We could all use a good summer TV diversion around now, and if tonight's entertaining, intriguing premiere turns out to be a fair guide, Dome could be just what we've needed.
This kind of limited series is a step in the right direction. And it sure helps that the first hour is intriguing as hell and filled with a lot of storytelling promise. If viewers catch the pilot, they’ll be back for the next episode. Some critics, too.
Pacing is brisk. The mood, generally eerie. The special effects--a fruit truck smashing accordion-style into a clear wall--don’t disappoint. It’s basically the television version of an entertaining beach read.
It’s a potentially interesting way of dramatizing and heightening the state of small-town claustrophobia: what if this little place, which seemed like the whole world, suddenly essentially became the entire world?... That’s the biggest potential strength of Under the Dome. A weakness is that few of its characters are instantly memorable or distinctive; there’s a kind of generic, TV-commercial homogeneity to the Chester’s Mill we first see.
Under the Dome does have an air of King’s more sinister tendencies, but not enough of them in the first hour to suggest the sort of horror that’s worth sticking around for.
Series creator Brian K. Vaughan's adaptation is yet another tepid melodrama, in the tradition of the recent Bates Motel, in which every creative decision appears to have been made in a trendy bid to appeal to the viewer's crotch.