If they made the show a mini-series I might be here writing a review giving it at least a 7 or an 8. Instead as I feared they decided to make the "Under the Dome" adaption into some contorted series. It is clearly the wrong treatment for such a good story.
The cast is great, the settings, special effects were fine. I could have easily given the first six episodes a 7 vote. But each episode was painfully drawn out further and further. Soon (around the 8th episode) it was all to evident they were going to stretch everything out ad nauseum.
It would have been better titled: "As the Stomach Turns", "Under the Dome: The soap opera version".
Now compare the episode rundown to the excellent "The Stand" 1994 adaption. The total large adaption of the epic book was only done in around 5 or 6 hour episode mini-series. Here 13 episodes and there is no conclusion, no end in sight, and it's not even close to the same depth of story.
This is what happens when corporate suits combine with art. They destroy it. In their dimwitted money driven tunnel vision they thought they would just exploit the heck out of the story and people would keep watching.
I'm sure the plan is/was to just keep milking it until people stop watching and the ratings drop too low. It's insulting that these suits think they are smarter then the viewers and have some sort of "eye for art" when clearly they do not.
Now since these suits don't actually respect their viewers, and don't bother to think beyond the dollar a minute mentality they completely miss the mark. If they actually just made the story a nice 5 or 6 episode mini-series they would have made good advertising revenue all the way through the end. Then there would have been DVD sales of it too. Finally they would have earned the respect of the viewers for the network (that will remain nameless). Instead they leave you in shame of it and much more weary of watching anything of theirs again.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who would like to take these conceded corporate network execs and shove them all under a their own mini- dome to rot.
Skip the aggravation and boredom, read the book instead.
