It's seldom that a new series makes a splash with its first episode. There are thousands of shows on television, and only a select handful withstand the brutality of TV critics and competing series. Creating a fun, entertaining show is one thing, but roping in a devoted audience is another. Shows like "Game of Thrones" and "Breaking Bad" have established a cult like fan base, a very lofty achievement. It's hard to come by, however, CBS may have found that in "Under the Dome."
It's series premiere, which aired Monday night, attracted 13.1 million viewers. Not only that, but it was up against game 6 of the Stanley Cup, suggesting that an even greater audience is still to come, especially in the wake of its early success.
Brian K. Vaughan, executive producer for "Under the Dome," recently opened up about the series during an interview with Hollywood Reporter. He shed some light on what potential fans can expect from the rest of season 1 and the ergonomics of the dome.
"That dome is going to be there for at least the duration of however long our series goes, but we do know exactly what the final episode would be and what the final scene of the final episode would be," Vaughan said. "We have left ourselves some leeway on how we're going to get there, depending on how long people will stick with us for the journey, but we hope it will be for a long time because each month that they're under there, I think the show gets more and more interesting as their lives change significantly."
He went on to describe a bit more of the dome. "In the next episode we've got Joe (Colin Ford) and his friend Ben going on a Stand By Me journey to map the dome and go all the way around to find its scope and size and begin asking questions: Is it truly impenetrable? Does it let air through? Does it let water through? What is the science of this dome? So you'll get lots of answers to those questions. Probably one of the most frequently asked is why the hell isn't everyone just digging under this thing? And we will find exactly why not come next episode. Everyone's just like, 'Somebody just get a shovel and this TV show is just going to be over,' but it, of course, is not that easy."
"Under the Dome" is based on Stephen King's novel by the same name and airs Monday nights on CBS.