I’m a big Stephen King fan. If I was ranking his books from best to worst “Under the Dome” would be just above the middle, barely.
Some thoughts:
Homo couple wasn’t in the book.
Barbie didn’t kill anyone in the beginning.
The Pastor is a more “fundamentalist” in the book. He is a bad guy. There is a “good” pastor in the book. She leads the First Congregational Church but secretly no longers believes in God.
The dead Police Chief’s wife is a fairly major character in the book. Seems to be replaced by the female deputy in the show.
The military is much more active in the book than the show so far.
Seems that SK has become even more lefty since he wrote his book. Pity.
I have read and enjoyed every book Stephen King has written (except this one). However, as I’ve said before, every gun owning or religious character in his books are nuts. In his mind there is no such thing as a normal gun owner or a normal Christian. He has always been a total lefty and if I’m not mistaken always records robocalls for the dem candidates.
I read the book and really enjoyed it, but the series is deviating so far away from it, it’s almost a different entity.
To add to your points, the book’s Big Jim was more of a Boss Hogg, “good golly” type, and a lot nastier. The actor playing Junior is just bad...his acting is cringeworthy. And I guess he isn’t going to be a murderer with a brain tumor, but instead just a bug-eyed lovesick weirdo.
I’m surprised King didn’t fight to have the female atheist pastor in the series. That’s the only kind of clergy he has any use for.
I wonder why sound doesn’t travel through the Dome, like it does in the book.
I read an article that said UTD’s showrunner loves The Walking Dead and hopes to bring some of the same excitement to this series. Not likely, LOL. I’ll stick with this one to see what they do with the ending (it’s supposed to be different from the book, as well), but it isn’t holding my interest at all. I think it’s poorly done.