What Stephen King Thought About The Under The Dome CBS TV Series

"Under the Dome" — one of many TV series adapted from Stephen King's work — started out on a high note, but eventually lost the support of its audience. While fans were initially excited to see a visual representation of the trouble that befell a town after a mysterious dome appeared over it — the TV show eventually played out much differently than the best-selling novel. For book purists, that was precisely the problem, and they were quick to voice frustrations online, eventually spurring a response from King.

Initially, King, who also served as an executive producer, seemed to support the divergence from the source material. "If you loved the book when you first read it, it's still there for your perusal. But that doesn't mean the TV series is bad, because it's not," he wrote on his website in June 2013. "In fact, it's very good. And, if you look closely, you'll see that most of my characters are still there, although some have been combined and others have changed jobs."

He also noted that logistical changes — such as the length of time the story took place — had to be changed for the TV medium, but stressed that the core of the story was still intact. "Under the Dome" starred Mike Vogel, Rachelle Lefevre, Alexander Koch, Colin Ford, Mackenzie Lintz, and several more. It aired on CBS for three seasons.

By 2019, Stephen King was feeling considerably less positive about how the "Under the Dome" series played out. "How about Netflix bringing back UNDER THE DOME, only starting from scratch and actually doing the book?," he posted to X, formerly known as Twitter. Unsurprisingly, the post garnered tens of thousands of likes and thousands of reposts from users who, presumably, agreed that King's novel deserved another crack at the small screen.

One year later, while speaking with The Washington Post about how to "properly" adapt his work, King cited "Under the Dome" as a misfire. "Under the Dome" [on CBS] was one I felt like went entirely off the rails, because the people are doing things that don't seem realistic," he said. "One thing that killed me was you never hear the sound of a generator anywhere. The electric power is fine. Everything looks clean. Everything is great, except that they're cut off from the world. And that isn't what would happen ..."