Under the Dome (season 1)

Season plot

In the first season of Under the Dome, the residents of Chester's Mill must deal with the immediate aftermath when a massive, indestructible dome suddenly crashes down on the town, cutting them off from the rest of the world. Lives are lost, questions and uncertainty loom over the trapped townspeople, and, as they realize they might be stuck for a while, panic and chaos become the new normal. As the townspeople frantically try to find resources to stay alive, an opportunistic town councilman with malicious intents makes himself the de facto dictator over the town, while an unknown stranger causes secrets about the town to be revealed. As the season progresses, the characters start to learn more about the dome, including finding a mysterious egg that supposedly serves as the Dome's power source, and although every little piece of answer gives more insight into what's happening and why, every answer also causes many more questions.

Cast and characters

The cast members portray characters that were mostly taken from the original novel, "although some have been combined and others have changed jobs."

Production

Brian K. Vaughan and Stephen King served as executive producers along with Neal Baer, Justin Falvey, Darryl Frank, Jack Bender, Steven Spielberg, and Stacey Snider. Danish director Niels Arden Oplev produced and directed the pilot. Baer served as the showrunner for the series.

Days before the series premiere aired on U.S. television, the cast and executive producers of Under the Dome met in Wilmington, North Carolina on June 20, 2013 for an advance screening of the pilot episode. During the presentation event, the city's mayor, Bill Saffo, declared Monday, June 24, 2013 as "Dome Day", and awarded Stephen King a key to the city.

On June 24, 2013, the night of the series premiere, entertainment website Vulture published an article about the economics of Under the Dome; in order to bring the expensive production (an estimated $3 million per episode) to life, CBS had struck a deal with Amazon Video that would bring new episodes to the platform four days after they debuted on CBS. That deal, estimated at $750,000 for each episode, covered one quarter of each episode's estimated production cost. Additionally, the article says that foreign markets also played an important role in the financing, bringing in approximately $1.9 million, and with the North Carolina state tax credits the show earned for filming in the state, an estimated $400,000, meant CBS had already earned back the money they paid for each episode before the episodes even aired on TV. CBS president and CEO Leslie Moonves described the deals: "Combining Amazon with the international syndication deal makes Under the Dome profitable immediately".

Critical reception

The first season has a score of 72/100, based on 35 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews", on review aggregator website Metacritic. The season has a score of 81/100, based on 47 reviews, on film and TV review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes; the site's critical consensus for the season reads: "Under the Dome is an effective and engrossing horror/mystery with airtight plotting and great special effects."

Positive reviews included Tim Goodman of The Hollywood Reporter, who wrote that "the intriguing Stephen King adaption is filled with storytelling promise", Glenn Garvin of the Miami Herald, who wrote that "based on the pilot episode — with its taut script, strong performances and special effects that are impressive without being overwhelming — there’s hope that Under The Dome might measure up to its unsettling print progenitor", and Verne Gay of Newsday, who wrote that the show "looks like a summer winner". A negative review came from Matthew Gilbert of The Boston Globe, who wrote that "so much is working against Under the Dome, it’s hard to get genuinely excited. While the arrival of the dome is intriguing, the characters are not".