Bluntness

I've also been told I have little tact, so if this offends you simply ride on.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Under the Dome - greed at CBS

I will be the first to admit when it comes to television viewing I'm not like most people.  I don't use a TV drama or sitcom to set my schedule, which means you will never find me sitting down in front of the television every Wednesday or Thursday or Sunday night to watch some show to which I've found myself addicted.  I have FIOS so I can watch quite a number of shows 'On Demand,' not that I do since most of the time I don't know what is playing and I don't want to waste the time to check out the line-up of movies and TV shows.

That being said I will admit to have been a bit interested in the CBS version of Stephen King's "Under the Dome."  When I saw the trailer I said to myself, "hey, I might want to watch some of that," not because it looked interesting, but there was all this press about how it was going to be a limited series, too long to be called mini yet non-renewable: one novel broken down into 13 episodes.  And of course the first 5 episodes had already aired by the time I remembered that I might want to watch at least one show.  So, I turned to FIOS, checked out the line-up under CBS and there it was:  "Under the Dome."  Then I did what apparently a number of people do when they stream TV, watched 3 episodes: bang, bang, bang.  Basically, at that point, I was done watching for a couple of weeks and then I did the same thing, which is how I watched "Under the Dome," in 4 sittings rather then 13.  I guess you could call it Fast Track TV.

This baby should have come crashing down.

The show itself was okay; a pretty boy, a pretty girl and a villain who barely made it into 2 dimensions.  The kids were interesting, in fact they were the only reason went back for a 2nd, 3rd, and 4th sitting.  The pretty boy was pretty and so was the pretty girl and their storyline was also pretty.. uninteresting.  I will also admit that towards the end of that 4th sitting I was waiting for that damn dome to come down so the show could be put to rest.  Remember the hype, too long to be a mini and non-renewable... Bullshit.  Evidently some time during the summer some pudding brain at CBS decided the ratings were good enough to turn "Under the Dome" into a series, in spite of what had been said.  So the dome didn't come down and my anticipation had all been for naught.  Now I am glad that the actors will still be getting paychecks next season, and I am sure there were some few people out there who fell down on their knees, their hosannas filling the heavens, when the renewal was announced.  Not me.  Will I watch any of next season?  Probably not.  Let me be perfectly honest, the only reason I watched it at all was because I knew there was going to be a big payoff at the end.  Special effects would splash across the screen and the dome would come down, but it didn't, and I feel gipped.  Eventually the dome will come down, when the ratings are dismal and nobody, even those who fell to their knees, will be watching.  And that will turn this series into a failure all because some jello head was thinking about how many more dollars in ad sales they could generate by stretching something already thin into another 13 episodes.  This is CBS crapping in it's pants.