On June 24, CBS will premiere its television adaptation of Stephen King's Under the Dome. IGN had the opportunity to attend an early screening of the debut episode recently at an event where co-executive producers Neal Baer (E.R.) and Brian K. Vaughan (Lost) were on hand to talk about the show.
For those who are unfamiliar, Under the Dome follows the story of the residents of Chester's Mill, a small town that becomes all the smaller when it is suddenly cut off from the rest of the world when a mysterious force field forms around them.
Mike Vogel, Rachelle Lefevre, Dean Norris, Natalie Martinez, Britt Robertson, Alexander Koch, Colin Ford, Nicholas Strong, Jolene Purdy and Aisha Hinds star in the series which is being produced in association with Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Television.
Here's five things you'll want to know about this highly anticipated series.
Warning: Some minor spoilers follow...
Many fans are assuming that CBS has set-up this project as a self-contained miniseries which, pretty faithfully, follows the trajectory of King's story. That's not the case. First, there have been some changes made - more on that in a moment. Second, the producers hope that Under the Dome will have a long life on television. Baer's E.R. and Law and Order: SVU were each on the air for 15 years, and the creator laughingly said that he's got his fingers crossed that his history of producing shows with those kinds of legs will turn out to be "a trend."
“When I came up with this idea, I envisioned a town potentially being trapped for years," King told the team, "and that’s something that you guys could get to do, that I didn’t." Though they hope to run for more that one season, the co-executive producers do like what Vaughn refers to as the "all killer and no filler" 13-episode model, versus the more "traditional" network model of 20 or more episodes a season.
Stephen King on the set of Under the Dome
King has embraced, and been an active participant in the creation of, the series, but off course some changes have been made. The town has been moved from Main to a more middle America/anywhere U.S.A. feeling farming community, and while they are "embracing many of the original characters", some are "composites." There's a racially mixed lesbian couple in the show, who the producers added in order to A) allow for a "socially relevant" storyline, and B) because it felt interesting to them to have a Los Angeles couple stuck in this small community.
The bulk of the central characters are established in the first episode, with villains and double crossers already in the mix. We shouldn't be so certain that all is as it seems to be at the outset, though.
"The characters are complicated," Baer says. "The people you think are bad, may not be so bad, and the ones you think are good, may not be so good. That’s really what Stephen King has always done so well, and we’ve really embraced that, too. So, don’t believe everything you see."
So far, at ten episodes in, each installment amounts to about a day in the world of the show. King's novel took place over a week. The producers really wanted the challenge of staying with the characters in this town in the early days of this extraordinary event and exploring what the situation would do to people. So, adding to a sense of claustrophobia, there will be a slow evolution with limited looks at the dome from the perspective of an outside viewer. In other words, we're trapped inside, just as the characters are.
"It’s not post-apocalyptic." Vaughan says. "This is the first day after this life-altering tragedy, and we really didn’t want to leave these people, for a moment. We want to see each step, gradually, of how this society can change, as Chester’s Mill is cut off from the rest of the United States."
The show will be used to explore far broader themes, in some ways. "How many of us would continue to show up for our job, if we’re no longer getting paid for it?" Vaughan, and the series, asks. "These questions will come up for these people. What does it matter, if you have $100,000 in your bank account? Chester’s Mill has a farming community and agricultural. There may be people who were considered a lesser part of Chester’s Mill, who are now vitally important. You’ll see a lot of those reversals happen."
Continue on for more Under the Dome...
Though this is a network series, Under the Dome will be in keeping with the dark tone of the novel, and people will die."We have a 'Heaven Board' in the writers' room," Baer said, a place where characters go when they exit the dome. "There's at least one person in heaven -- maybe," he added, coyly.
"The great thing about having a town with a couple thousand people in it is that we have our central cast, but none of them are safe," Vaughan added. "We can very easily bring in a new Chester’s Mill resident to fill in their place."
Of course the large scale mystery of what the Dome is, and why is has arrived, will likely be a series long exploration. So the writing team has made sure to infuse some questions raised, questions answered, intervals as the show goes along. For instance, the second episode will reveal why one can't simply dig a ditch to escape the seemingly fish-tank-like force field.
"We've done a pretty good job not stringing everyone along," Vaughan says. "We've made a conscious decision that if we present a mystery, we will solve it for you before we start introducing new ones. We will learn a great deal about the dome by the end of the season but maybe not all of the answers. I worked on Lost a little bit and realized that if your show is only about one central mystery -- there have been a lot of shows after Lost -- but Lost succeeded because people cared about these characters so deeply. The mythology is an added bonus, but it's about revealing characters. I'm not too concerned that people will tune out if they're not getting the biggest answer as long as they love the people on the screen."
The premiere episode boasts some pretty sweetly gory effects, they include, severed limbs, car and plane crashes and, a not so lucky cow's untimely demise. The producing team assured that the series would not back down from either the darker elements, or the big effects, following the debut.
"We can’t go from 60 to 0, with a big, explosive pilot and then it just becomes a nighttime soap with the second episode," Vaughan said. " I think you’ll see that the second episode is almost bigger than the first. It’s huge."
"Let’s burn down the town!" Bear chimed in. Stressing, once again, that this is a series about people's behavior in a dark moment. "Humanity rears is ugly, beautiful head."
King has been involved, and supportive, as mentioned, and has even offered to write an episode should the series get a second season. He also understands that the ultimate conclusion to the story may need to alter in this new telling.
"We pitched Stephen a far-out, big-swing idea for this to go several years, a different ending, and he was really excited by it, " Vaughan said. The author was said to have exclaimed, “I wish I thought of that. That’s killer!” Ultimately, the choice was left up to the producers. "He said, 'To quote Elvis, "It's your baby, rock it." Vaughan added.
The show really will be it's own animal, but they have infused what the refer to as the two Steven's work (or, Stephen's depending on your perspective) into the tone of the series.
"Steven Spielberg sees the best in humanity and Stephen King is always seeing the worst," Vaughan said. "But there are similarities: they're both really aggressive humanists who love people so much; and [love] throwing them in extraordinary situations and seeing what happens."
Under the Dome will premiere on Monday, June 24, 2013, at 10 pm on CBS.
Source : ign[dot]com
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