All Rise...

Judge Gordon Sullivan prefers his private box, thank you very much.

Editor's Note

Our review of Under the Dome: Season One (Blu-ray), published November 5th, 2013, is also available.

The Charge

No way in. No way out.

Opening Statement

Adaptation is a mug's game. Do a bad job and fans of the source material will eat you alive; do a really good job and nine times out of ten it'll only succeed as a supplement to the source, unnecessary but inoffensive. The best adaptations can hope for—and it seems as rare as winning the lottery—is to be found "faithful" to the source. Oftentimes that's too big a burden to bear, and so adapters will take a few basic features and a title to run with. That's basically the attitude we see with the second season of Under the Dome. Gone is any pretense that the show will give us a televisual re-telling of King's novel. Instead, we get the basic outline—a dome descends on a small town—and a whole host of new directions/characters. It's a surprisingly welcome change for a show that seriously struggled in its first season to have anything to say. I'm still not sure the show has legs, but its new directions are promising.

Facts of the Case

We last left the town of Chester's Mill under the dome, with Big Jim (Dean Norris, Breaking Bad) trying to get Barbie (Mike Vogel, Blue Valentine) sentenced to death. That doesn't work out, and to make matters worse, the Dome becomes active in new ways, sending out electromagnetic pulses that draw metal out of the town while producing terrible sounds. If that mystery weren't enough, we've got some new characters in Chester's Mill who don't seem to have been around when the dome fell: a teenage girl (Grace Victoria Cox) and Junior's Uncle, Sam (Eddie Cahill, Lords of Dogtown) add even more mystery to the residents of Chester's Mill.

The Evidence

I don't know how Stephen King was in the age before social media (though I know he expressed public dislike for The Shining), but he has been stumping for Under the Dome basically since it started airing. It's no surprise, then, that with lots of people (myself included) unimpressed with the evenness of the show, the creators brought King on as a writer for the premiere episode of this season.

This move says an awful lot about the show. First, that it's still definitely aiming for event-level significance. There was talk of making the novel a true mini-series and rolling out the red carpet, and this kind of move pays tribute to that option. The show is also not above a gimmick to get people talking. It's painfully obvious that Lost is in Under the Dome's DNA, and the show desperately wants to get people talking around the digital water cooler. Hiring King gives them a talking point, if nothing else. Finally, giving King the reins for this first episode—which pretty completely severs the show from the novel—staves off criticism from fans of the novel. If it's King midwifing the new baby, there's less room to criticize it.

Amazingly, as a gambit, it largely works. King sets a tone that says "sure, the last season happened, but this season is going to be different." The dome is going to behave differently, the characters are going to have new challenges, and there are even going to be new people in Chester's Mill. Surprisingly, this "anything goes" mentality opens the dome up in new ways that feel daring and significant in ways that the more subdued first season just didn't allow. And yet this season doesn't forget that most of the tension is generated by a set of people stuck in a "single" location (though this season will challenge what we know about Chester's Mill).

As befits an event-level show, Paramount gives Under the Dome: Season 2 (Blu-ray) a solid release. The 1.78:1/1080p AVC-encoded transfers are great. Detail is impressive, especially in close-ups of faces, and colors have even more pop than in the first season. The show looks like it has a lavish budget, and that's enhanced with the high-bitrate images here; no compression or artifacting is visible, and even black levels have been improved this time out. The DTS-HD 5.1 audio tracks are of the same caliber—dialogue is always clean and clear, but it's the music and surrounds that elevate the show. There's plenty of directionality in the mix, and an aggressive use of effects to convey tension.

Extras are spread over three of the set's four discs. We get deleted scenes on discs one and three, while the rest of the extras consist of featurettes on discs one and four. These featurettes—ten in all, totaling over two hours—cover everything from production design to the film's of the premiere, and include a nice interview with King. They're extensive and sure to please fans. A short gag reel is also included.

The Rebuttal Witnesses

The problem, of course, is that Under the Dome is still looking to Lost as a kind of older sibling. While that makes a certain amount of short-term sense—the show was huge after all—it also ended five years ago and not many people were satisfied with that ending. Television viewers have more and more options these days and seem to be less and less willing to fall for hype. Under the Dome wants to be a hype machine, hoping to reel viewers in with mystery after mystery, teasing us with revelations about the characters and the origins of the dome. Teasing is fun, but unless it leads to something satisfying the show is going to have a lot of irate viewers. And that brings us to the season's end, which teases us with a new possibility and definitely sets up a strong possibility for the third season. But it also sets up the possibility that things could go off the rails at any minute.

Closing Statement

The proverbial jury is still out on Under the Dome. This second season shows an admirable willingness to abandon the book and become its own thing, but without knowing where it's going or how it will end, it's hard to judge just how effective the show really is. Those unimpressed by the first season will likely find something redeemable here, and those who enjoyed the first season probably won't find the changes this time out to be objectionable.

The Verdict

Probably not guilty, but the jury is still out.

Give us your feedback!

Did we give Under the Dome: Season 2 (Blu-ray) a fair trial? yes / no

What's "fair"? Whether positive or negative, our reviews should be unbiased, informative, and critique the material on its own merits.

Share This Review

Follow DVD Verdict

Other Reviews You Might Enjoy

• From The Earth To The Moon: The Signature Edition
• Mutant X: Season Two
• Evilspeak (1981) (Blu-ray)
• Frankenstein 90