One Man Reviews Under The Dome Season 1

We meet again faithful readers.  After a long hiatus your liege-lord, international bon vivant, and general better class of person, Dane Barbados Jr. has returned to bring light to your no doubt sad and mirthless lives.  Look upon my words ye mighty, and despair.

Let us talk of "Under the Dome."  CBS' "Under the Dome" is based upon one of Stephen King's few hits amongst a deep, dark, sea of misses of late.  The novel was a fast-paced, breathless, look at the inhabitants of a quaint town of Chester's Mill after being trapped under the titular impenetrable dome.  Predictably, as is par for the course for Stephen King stories, it completely fell apart at the end with the explanation of the dome being eye-gougingly stupid.

Dane Barbados Jr. would recommend that you read it but you're Americans and we all know that Americans don't read.

When Dane Barbados Jr., your humble narrator, first heard of the possibility of an  "Under the Dome" production through seedy, international, back channels, he was filled with a knowing disappointment, of one whom has seen many a visual Stephen King adaptation, one that abated upon finding out that the producers would deviate from the baffling ending of the novel.

With a gaggle of nubile, young, topless concubines serving peeled grapes and golden hued flagons of Belvedere vodka Dane Barbados Jr. sat down to watch the first episode and all was well.  

Dean Norris, of "Breaking Bad" fame, put in a magnetic and nuanced performance as used car salesman and would-be tyrant "Big Jim" Rennie, one that was immensely improved from the book's more one-note character.  Mike Vogel brought a simmering quality to his character Dale "Barbie" Barbara.  And there was even Jeff-fucking-Fahey.  

Your humble narrator was enthralled enough to nearly ignore the heaving breasts being thrust into his face during the course of the broadcast.  Nearly.

And then with each subsequent episode the cracks of the first, quickly becoming gaping maws that swallowed all interest and left only boredom and bubbling rage.

Let us start with the adolescent cast, all infuriating in their own way and instilling a very special kind of puppy-kicking hatred in your most excellent narrator.

Britt Robinson's Angie McAlister and Alexander Koch's James "Junior" Rennie have, quite possibly, the most ridiculous and inconceivable relationships on television.  Angie is clearly a vacuous strumpet and Junior is clearly a barely contained psychopath filling the frame with wide-eyed stares devoid of any intelligence or higher level thought and his on-and-off again girlfriend who takes being kidnapped for days extremely well.

The other main teenaged power-couple are Colin Ford's Joe McAlister (Angie's brother) and Mackinzie Lintz's L.A. native with two moms and hyphenated last name now trapped beneath the dome Elenor "Norrie" Calvert-Hill.  Joe is fairly innocuous outside of the baffling fact that he seemed to have forgotten that his sister existed for a week, not being much concerned that she was utterly missing during the course of world-changing circumstances.

But Norrie, I prayed at the foot of the throne of the eternal patriarch Dane Barbados Sr. every episode that she would die a gristly death.  Her with her faux-"hip" dialogue and pseudo-city slicker mannerisms, her constant harping  and her massive, Frankenstien's monster, forehead looking like she'd be comfortable amongst the Moai on Easter Island.

The other most frustrating "main" character is Natalie Martinez's Sherrif Linda, the most inept law enforcement officer award winner of the season, apparently an understudy of your Barney Phife.  Linda is pure worthlessness personified, being led around and following the orders of known criminals with naught but a vacant stare.

The one day = one episode format created a constant hurdle, impeding narrative progression and leading to suspension of belief shattering behavior.  Chester's Mill's primary import must be strong barbiturates considering a day after a massive death toll and being confined beneath an air-permeable, transparent, dome that residents could be seen going for leisurely strolls around the town square.

In less than two weeks we saw the rise and fall of an underground fight club, was introduced to a bog standard female kingpin archetype and saw her killed, an entire town simultaneously getting religion and erecting a renaissance era hanging post.  The same populace that was walking around without a care in the world.

Really, Dane Barbados Jr., could grace you with endless numbers of his precious words on the failings of "Under the Dome" but finds you unworthy so let us speed to the finale.

Sufficed to say that it sucked.  Hugely.  And was endemic of the problems with the show.  The kids being annoying, Junior being a psyco with no actual character past being a walking plot device, available for anyone's usage.  Big Jim continued his decent into cartoon villainy, Sherriff Linda continued struggling to get some neurons firing, Barbie continued to embody the silent tough-guy image to the point of abject stupidity and the good people of Chester's Mill continued to be a compelling argument for forced sterilization.

But really, the "Under the Dome" finale, and by extension the rest of the show, was guilty of one grave sin above all others: wasting my time.  At the end of the finale most of the main characters were in precisely the same position as they were in the preceding episode.  Time to kill in a show with a compressed time frame.  "Wasted potential" springs to mind.

Dane Barnados Jr., heir to House Barbados and father to nations would like to offer a heartfelt suggestion to the writers and producers of "Under the Dome": gentlemen, at your earliest convenience, please feel free to fuck right off.  Sideways preferably.

*Update. A week later."

Dane Barbados Jr., the Sun and the Moon and the font from which all good things flow, just saw an advertisement for "Under the Dome" which made him remember Norrie.  Fucking Norrie.

This caused your ever faithful narrator to descend from the highest heights available in this short city, found the first available male in cargo shorts, black-rimmed glasses and a fedora and mercilessly delivered upon him the Divine Art of the Kidney Punch leaving him wet and bleeding on the pavement, baptizing him in the water from a nearby rolling hotdog dispensaries before leaving.

Norrie, oh Norrie.  How I hate that character.