EXCLUSIVE Showrunner Brian K Vaughan talks about his new Stephen King adaptation
In Under The Dome , TV's latest dalliance with the novels of Stephen King, the small town of Chester's Mill suddenly, inexplicably finds itself trapped beneath a vast inpenetrable dome. Beyond that seemingly far-fetched premise, however, Under the Dome contains fewer high-concept ideas than Lost or The Walking Dead – and showrunner Brian K Vaughan (a veteran of Lost ) says that’s what attracted him to the project: “It was part of the appeal of the show to me. On Lost we had our smoke monster and Walking Dead of course has its zombies. I like that in Under The Dome the enemy is us.
"The dome is the inciting incident, and we’ll definitely have some fun mythology to play with there, but for the most part this is a real human drama about very human characters,” says Vaughan. “It was a relief for me to get to do a genre show where we’re the bad guys for once.”
Vaughn explains how Under The Dome is further distinguished from its doom-laden brethren… “Apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic or quasi-apocalyptic television is big now, but that really isn’t what Under The Dome is,” he explains. “I think it’s much less an apocalyptic story and more sort of a microcosm of Earth. And Earth is a really interesting place to be, with a lot of conflict. So we’re trying to celebrate Earth as it is, and not a worst-case scenario.”
You can read more about Under The Dome in SFX 236, on sale in shops and digitally from Wednesday 29 May. The show airs on CBS in the US from Monday 24 June.
