrie Calvert-Hill.
Season one stays tight and strange. The mysteries stack up faster than the answers, and the show earns its early praise on that imbalance. Then the second and third seasons lose viewers, and the reviews turn mixed. That decline is real, and it tracks what happens on screen.
The Egg, the Kinship, and the Four Hands
Season three finally explains the dome. Two archaeologists, Christine and Eva, find an alien egg in 2013. As Christine holds it, a large pink explosion occurs, and a dome lowers around them. A mini-dome descends over the egg. Both women are pulled into a cave and cocooned.
The Kinship picks four people to protect the dome, the mini-dome and the egg:
- Joe
- Norrie
- James
- Angie
Christine resurrects Melanie and uses her to lure townspeople into the caves for cocooning. Big Jim breaks the egg halfway through the transfer, stopping a full infection. The remaining fighters — Julia, Big Jim, Joe, Norrie, Hunter, Barbie and Lily — form The Resistance. The dome starts to deteriorate because the egg is being destroyed. Kinship and Resistance have to work together or the dome turns to stone and everyone suffocates.
Neal Baer, the executive producer and showrunner, was blunt after the finale.
I’m very happy with this ending. I feel very satisfied.
What the Show Gets Right
The first season is the reason to watch. A sealed town, dwindling supplies and a cast that plays the panic straight — that is a machine that runs on its own. Big Jim is the best thing in it, because the human threat inside the barrier does more damage than whatever is outside.
The back half is where Under the Dome stumbles. Once the show starts naming its aliens and handing out mythology, the mystery loses the pressure that made it work. The Kinship arc answers questions nobody was asking that hard, and the ratings declined as the series went on.
Still, three seasons is a full story with an actual ending, and Baer got the conclusion he wanted. That counts for something in a genre that usually gets cancelled mid-thought.
Under the Dome is uneven, front-loaded and worth the first season alone.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.