The two-hour premiere of Season 3 of the American science-fiction drama TV series “Under the Dome” aired on CBS on June 25 and it seems like the show has offered hints on what was responsible why the town of Chester’s Mill was hermetically sealed from the rest of the world.
While it was not tackled directly during the season premiere, the body invasion perpetrated by aliens plot has essentially paved the way for assumptions previously put forth by some of the characters that the dome is indeed the work of aliens.
Up until the series finale of Season 2, many in Chester’s Mill were still toying with the idea that outer space beings were responsible for the force field that has enveloped their town and cut it off from the rest of the world. While there may have found a few items which seemed to come from the alien worlds, there was no moving alien stuff at all in the past two seasons.
Season 3 picked up that particular slack with its premiere episode focusing on body snatching of the people of Chester’s Mill, subsequently placed on cocoons, and then coming back differently.
The people who emerged from the cocoons all say they experienced extraordinary real-feeling visions. It turns out that their confinement in the cocoon is part of an alien plot to control the hapless townsfolk of Chester’s Mill.
Most genius development
The Den of Geek says it might be the show’s most genius development so far because it explains so much. The plot has somehow given a solid explanation for the almost weekly murders and mysterious happenings in the town.
A therapist by the name of Christine, played by Marg Helgenberger, arrives in the town for some reason. She claims she wanted to help the people of Chester’s Mill but is the one carrying out the supposed alien plot as she is actually an anthropologist doing the work for the aliens.
It was not clear nor were the people of Chester’s Mill surprised how Christine managed to get into the town even with the presence of the dome but eventually viewers discovered that she and her sidekick Eva, played by Kylie Bunburry, are sort of alien beings.
Eva even delivered the episode’s most ironic line when she said that they’ve hatched and yet they are still under the dome. She was actually short of saying that she and Christine came from an egg yet after coming out; they still found themselves inside an egg.
Christine and Eva are the new villains of the series after the departure of Big Jim, played by Dean Norris, and they seem to be very adept in creating plausible back stories.
Hardly satisfying
Producers are expected to milk the plotline until the 13th and final episode of Season 3, due to air on September 10.
But Variety feels that the revelations during the premiere episode of the third season were hardly satisfying because it still did not delve into the details why a malevolent alien force would place a dome over the town, and why it has chosen only Chester’s Mill.
Those plots would be tackled most likely in the next episodes of “Under the Dome” and the showrunners just need to make sure that they will have the right answers to keep fan and viewer excitement at bay or at high again.
Reports have it that the ratings of the TV series, based on Stephen King’s 2009 novel, has slipped last season because many viewers have found the show to have run lot of its ideas to the ground already.