My Say with Dianne Butler Mike Vogel as Barbie in Ten's new drama, Under the Dome. THIS nightmare of isolation and horror is like watching The Block. Only with better acting. And we're only nine minutes into Under the Dome on Tuesday night before they get the scaffolding up. So in that sense it's much more efficient. Of course, you can't see the scaffolding. Under the Dome is based on a Stephen King novel, and the dome is ... I have no idea. I've only watched the first episode. It's invisible anyway. And has electricity running through it. Part of me wants one for home. It's half suggested it's to do with aliens, but my feeling is it's Pentagon related. When Joe, a sweet, curious boy asks Dale, the guy who has hero stamped on him, if the government built it, Dale tells him he doesn't think so - because it works. But does the show work? It's Stephen King, so you know he can write character. Those first nine minutes before the dome covers everyone take us through Chester's Mill house by house. Or that's how it feels. The used car dealer is played by Hank, the brother-in-law DEA agent from Breaking Bad. A somewhat different role. The most significant information comes right at the start in a forest nearby. A dead body, a car leaving the scene, the driver - an out-of-towner - who turns up again later. And from Chester's Mill's obese hoarder, who gets in touch with the editor of the local paper to tell her about some trucks going past and how often. But these are overtly jarring things. By the end of the episode there'll be several other disturbing developments, and involving people who seemed so nice at the start. It's only going to get worse the longer they stay under that stupid dome. The dome's not over all of Chester's Mill either - the rest of the town can wistfully put their hand up against it, like they're their girlfriend visiting them in jail, only without phone access. Yes, it's perplexing all right. And when you add the kinds of unhinged freaks Stephen King cooks up, or even just the "normal" people he has living in Maine, it's quite the mix. Everyone's saying this is reminding them of The Simpsons movie, which it won't once you watch it, but King started writing the book this is based on back in about 1982 apparently. It had a different name then, but I don't want to say what it was because it gives too much away. Plus the other thing is, King doesn't really strike me as a guy who needs to steal ideas. But some truths stand: both this and The Simpsons have useless police who are impotent when anything actually happens. Under the Dome, Channel 10, Tuesday 8.30pm