Stephen King's Under the Dome to be showtime TV: a bunch of small-town Americans under a big dome, who go nuts and try to kill each other

Stephen King's epic novel 'Under the Dome' is set to get it's own Showtime television series, with the help of Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks. If you haven't read the book, it's basically about a town in Maine that becomes trapped under a huge, invisible dome. With a now limited air/water/food/power supply, and totally blocked off from the rest of the world, the people under the dome must work together to solve the mystery and save the day. No, just kidding, they descend into madness and murder each other within a week.

The reason why a television series will be rubbish is this: the actual narrative is fairly generic b-movie science fiction: an invisible force field, civilisation and insect comparisons, deliberately aggressive environmental and political messages, these are all fairly synonymous with Stephen King. Under the Dome is wonderful because King is a master at creating engaging characters, and we really get a lot of interesting skins to crawl under. If this tale is transferred to a television mini series, we won’t have the luxury of crawling into the minds and feelings of the epic cast, instead we’ll get the surface of the story: a bunch of small-town Americans under a big dome, who go nuts and try to kill each other. If that’s really all you’re looking for, you may as well watch The Simpsons Movie.