Two words describe my feelings about Under the Dome after tonight: flat and frustrated. Flat actually refers more to the show than my actual feelings about it, because everything about Under the Dome was flat tonight from the characters to the storylines to the dialogue (“That dog told me I had to settle for Niagara Falls!” utters Natalie Martinez’s Linda, a horribly written line said in a a completely dull and awful delivery with zero amount of believability). My frustration comes from the fact that, while I had concerns about certain aspects of Under the Dome last week, I was much more optimistic about the promise that the show held. Instead, tonight’s episode, “Into the Fire,” illustrated all the weaknesses that Under the Dome possesses and only affirmed my worries.
Before we get to all of the negative parts of the episode (and there are a lot), let’s discuss the few positives that I found jotted down in my notes. First, anything dealing with Mike Vogel’s Barbie or Dean Norris’s Big Jim has me interested due to the morally gray nature of both the characters, and the talent of the actors portraying them. Vogel and Norris seem to be the only two people on Under the Dome that can deliver believable performances, and I’m glad we got some more information, however brief it was, about Barbie’s murdering of Julia’s husband and Big Jim’s shady petroleum deal. Another aspect of tonight’s episode that I also enjoyed was the character development that we got from Linda, the police officer. While I’m not crazy about Natalie Martinez’s performance, it’s good to see the show attempting to provide Linda with an actual personality; her willingness to help others goes above beyond her simple duties as a cop.
Even though there were these couple of components to the episode that I enjoyed, overall, Under the Dome really failed to impress. First of all, the acting from the younger cast is almost painfully poor. Colin Ford continues to disappoint as Jack, after being such a fine younger actor on Supernatural (And John Elvis, who plays Jack’s friend, Ben, may be the worst actor on the entire show and yet another annoying side character that was unnecessarily added to the mix). Alexander Koch’s Junior still remains the worst part of Under the Dome, having no redeeming qualities as a character and suffering from a horrible storyline that I wish would just go away so that Britt Robertson could have something better to do.
Another key issue with Under the Dome is its storytelling. In tonight’s episode, the show played up one scene, Julia’s announcement that Chester’s Mill is inside a dome, to be this huge defining moment, and it fell completely flat. Then, another big moment for the episode, the house fire at Duke’s, only occurred because of a major plot contrivance, relying on the reverend to burn the documents instead of shredding them and somehow clumsily set the curtains on fire. Unlikely decisions and stupid mistakes should not be the driving force in what creates drama on a television show. I don’t think I’ve elicited a bigger groan while watching my TV all summer (and this is coming from a guy who still watches True Blood).
I will keep watching Under the Dome for the next couple episodes to see if tonight was just a small misstep in what could be a very fun summer series. However, unless the show really improves its characterization, plotting, and dialogue, I may need to escape from Under the Dome and leave the members of Chester’s Mill behind.
Other thoughts:
– Jeff Fahey’s Duke dying early in this episode is another negative to take away from tonight. Frank Lapidus never died on Lost. He shouldn’t ever die in any show.
– Can we please give Britt Robertson something better to do than just sitting in a locked cellar? She’s probably the best of the younger actors on Under the Dome, but she’s stuck in a storyline (and a location) that has her becoming completely useless as a character.
What did everyone else think about Under the Dome’s second episode? Did you like as much as last week’s premiere?
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