S03.E13: The Enemy Within

[Free]

What in the ever-loving hell was THAT? I stopped watching after season two, but figured I'd tune in for the finale to find out the "reason" for the dome. The hell? Giant amethysts, life forces, magic whistling, aliens, tunnels that appear as needed, Kinship, a dog that has a collar with town keys, cocoons, plank walking, more eggs, a resistance movement of course, preordained queens... wow.

 

And it ends on a Jumanjii, with a bunch of kids happening upon the Magical Object of Great Distress That Everyone Thought Was Gone? Good lord.

 

You honestly didn't miss anything, they made those things up this season.

[needschocolate]

Reading the recap (which was great, as always) reminded me of another ridiculous thing that happened this episode  -- Dawn steps onto the plank and Barbie appears out of nowhere and tells her that he has weakened the plank.  So she does the most logical thing (</sarcasm>), she stays where she is.  Most people would just take two steps back and go some other way.  There wasn't a land mine (and plank mine) under her foot.  

 

And why didn't Barbie just let her keep walking, the plank beaks, she tumbles to her (non) death.  Why come out of nowhere and warn her, giving her time to take two steps back and go some other way? 

 

And Barbie didn't have to step out onto the plank and break it, tumbling to his (non) death too.  He could have just kicked his end of the board and knocked the board and Dawn into the apparently not-so-deep ditch.  

 

And where did he get a plank in an empty cement factory, how did he manage to weakened it it such a short amount of time, and why didn't he weaken it more?  

 

All the ridiculous plot contrivances.  They wanted us (and Julia) to think Barbie was dead so they had to have him magically find a board and magically weaken it just enough, but not too much, then have him be stupid enough to think he had to jump on the plank and die for the cause and have Dawn be stupid enough to stay on the plank. 

[Free]

All the ridiculous plot contrivances.  They wanted us (and Julia) to think Barbie was dead so they had to have him magically find a board and magically weaken it just enough, but not too much, then have him be stupid enough to think he had to jump on the plank and die for the cause and have Dawn be stupid enough to stay on the plank.

 

Exactly, it was a contrived climax for the finale so they can do a lame fake out for the end.

[Shermie]

The lame fakeout death is a timeworn trope that is expected in this sort of drivel. But the Weakened Plank of Contrivance was a ridiculous stretch, even for Under the Dumb. There are many other more real(ish) ways of doing the fakeout death trope.

[izabella]

And this whole mess supposedly happened in four weeks? What was with all the food shortage angst? Weren't most of the people in Shelbyville for some big event, meaning there would be plenty of non-perishables to feed the remaining folks (between grocery stores and homes from those who were away). And weren't they planting crops at one point, which actually grew, even though seeds take 4-6 weeks to germinate? And wouldn't the loved ones of the Domies still be out there waiting for their spouse, parents, children, friends? I'm thinking of Joe and Angie's parents specifically, did they just get over the notion that their children were trapped in this thing? Egads.

 

Don't forget, they were killing each other for insulin in the first week.

Edited September 15, 2015 by izabella

[Free]

The lame fakeout death is a timeworn trope that is expected in this sort of drivel. But the Weakened Plank of Contrivance was a ridiculous stretch, even for Under the Dumb. There are many other more real(ish) ways of doing the fakeout death trope.

 

Leave it to them to make it as terrible as possible to the very end.

 

Don't forget, they were killing each other for insulin in the first week.

 

And over water when it was mysteriously tainted, the meningitis outbreak, etc.

[ottoDbusdriver]

Leave it to them to make it as terrible as possible to the very end.

 

 

And over water when it was mysteriously tainted, the meningitis outbreak, etc.

 

And don't forget Rebecca's plan to kill everyone with the pig virus.

 

And the cold snap.

 

And the acid rain.

 

And the caterpillars devastating the crops.

 

And what ever it was they were up against and had to rig up that giant windmill to blow against the Dome

Edited September 15, 2015 by ottoDbusdriver

[Free]

And don't forget Rebecca's plan to kill everyone with the pig virus.

 

That too and it certainly didn't take her and Jim long to be free and for the townspeople to blindly follow Jim.

[Johnny Dollar]

I wonder at what point did the relatives of the Domites decide that they've waited long enough for their families to be rescued. The dome was only down for four weeks. Did Mr and Mrs Angie/Joe hang around for a week and then say "This is turning out to be very inconvenient. How about we just abandon our kids and our house and all of our worldly possessions and move on with our lives. I hear Zenith is lovely this time of year."

[Shermie]

Exactly. I can accept a preposterous notion like a dome coming out of nowhere and covering a town if the rest of it is normal people and circumstances reacting to it. That's the premise, right? An extraordinary thing happening to ordinary people. Then the ordinary people have to behave the way ordinary people would - and that was my problem from the beginning.

There were a few realistic things, like the army surrounding the dome, and the Domies panicking about food and meds. But most of it was stupid, unrealistic dreck. If I left for an afternoon and my two teen kids were trapped inside that thing, I'd move heaven and earth at least to see how they were doing. I didn't expect the show to have storylines following all the Domies' loved ones on the outside, but a throwaway line once in a while about wondering what mom and dad are doing, or showing Domies and outsiders communicating, but no. They spent pointless plot time on butterflies and tunnels and amethysts. So much lost potential.

The show was poorly planned, with characters and plots appearing and disappearing with no thought of where they came from and where they were going, probably because it was supposed to be a summer one-off but then, ooo look, ratings!

[Desperately Random]

Excellent post Shermie and my exact sentiments as to why this show became the trainwreck that it did. The book was exactly what you said which is what happens to ordinary people when something extraordinary happens to them. The book had characters that you came to care about (some you wanted them to live and others to be punished for their actions) and these characters acted as people in that situation would. It was an interesting and compelling story and Stephen King told it without butterflies, monarchs, acid rain, fight clubs, eggs, amethysts and all the other nonsense the show threw into the pot of dung that became their version of UtD.

[Free]

The show was poorly planned, with characters and plots appearing and disappearing with no thought of where they came from and where they were going, probably because it was supposed to be a summer one-off but then, ooo look, ratings!

 

And it certainly showed how they kept making up nonsense each season.

[Jordan27]

have to say this was the longest most boring episode ever. The last ten or twenty minutes felt like it took forever to end. I think they just like adding random numbers to random words for plot points

 

falling stars

1 egg

1 monarch

4 hands

7 amethyst

8 song notes

 

Add some bad writing and cheese, mix together and you get one of the worst shows of all time.

 

It was so bad it did seem like it was a parody.  I had fun making fun of it and I never took it seriously.

 

Enjoyed it guys.  See you on another show.

[Camera One]

What a letdown of a finale, though of course I didn't expect much of anything.
 

I had a feeling they were going to push ahead with a lame cliffhanger anyway, even though their setup for the next season was tedious.  They could easily have cut the interview sequence and put in an actual ending.  Did we really need to hear Cranky Army Guy summarizing the crap we watched for 13 hours?  

 

Big Jim deserved to die, and Junior's demise was not satisfying at all.  You could see they were all ready to bring him back for Season 4 if it had happened.

 

This was the worst season overall of the show, and that's REALLY saying something considering how bad the last few seasons were.  So great idea to keep Eva, uh I mean that brand new woman with Barbie's eyes, for another season.  

 

Good riddance to bad rubbish.  That's it for wasting my time... until the next crap sci-fi show that comes along which I will watch.

Edited January 2, 2016 by Camera One