So
if there are any Under The Dome watchers out there, I just have one
thing to say: Read the book. I am wondering if Stephen King even signed
off on this tv version because it is quite different from the book. I
understand that it is a made-for-tv-adaptation of the book and,
therefore, there are some things that may be too graphic for television
viewing but I am telling you the book is so much richer and intense than
the show. I encourage you, if you do not have too weak of a stomach,
and you are enjoying the story and the concept, take the time to read
the book. It is long but it is worth it. Continue reading if you want to know some of the major differences in the book. Otherwise, stop here.
Difference #1: Angie (who is not as pretty as she is on tv but has teeth "rather crammed together and the size of jumbo Chiclets") dies very early in the story. Junior kills her while under the influence of what he thinks is a blinding migraine but is really a brain tumor.
#2: Dodee is a dim-witted, druggy loser chick (not a brainy disc jockey at the town radio station) who is killed shortly after Angie, again by Junior, when she comes looking for Angie after she finds out her mother was killed during a flying lesson, running the plane into the Dome. Junior keeps Angie and Dodee in the pantry at Angie's house (which is empty because her parents were out of town when the Dome came down) where it is dark and he comes to "visit" them when his head is hurting because it makes him feel better. He sits between them with an arm around each of them talking to them in the dark.
#3: Norrie is not a troubled kid traveling through town with her two moms who all happen to get caught going through Chester's Mill on "Dome Day". She is a tomboy skater chick who lives in Chester's Mill. Her dad Ernie was the Supermarket Manager until he recently retired and cooperates with Barbie and the others to try to find a solution to the Dome.
#4: Big Jim Rennie is a psychopathic power-hungry politician (Second Selectman who controls the weaker First Selectman, in effect, making all of the decisions without having to take any of the blame when things don't turn out so good). He claims to be a devout Christian businessman and says everything he does, he does for "the good of the town, for the good of the people". He is very brutual, some would say insane. He showed a hint of this when he let Agatha drown (by the way, she and Max don't exist). He convinces the new police chief (who, incidentally, is in his pocket) to deputize Junior and a group of his thug friends. They are uniformed, armed and subsequently head straight down power-trip road, beating up and shooting people whenever they can possibly get away with it, always protected by Big Jim and the new chief of police.
#5: The drug business is a much bigger part of the story, involving one of the two town pastors as the cook, who has also become completely addicted to the point of insanity from sampling the product. Big Jim kills Coggins (the pastor) and also kills the late police chief's widow to try to keep the information from coming out.
#6: Julia Shumway has a much larger role and is a stubborn newspaper owner/editor/reporter who, with the help of the dead police chief's wife (who we never see in the tv version), discovers information about the drug dealing business, including Jim's misappropriation of city funds, and puts herself in great danger but is determined to make sure the town knows who Rennie really is and what he has been doing. Her place is torched, burned to the ground, her newspaper office and apartment above it.
#7: Barbie is Captain Dale "Barbie" Barbara, US Army, Retired. He is not a leg-breaking enforcer for a bookie. He was in town for a time working as a cook in the Sweetbriar Rose (the restaurant Rose owns and Angie takes over in the show after Rose's untimely death). He was on his way out of town after being jumped in the parking lot of a local bar by Junior and his friends when the Dome came down. He decided that with Junior's father as the Second Selectman in town, he was probably better off disappearing than waiting for Junior to turn the blame for the fight on him. He makes contact early on in the book with a Colonel he was good friends with and gets the military involved - they reenlist him and appoint him officer in charge, which of course really pisses off Big Jim and his posse. They find the bodies of the girls and plant Barbie's dogtag near their bodies, framing him for the murders and throwing him in a jail cell.
#8: Only small children were having seizures, not teenagers. Two children who were caught inside the Dome when their mother, who was renting a cabin within the Chester's Mill borders, ran to the neighboring town for some groceries. They were found by another unlikely couple (an old man and a young woman) and taken in to town for medical care and food. I can't remember if the girl, Alice,(she is older) has seizures or not but her little brother Aiden does.
#9: In the book, Rusty, a physician's assistant, is a big player in the resolution of the Dome problem. He is married to Linda (the cop, who IS in the show) and they have two small girls, who also have seizures about pink stars falling in lines. Rusty, Linda, Jackie (another female cop), Julia, Barbie, the teenagers, Joe, Benny and Norrie and a couple others all work together to find out what is going on and try to bring the Dome down.
#10: There is no mini-Dome.
So read the book and get the full story. You won't regret it.
