Under the Dome: Move On / But I'm Not
June 26, 2015 6:49 AM - Season 3, Episode 1 - Subscribe

When we last saw our intrepid Chester Millsians, Barbie was leading them through an underground tunnel to escape the Dome. Suddenly Dead Melanie appears. Two-hour season premiere.

It's been three weeks since the Dome came down and now everyone except Julia and Big Jim are outside the Dome... or are they? New character Marg Helgenberger is a FEMA psychologist... or is she? Lots of Matrix and LOST references.

AV Club review explains it better than anyone.
posted by TWinbrook8 (13 comments total)
 
I thought this was a pretty good episode. (As always, grading on a curve. It's summer school.) I was intrigued by the flash forward? flash backward? no, flash sideways! Skateboard Ben is back! but not for long, darn. Was Junior's name on the memorial or did I imagine it? I liked how Ben, then Barbie went around proving it. Melanie is eeeevil, yay. Big Jim is the voice of reason now and Julia is breaking up with her DomeBoyfriend. Clouds of monarch butterflies are creepy. Pod Junior was actually pretty cool, not mopey; hope he keeps the new personality. I feel like we learned a lot, they resolved the pod-people storyline and didn't drag it out AND the damn egg is smashed.

I thought I read that this was the last series, anyone know?
posted by TWinbrook8 at 9:00 AM on June 26, 2015


“It’s like you’re trapped under a dome and you don’t even know it.”
posted by Room 641-A at 1:46 PM on June 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Half-way through it now, and huh: yes, it really has gone full Lost. I thought it also tipped its hand a bit with Big Jim's early, and very direct, invocation of The Twilight Zone.

Butterflies bite! and make creepy noises!

It felt to me like there was almost no promotion for this season; the first I knew of it was that it appeared on my DVR on Thursday alongside Hannibal. I guess I haven't been watching ABC much lately.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 7:37 AM on June 27, 2015


I continue to groan my way through these; however, I have to admit this episode was a good one, relative to other episodes. It felt a tad less soapy, as it had more action and interesting stuff going on (attack butterflies! purple glowing tendrils! people suspended in pods!).

I don't know why but I have a physical revulsion to Junior; is that wrong? Guy's tryin' his hardest to turn in a decent performance, I'm sure...

I forgot about this show and could do without it's return; still, we're here now. Let's get through this together.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 7:51 AM on June 27, 2015 [2 favorites]


Also, it was funny to see Big Jim shoot everything in the house. You do you, Big Jim.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 7:55 AM on June 27, 2015


*BLAM* "Nothing good on television these days, anyway."
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 8:07 AM on June 27, 2015 [2 favorites]


It felt to me like there was almost no promotion for this season;

Same here. I just happened to see it when I was scrolling through the guide.

This almost seems like a mini-reboot, with a heavy nod to the aforementioned Lost. I hope they don't try too hard this season, because I don't think the show can really redeem itself and I think the mostly silly Dome is much more entertaining than any slightly better Dome could be.

Also, I kept expecting to see sleestaks in the caves.
posted by Room 641-A at 12:06 PM on June 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


This almost seems like a mini-reboot

More like a 2-hour dream sequence: I assume that next episode all the de-podded townspeople will make their way back out of the caves to find the Dome still firmly in place.

Although yet to see what consequences smashing the egg has. I suspect the writers simply got tired of using it as a McGuffin.

(As an aside, I re-read the book a few months ago and I had forgotten (a) how little resemblance the show now bears to the book, and (b) how unrelentingly "gee, people are really shitty" bleak the book is.)
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 12:38 PM on June 28, 2015


We were actually looking forward to the return of this show.
That feeling lasted for about 30 minutes, when we realized that we just didn't give a shit what happened to ANY of the characters, except for maybe Big Jim.
We turned it off, and vowed never to speak of it and never to return.

Sleestaks would have been a blessing.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 11:58 AM on June 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'm so glad you mentioned Sleestaks, because all I could think of with that godawful purple butterfly set was the matrix tables. Really the whole show has become a sort of Land of the Lost spiritual successor, only without the river rafting and dinosaurs.

Congratulations to Britt Robertson, who managed to actually escape from Under the Dome. Angie seems truly dead and gone. Who knows about Ben; I'm hopeful John Elvis has also escaped Chester's Mill, but since they seem to have turned him into Barbie's spirit animal perhaps he will come back and bring us the wisdom of his native forefathers. (Or turn into a Twilight werewolf? That's a crossover I'd pay to see.)

Snark aside, I did kind of like this episode. Lots of chewy plot. And I love that the showrunners have fully embraced the big goofy story they are working with. Evil Melanie is fun (or is she evil? Stay tuned!), stinging beeterflies are ex machina of the worst sort, and knowing winks to the show itself ("trapped under the dome", "nothing good on television") are hilarious.
posted by Nelson at 8:20 AM on July 2, 2015 [1 favorite]


Has the Microsoft product placement ended? No Surfaces in this one.

I did like the lingering shots of the Prius interior though: two cupholders and room for your son-shooting pistol.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 10:58 PM on July 4, 2015


I was watching the product placement thing closely; it's probably the most coherent and consistent part of the show. There was a whole awkward scene where Mr. Adams Apple was fiddling with his phone, awkwardly explaining the wonderful features he was using. The phone was conspicuously not an iPhone. But he never mentioned the brand or operating system.

I think the showrunners keep writing in the product placements hoping, praying that Microsoft will throw them an extra $10,000 an episode. But Microsoft escaped from Under the Dome and is never coming back.
posted by Nelson at 7:00 AM on July 5, 2015


Microsoft escaped from Under the Dome and is never coming back.

You might even say that Microsoft is Gone.
posted by Room 641-A at 7:06 AM on July 5, 2015


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