Under The Dome

Chickens! Cows! And my other farm animal friends! Peanut EmandEm is back for another guest post, this time about Under the Dome. Take it away, Em!

I hate to admit this, but I broke my own cardinal rule when it comes to Under the Dome.  You know the one I’m talking about, “ALWAYS read the book BEFORE you see the TV show or movie based on the book”.  Honestly, I’ve been pretty good lately.  I finished The Hunger Games series before I saw the first movie and I finished The Leftovers just in time for its HBO premier on Sunday, but for some reason I always drop the ball when it comes to Stephen King.  It’s not that I don’t like his books, because I do, but I can count on one hand the number that I’ve read before seeing them produced.  I guess it stems from my childhood.  After seeing The Shining, how could you not devour every other Stephen King story made into a movie?  And to be totally honest, I wasn’t much of a reader as a kid.  So now you know where I’m coming from as I sit awaiting the start of the second season of Under the Dome.  Yes, yes. I’ve had a year. So, I hang my head as I type this…I still haven’t read the book.

My favorite part of season one was that the producers blew the mass majority of their special effects budget on that ridiculous cow.  At least I hope they did since they showed it EVERY episode.  As the dome is dropped over Chester’s Mill, families were separated, strangers are trapped homeless in a unknown community, a truck crashes into an invisible barrier killing the passengers and a cow is cleaved in twain:

Mooove over writer’s room, I got this.  Who needs plot enhancing dialogue?

No seriously, I was getting a bit teary for the loved ones who have lost and then bam; a computer generated cow is grotesquely sliced in half in all its bloody glory.  Then, as if that weren't enough, they showed it every week during the “last week on Under the Dome” sequence.  They were going to get their CG money’s worth, by God. 

      Hey, you can even buy the t-shirt!

Vindication!  It’s only the credits and already my self-worth is through the roof.  Stephen King wrote the premier episode of season two.  Although I haven’t read the book, at least I have seen an episode written by the author.  That’s got to count for something…right?

AP Edit: Totes.

Season 2 opens exactly where we left off, with Barbie about to be hanged from the gallows in the center of town.  Big Jim is urging Junior to pull the level which he finally refuses to do.  We’ll see how long this lasts.  Junior’s major storyline last year was his inner turmoil about whether or not he had to do what his father told him to.  Most often, he bent to his father’s whim.  I can only hope that this season we will see him finally stand up to Big Jim.

Cow.

Just as Barbie is about to be hanged, the dome begins emitting a high pitched sound and attracts all metallic objects near the proximity of the dome.  I actually like the idea of the dome disarming the people of Chester’s Mill.  Big Jim’s gun is whisked away first.  How will he ever control everyone now? 

Soon after, we learn from our newest character (Rebecca, the local high school science teacher), that the dome is pulsing “like a pregnant woman’s contractions”.  Wow, thanks for the visual, CBS.  That’s the best analogy we could come up with?

I’m pulsing like a large, city sized dome!

Unfortunately our dear friend -- and only cool headed law enforcement officer in Chester’s Mill -- is presumably killed while trying to free Barbie, who is trapped by his handcuffs to the magnetic dome.  I say presumably because after we see the truck (with Linda in its path) slam into the dome, no one bothers to check on her.  Maybe she jumped out of the way in the nick of time or maybe she slid under the truck Indiana Jones style.  OK, she probably didn’t, but we’ll never know because Big Jim, Junior, and Barbie all barely react to her death. Instead, they take off to continue their fight for control of Chester’s Mill.

                   Wow, the dome is starting to look like my collection of refrigerator magnets.                   \

           

Barbie and Julia are finally reunited.  At the end of the first season Julia learns that it was Barbie that killed her husband.  She must not have been very into that dude because she forgives Barbie the instant they see each other and we are treated to their first kiss of the season.  Even Barbie agrees with us, “I didn’t think it would be that easy.”  Ouch. ,Sorry Julia, you may be the monarch, but he sure has your number.

Will no one mourn my death?

 Ah, Under the Dome, welcome back. I have missed you in all of your cheesy glory!  I can only imagine what next week has in store for us Domers!  Thank you Stephen King for writing something that I can appreciate as it was meant to be…on the screen!

Oh Julia, you’re so easy.  Wait, what did you say?

