Stephen King's Under the Dome unbearably long TV series

[Thrifty Version II]

Make no mistake, I'll catch the whole run of the show eventually.  But not until it's officially done and I can catch it all without waiting a week between episodes.

[ShadowDog]

Its not about the mysteries, its about the characters. The mysteries are fun but they don't mean dick unless the characters are interesting and fun. Take the series "Zero Hour." It had mysteries up the ass and a lot of them were quickly answered but the show sucked because the characters were cliched and boring and lame.  Flip side, Breaking Bad set up a mystery at the beginning of season 5 they're only going to answer in 2 weeks from now ... which is a good 14-15 months after it was first set up. That's a long damned wait but its worth it because we like the characters.

Some people get so damned caught up in the mysteries of these kinds of shows that they miss the real fun ... which is watching how people react and deal with them.

[Thrifty Version II]

Its not about the mysteries, its about the characters. The mysteries are fun but they don't mean dick unless the characters are interesting and fun. Take the series "Zero Hour." It had mysteries up the ass and a lot of them were quickly answered but the show sucked because the characters were cliched and boring and lame.  Flip side, Breaking Bad set up a mystery at the beginning of season 5 they're only going to answer in 2 weeks from now ... which is a good 14-15 months after it was first set up. That's a long damned wait but its worth it because we like the characters.

Some people get so damned caught up in the mysteries of these kinds of shows that they miss the real fun ... which is watching how people react and deal with them.

I just don't really like mysteries to begin with.  I don't have the patience to wait them out.

[ShadowDog]

Yeah then this kind of show isn't for you.  You're the kind of viewer the "monster of the week" or "mystery of the week" format was invented for.  Which is fine.

[Thrifty Version II]

Watched the season (god damnit) finale.  I wish the news that it had been renewed for God knows how many episodes didn't disappoint me as much as it did.  I hate shit like that encounter with the apparition in the form of Norrie's white mom (I forgot the name).  You ask someone a direct question, they give some evasive answer for no reason other than that it builds mysteries.  Insert dramatic music cues and pregnant pauses galore.   Maybe in another 10 episodes they'll ask another direct question to be responded to with a slightly less evasive answer and so on until you've lost the audience and have to slap together some half-assed ending after getting cancelled.

[Thrifty Version II]

Yeah then this kind of show isn't for you.  You're the kind of viewer the "monster of the week" or "mystery of the week" format was invented for.  Which is fine.

Story arcs are okay, as long as you give the impression that you're building toward something.  Mysteries are fine, as long as they don't seem forced and built for the sake of building mysteries to retain viewers.

[MrTorso]

Pretty funny snark review of the last episode.

http://www.tv.com/shows/under-the-dome/community/post/under-the-dome-season-1-episode-13-curtains-season-1-finale-review-137936504881/

[Thrifty Version II]

Ha ha.  This was my favorite part:

What time is that exactly? 4:00? 5:00? 4:30? 4ish? What is up with that hour hand? The guy who set up the clock had ONE JOB. And it wasn't that hard of a job: Make an actual time on a clock that could exist in the real world. And he failed. Your dirty secret is out, prop guy. You don't know how to tell time. CBS probably paid a million dollars to get this episode made, by the way.

[Bob]

My 80 year old mom watched the season ending, then called me after it was over and asked, "how could they end the season like that?"

So, even she felt a bit let down by the ending.