TV Review: UNDER THE DOME: Season 3, Episode 7: Ejecta [CBS]

CBS‘ Under the Dome Ejecta TV Show Review. Under the Dome: Season 3, Episode 7: ‘Ejecta’ played fast & loose with smoke & mirrors; but I’m not sure it fooled anyone. The episode was sold as one part game changer, one part wish fulfillment; but was just another step in what has become a laborious direction.

Not to be morbid, but headless chickens do die; so the writing may have been on the wall, for the Drone-estics. When the sheep turn into lemmings, however, at least try to close the nearest window. It was at this point that the Pink Stars came back, to stop everyone from doing their doings… and maybe all life, as we know it, outside the Dome.

‘Ejecta’ attempted a novel approach to this development; compartmentalizing each plot/ character thread into self-contained, parallel POV segments. This was meant to convey the sense of confusion & panic that the remaining Dome-estics (the Drone-estics couldn’t care less) would be experiencing, as events unfolded. Unfortunately, for anyone with any sense for what may actually going on, it might as well have been an opportunity to lay bets on where each thread was going to land.

Barbie & Eva (Mike Vogel, Kylie Bunbury) started out at a vantage point, which Eva turned into a would-be den of seduction. We should all have such problems; but Barbie was in save-the-world-mode. He failed to note that people who find the upside to your failures may be contributing to them; but Eva’s Kinship pitch, amounting to basically a booty call, dropped the ball that was ‘key’ to Barbie getting back on mission. His helplessness, literally in the face of the outside holocaust’s victims, however, seemed to do Eva’s job for her. Once again, Barbie literally walked away from the rest of Humanity. Convenient.

Joe & Norrie (Colin Ford, Mackenzie Lintz) had already hunkered down, after having rescued Hunter (Max Ehrich) from his euthanizing; but Hunter was being a pill about it. Listen to Hunter, kids. Fight totalitarianism, by respecting his individualist right to put himself out of our his misery. In any case, the Pink Stars had come back, all cranky; Joe figured some extinction might be in store; and they both missed the part about maybe repopulating the Earth – but optimism was the last thing the overall plot needed. Once they crossed paths with Sam (Eddie Cahill), by way of a near slashing, the mystery of post-pod resistance was finally pieced together. The key to resisting Drone control (Maj. Tom)? More emo moments. As much as I’d like to think that someone in the Bull Pen wanted this to be an ‘Andromeda Strain’ breakthrough moment – more likely it was just an effort to justify Norrie’s continued existence. The problem with the emo defense, however, is that it excludes angry Drone moments. Why hadn’t Hunter becoming furious, over being kept from his Kinship duties, snap him out of the Kinship?

Sam had already demonstrated how the emo cure works – and put his emo moment to good use – but it’s a small town (under a Dome, and all), so he couldn’t avoid Junior (Alexander Koch) for long. Nothing like allowing yourself to be led around, by an unconvincingly reassuring Bad Lieutenant, to bring out the Under the Dumb moments. Sam’s “you can’t even see the sun” remark was as demonstrably ridiculous as Junior’s shadow boxing. Hey, Sam: swing towards the light (and if it refers to alien worlds as memories of ‘home,’ it ain’t your nephew – fight)!

Big Jim & Julia (Dean Norris, Rachelle Lefevre) were forced to hunker down, together, and wax over differences & life choices. Their history afforded them this; but no one, on this show, should ever mention the word cliché – like ever. They should also stay away from political commentary (not all conservatives are dumb enough to think liberals are the fearful lot; as supposedly it’s conservatives that do fear & loathing, while liberals do naive outreach – which sort of sums up Jim & Julia, if you think about it). Thankfully, Joe, Norrie, and default Hunter stopped by, to give them something better to talk about.

The bad news is that Sam didn’t make it to the resistance, after all. The good news: Big Jim gets a 2^nd Amendment solution to the last of Humanity’s infestation problem. That means fun with high powered weapons for everybody. I hope the brakes, to Hunter’s wheelchair, can handle the recoil.

Bringing back the Dome as planetary extinction lifeboat was a nice sale pitch; but I’m not buying it. The Dome has changed both shade & clarity before, so why would turning itself into one big projector screen be a leap? Maybe I missed it, but did any shockwaves register, the whole time both the Dome & the surrounding area were being pounded? Considering that the Dome has been able to tap into egos & psyches, scenes supporting Joe & Norrie’s past ‘star-fall episodes,’ Big Jim’s talk of apocalyptic fire, and Eva’s forget the rest of Humanity spiel all seemed more like projection reinforcement, than prophecy fulfillment.

Easy enough to do, when you live in a bubble (thank you, Rod Serling); but it may be a harder sell to the rest of us. At the very least, viewers have to consider that this show wants to keep itself going. Hard to do, when the town of Chester’s Mill becomes the sum of all there is – and due for further population reduction.

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