If you caught last Monday night’s terrific series premiere of Under the Dome, you were not alone; all reports indicate that it had a boffo opening night. It was a great set-up episode, with several storylines given their initial push into this very interesting scenario. I am totally in.
If you missed it, ou can watch the premiere here. Or save some time and just watch the numerous clips we have for you below. First up is a featurette billed as a recap, but what it recaps are all the cool crashes. Then we have four clips from last week’s premiere, and one sneak peek clip at tonight’s new episode.
Featurette: Under the Dome – Episode 1 Recap
Clip: Under the Dome – Episode 1 Trapped
Clip: Under the Dome – Episode 1 Like a Giant Fishbowl
Clip: Under the Dome – Episode 1 Starting Trouble
Clip: Under the Dome – Episode 1 Being Punished
Clip: Under the Dome – Episode 2 Preview: Chester’s Mill is on Fire
“Pink stars are falling in lines…” Yup, looking forward to getting more info on that little bit o’ freakiness.
If you already know you’re going to want the entire season on Blu-ray, and/or if you are a collector of really great special edition packaging, how about this:
To preorder, or to just get a better look, click on the link below:
[AMAZONPRODUCT=B00DIHYW0G]
And finally, though the Under the Dome readers I’ve heard from really enjoyed the TV series premiere, there are apparently some disgruntled fans of the book out there, and to them, Stephen King has written a letter on his official website. It’s a bit spoilery for the book if you haven’t read it, so if you haven’t, you might want to wait on this. Suffice to say, there are a number of differences between the book and the series, and Mr. King approves:
A Letter From Stephen:
For those of you out there in Constant Reader Land who are feeling miffed because the TV version of Under the Dome varies considerably from the book version, here’s a little story.
Near the end of his life, and long after his greatest novels were written, James M. Cain agreed to be interviewed by a student reporter who covered culture and the arts for his college newspaper. This young man began his time with Cain by bemoaning how Hollywood had changed books such as The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity. Before he could properly get into his rant, the old man interrupted him by pointing to a shelf of books behind his desk. “The movies didn’t change them a bit, son,” he said. “They’re all right up there. Every word is the same as when I wrote them.”
I feel the same way about Under the Dome. If you loved the book when you first read it, it’s still there for your perusal. But that doesn’t mean the TV series is bad, because it’s not. In fact, it’s very good. And, if you look closely, you’ll see that most of my characters are still there, although some have been combined and others have changed jobs. That’s also true of the big stuff, like the supermarket riot, the reason for all that propane storage, and the book’s thematic concerns with diminishing resources.
Many of the changes wrought by Brian K. Vaughan and his team of writers have been of necessity, and I approved of them wholeheartedly. Some have been occasioned by their plan to keep the Dome in place over Chester’s Mill for months instead of little more than a week, as is the case in the book. Other story modifications are slotting into place because the writers have completely re-imagined the source of the Dome.
That such a re-imagining had to take place was my only serious concern when the series was still in the planning stages, and that concern was purely practical. If the solution to the mystery were the same on TV as in the book, everyone would know it in short order, which would spoil a lot of the fun (besides, plenty of readers didn’t like my solution, anyway). By the same token, it would spoil things if you guys knew the arcs of the characters in advance. Some who die in the book—Angie, for instance—live in the TV version of Chester’s Mill…at least fora while. And some who live in the book may not be as lucky during the run of the show. Just sayin’.
Listen, I’ve always been a situational writer. My idea of what to do with a plot is to shoot it before it can breed. It’s true that when I start a story, I usually have a general idea of where it’s going to finish up, but in many cases I end up in a different place entirely (for instance, I fully expected Ben Mears to die at the end of ’Salem’s Lot, and Susannah Dean was supposed to pop off at the end of Song of Susannah). “The book is the boss,” Alfred Bester used to say, and what that means to me is the situation is the boss. If you play fair with the characters—and let them play their parts according to their strengths and weaknesses—you can never go wrong. It’s impossible.
There’s only one element of my novel that absolutely had to be the same in the novel and the show, and that’s the Dome itself. It’s best to think of that novel and what you’re seeing week-to-week on CBS as a case of fraternal twins. Both started in the same creative womb, but you will be able to tell them apart. Or, if you’re of a sci-fi bent, think of them as alternate versions of the same reality.
As for me, I’m enjoying the chance to watch that alternate reality play out; I still think there’s no place like Dome.
As for you, Constant Reader, feel free to take the original down from your bookshelf anytime you want. Nothing between the covers has changed a bit.
Stephen King
June 27th, 2013
Under the Dome, starring Mike Vogel, Dean Norris, Aisha Hinds, Jeff Fahey, Britt Robertson, Alexander Koch, Natalie Martinez, Colin Ford, Jolene Purdy, Jeff Fahey and Nicholas Strong, airs Mondays at 10/9c on CBS.
