Under the Dome - Episode 1 - "Pilot"

So as I do with my other TV reviews, we're going to do this recap-style, so SPOILERS AHEAD.  I was not a huge fan of the Under the Dome book...I really liked the concept, and I love apocalyptic shit, but didn't love the dialogue or ending.  Maybe it could be improved for TV?

We start out directly with bird eggs hatching and a guy burying a dead body.  Also, Jeff Fahey!  YES.  People banging, minus the thrusting, because this is CBS.  Meanwhile, the town busybody calls in a reporter, Julia Shumway (Rachelle Lefevre) to tell her about some frequent propane deliveries.  Ignored by the local police, she is determined that something is afoot.

Meanwhile, Dale "Barbie" Barbara (Mike Vogel) is booking the hell out of town due to some sort of deal gone wrong.  But he gets sidetracked by some errant cows, and watches as the dome comes down, slicing a cow in half in the process!  Now the residents of Chester's Mill are trapped behind some weird invisible dome, and you know there's going to be some dramz.

Airplanes falling from the sky!  Severed limbs!  Awesome.  Unfortunately the fire department is on one side of the dome while the burning plane is on the other.  People are reporting crashes all over town as people go smack dab into the impenetrable field.  Julia is fast on the scene trying to get to the bottom of it all.  The hospital is quickly overrun with injured people, as "Big Jim" Rennie (Dean Norris) makes an emergency broadcast for everyone to keep off the roads.

Junior (Alexander Koch), Big Jim's son is not taking the loss of his girlfriend, Angie (Britt Robertson) lightly.  She thought they were just fuck buddies for the summer, but he had plans to leave school to be with her.  When she bums a cigarette off of Barbie, Junior becomes enraged.  While most teenagers party it up on the bridge, some go into random seizures where they mutter nonsense about stars falling in lines.  Junior has had absolutely enough of Angie and her smoking cigs with sexy guys and strangles her in a jealous freakout.  He pops her into his dad's fallout shelter for safekeeping, telling Big Jim that it's flooded and useless.

Julia brings Barbie back to her house, where her husband is oddly missing.  Everyone thinks he's having an affair, but she claims to know differently.  Poor Duke (Jeff Fahey) collapses with heart problems near the dome, with only Deputy Linda (Natalie Martinez) to help.  However, the outside of the dome buzzes with police, military, and media presence.  The premiere closes with a shot of the dome from the outside, with the people of Chester's Mill trapped within.

Next week: "The biggest threat they face is each other."  I like this show so far, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it develops.  Until next Monday!