Stephen King Brings His Storytelling Talents To ‘Under The Dome’ Season 2
Stephen King has had his books adapted to both the big and small screen numerous times, and now he is bringing his storytelling talents to the second season of CBS’ Under the Dome. While King is also the executive producer of the show, the first episode of the upcoming season was also written by him.
Under the Dome, which is based on a book written by King, premiered in the summer of 2013 and led summer television ratings for a majority of its 13-episode run.
While talking about the episode he wrote King, 66, said that the process of writing an episode for a show that has multiple writers is very different from writing a book by yourself, according to CBS News.
“Working with other writers is different from writing a book that you do yourself,” King said. “It’s a really collaborative effort and you have to be willing to give up some of your ideas for the other ideas and try to get something everyone is happy with.”
He says that one of the weirdest parts of writing his episode was picking up where the story left off at the end of last season. The Oakland Press reports that the other writers have taken the story in such different directions that he said he had to view certain scenes multiple times in order to write his episode, and that it’s an “interesting challenge.”
“I went back and looked at the last episode twice and I looked at the last scene about 15 times,” he said back in March. “Here is where Joe and the other teenagers are outside the church. Here is Barbie on the scaffold with Big Jim and Junior. What is going to happen to these people?”
Under the Dome is about a town in Maine that is cutoff from the rest of the country after a dome mysteriously surrounds them, and forces them to survive on their own. CBS News states that it’s not the first time Stephen King has tackled the subject of isolation as both his book The Shining, and the 1999 miniseries, Storm of the Century took on the topic.
“People underestimate the power of nature and overestimate the organization and infrastructure of the world,” King said, and it’s something he’s very interested in. “We live in a fragile society and the infrastructure that holds a lot of it up is very fragile.”
King also points out that the country experienced a similar isolation-type of scenario just this last winter, according to The Oakland Press. A rare snow and ice storm in the south stranded drivers in Atlanta in January. Drivers were forced to either stay in their vehicles for over 18 hours on the highways or leave to go find help.
“That is an under-the-dome situation, and you are thrown on your own resources and may have to be 18 or 19 hours inside the cab of a semi-truck,” King said. “I like to see how people react when they are put into a situation — not necessarily a survival situation — but where you don’t have the resources of the government and the outside world.”
When asked about why he thinks people are drawn to the show, CBS News says he pointed to factors. There’s the mystery of trying to figure who lowered the dome over the town, and why. The second has to do with the actual isolation scenario.
“I think people like to watch something like ‘Under the Dome’ and imagine how they would react,” King said.
Stephen King’s episode will kick off another 13-episode season for CBS’ Under The Dome on Monday, June 30.
[Image via Thibault]
