Under the Dome. I have to admit that when I first heard about it, I assumed that it was some reality show that was a weird variant of Big Brother (as if Big Brother wasn't weird enough on its own... bleh).
Anywho, I eventually learned that the show was a pseudo-scifi drama. And I learned this because CBS has not shut up about it. Seriously, if you've watched Senor Eyeball for more than ten minutes over the last two months, you've heard about Under the Dome.
This worries me. In part because it just feels like they are trying too hard. Honestly, they've shown so many different little scenes and things. I'm a fan of bells and whistles, but it really irks me when they're used to pimp a show that likely won't have a lot of bells and whistles.
This is not a new thing. The networks have a bad history with promoting scifi. Granted, their options have been limited, as they have shown some really middling to subpar scifi. The last big show was NBC's Revolution (which I guess someone is watching... maybe...), and that show has plots you can drive a Mack truck through (as opposed to into... again, thank you CBS, for spoiling that visual effect). Before that was NBC's The Event, which had its faults as well, but seemed a little more forgivable. I will at least give NBC a nod for not using excessive spoilers at all in promoting either show, which built the mystery of the premise. But I digress.
Under the Dome has peppered us with a pitch that promises everything: mystery, crime, sex, death... maybe all at the same time. We don't know. But should we care? By trying to appeal to all facets at once, they have created a mishmash that really appeals to none. Or at least not to me. Don't get me wrong. I'm checking it out for perhaps the saddest reason of all: there just isn't an abundance of scifi offerings on network television.
So I'm willing to give it a shot. And honestly, for better or worse, I'll probably ride the train all the way to the bitter end. But a bad showing will just be another opportunity to claim that science fiction has no proper place on a major network. Which isn't true. It just needs to be good science fiction.