Under the Dome airs Mondays at 10 p.m. on CBS.  Full episodes available for download at the Apple app store and on Google play. 

'Nother cow.

Thursday Nights Bite

Hellloooooooooo, people! Say hello to our guest blogger for today, Peanut Em&Em. Clovis and I have known Madame LePeanute for more years than we care to admit to, and she's graciously volunteered her services to blog for our squirrel friends here at TV Sluts. Peanut Em&Em has prepared some peanut buttah for us, in the form of a Vampire Diaries review. Enjoy!

It’s 8:30 Thursday night and my house is silent.  The boys are in bed and my husband is downstairs on the elliptical.  I sneak into the family room, turn on the TV, and quickly mute the volume.  My God, I don’t want to get caught.  Breathing a sigh of relief, I see that my DVR has successfully begun recording one of the worst shows on the CW (Ok, I admit that’s not saying a lot).  I guess it’s time to come clean. Hi, my name is Emily and I am addicted to The Vampire Diaries.

If you are unfamiliar with the series, let me take this second paragraph to catch you up on the first 3 seasons.  The series revolves around Elena Gilbert, a human high school student, and her vampire admirers, brothers Damon and Stefan Salvatore.  Elena is not just your average high school girl though.  Oh no, she has some supernatural blood in her as well; she is the doppelganger (twin) of Damon and Stefan’s first love, the vampire Katherine.  What an amazing love…square?  Add to that that in each season someone different is trying to kill “poor” Elena while Damon and Stefan try to save her.  And with that, you’re all caught up on the first three years of TVD.  Welcome to the Vampire Diaries family!

There’s enough of me to go around, boys.

           

I hope by now that you are thinking the same thing that I have been thinking for the last three seasons.  If someone is always trying to kill Elena, and she’s hanging out with vampires anyway, why didn’t one of the Salvatore boys just turn Elena into a vampire?  Well, thank God at the end of season 3 they finally did just that.  With fragile Elena now a rough and tough vampire they had to step up some serious evil this season.  In season 4 we have seen the return of just about every baddie that wanted to kill Elena over the years with the addition of our new super baddie, Silas.  Silas is the first immortal ever created and also happens to be stronger than any other supernatural creature in the Vampire Diaries universe.  (Where the heck are they going to go from here?)

The Season 4 finale finds Elena and the boys facing off with Silas.  Elena’s best friend Bonnie, the witch, (Of course Elena’s best friend is a witch!  Oh and by the way, her brother is a vampire hunter.  Take that willing suspension of disbelief.) is attempting to put a spell on Silas to turn him to stone so that the boys can drop his body in the lake effectively ending Silas’s reign of terror.

Certainly things could not go according to plan.  Enter Emily’s favorite vampire Damon, played by Ian Somerhalder.  I’ve loved Ian since he was Boone on Lost.  He’s pretty.  Unfortunately, somewhere between Lost and The Vampire Diaries he forgot how to act.  He has taken a page from the acting style of Joey from Friends.  Remember that episode where Joey was explaining to Rachel how he acted in the emotional scenes on the soap opera?   He used the “smell the fart” technique of acting.   He would by squint up his eyes and pretend he smelled a fart, that way he looked like he was feeling the emotions of his character.  That is how my boy Ian plays too many of his scenes in TVD, including the scene where Elena finally confesses her love for Damon (well, for this season anyway).

You’re my brother and I (takes a deep breath) love you man.

            

So where does that leave poor Stefan?  He is left to deal with Silas’s body.  Season 4 ends with Stefan about to throw Silas into the lake wrapping everything up with a nice bow.  Or not, because we quickly find out that the blanket containing Silas’s petrified body contains only rocks.  What?  You’re kidding me!  Oh no, it gets better.  Silas shows up and goes on to tell Stefan that he is his doppelganger just before he locks Stefan into a safe and sends him to the bottom of the lake.  Not possible, Stefan is a doppelganger too?  No, you read that correctly, we now have two sets of twins.  This reminds me of a lesson I learned early in my writing career.   If you write yourself into a corner, don’t have your character’s phone ring in order to dig yourself out of the hole.  It’s too obvious.  Really, 2 sets of doppelgangers?  The phone’s ringing TVD and it’s on the bottom of the lake.  Shhh, don’t tell anyone, but I will be tuning in this fall to see how you dig yourselves out of this one.