Under the Dome pilot
Like everything Stephen King creates, his characters are key to their success, at least in written form, but even the rarely good movies or miniseries’ they have always been colorful. Jeff Fahey, for example is good as the sheriff of the domed town, and his character is neck deep in backstory already, exploding chest and all. Then we have Big Jim Rennie (Dean Norris) with his side schemes in play, but it’s really to his son Junior I’m mostly looking, with his butterfly knife and cruel smirk, he’s shaping up to be a brilliant bad guy. Every King novel needs a socio/psychopath to keep things interesting. Junior is played exceptionally well, by a relatively new actor, Alexander Koch, and I hope to see more of his madness to come.
Read the review for season 2, episode 1 Heads Will Role here.
This is an Amblin TV production with Stephen Spielberg the exec producer, and of course Stephen King has done most of the writing for this $3 million per episode production. The effects were pretty good overall, but none of them breathtaking. The cow being split in half was rather cool, and the truck hitting the dome was another. I liked the goldfish story told by the cutely diminutive Britt Robertson’s character Angie McAllister. It’s obviously telling us how things are about to change, with people turning on the weak when things start to get tough. There are plenty of interesting characters who haven’t big roles yet, but this is only the start. Interracial lesbian parents, crooked politicians, Norman Bates wannabes, this is Stephen King strutting his stuff, and I like it. Quite possibly the best King mini series ever made. It isn’t perfect, but it is rather good.
Grade: B+
TV Review by Ed Blackadder
