Under the Dome Press Day
Posted: May 20, 2014, 11:07
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In CBS‘ Summer Junket Day (“Summer is the new Fall”, said CBS Productions Television Studios president David Stapf to kick things off), Under The Dome EP Neal Baer talked about the second season re-boot for the Stephen King series which, Stapf reminded reporters, was the most watched new drama series of the wrapping TV season, besting NBC’s The Blacklist.
Though the second season will move past King’s book, storyline-wise, King is giving it his blessing by writing the first episode and making a cameo, Baer said. “So he’s certifying” it.
In a trailer for that first, King-written episode, The Dome becomes magnetic, sending all the town’s metal appliances, vehicles, etc. careening across the landscape. This doesn’t end well for at least one of the show’s characters.
“What I love about Stephen King’s way of seeing the world is that the ordinary becomes extraordinary. The barbeque is only the beginning. In that episode, things we trust become fearful,” Baer said.
“This is about ecological disaster pending — that magnetism has caused many things to happen,” Baer said. He hinted at “biblical problems of pestilence and bloody rain, because characters haven’t been the stewards they should be, of protecting the land and each other. What is the message The Dome is trying to teach us?”
This season of the series will include a digital-only character who is able to communicate with characters trapped in the dome, Baer said, which he explained was part of an effort to “reach out to particularly our young audience and embrace this ‘transmedia’.” “Maybe someone might possibly get out and someone might get in as well this year,” he added.
King has read every script for the second season, Baer said. “He has great ideas. I just love the fact that refrigerators and stoves become our enemies…[King]has this wonderment quality that is infectious.”
