Interesting. I've only ever heard about it in the context of people either mocking it or hating it.

I really, really disliked season 1, felt totally unworthy of being an HBO show, especially given the pedigree involved. I'll give season 2 a shot based on that interview with Sorkin where he acknowledged his failings on the 1st season and said they were changing things around and improving for season 2. Still think using real-world news-stories was a mistake.

Well, the debut episode wasn't particularly noteworthy - it felt like they were mostly setting the pieces in place for this season's story arcs.   

I have a hunch about what the "What happened to Maggie?" reveal will be... and if I'm right, I'm not sure that's the way to satisfy the disappointment some folks expressed about the female characters last season.

And Sloan was particularly odd this week - I mostly liked where Olivia Munn was going with the character last season, but the character seemed especially confused in this episode.  I'm really not looking forward to a Sloan/Don romance if that's what they've got in mind for this season.  Don's a douche.

I still like it when Will gets tipsy and starts talking in references, though.  So there's that.

And Alison Pill publicly tweeted a topless picture of herself that she intended to send only to her fiance.  But that was in real life.   

We have no data on whether she poured coffee on her phone afterward.

I didn't have this experience, but apparently it's common enough that the author puts a note at the beginning saying that many people consider it to take off after the fifth chapter or so.

I admit it can be heavy handed in its perspective at times, but once it gets going, it manages some really remarkable storytelling.

I'm about halfway through Spin right now and so far I'm finding it existentially terrifying. But in a good way.

That was the main thing for me, yeah.

I actually just finished it. It's one hell of a book, that's for sure. Just chock-full of ideas, but never losing track of its characters. It's a strong recommendation from me.

How are the sequels? It seems like there's a lot of story left to tell.

Wait, BKV is showrunning Under the Dome? I am now interested!

I've already given up and am just reading the weekly io9 recaps now, same as I did with Terra Nova and other trainwrecks.   When I let io9 do the watching and the ridiculing, it saves me SO much time.

To be fair, I made it through three whole episodes of Under the Dome.   That's two more than Defiance or Terra Nova, and only one fewer than Falling Skies.

I got through the entire first season of Falling Skies, but it's only because I couldn't be bothered to change the playlist after that totally wtf religion thing smacks you up side the head for 20 seconds and then disappears. Luckily it never came back up again in the show. But I have no impoulse or drive to continue watching Falling Skies.

And I haven't bothered with Defiance yet, I don't think I even finished the pilot of Terra Nova, and I haven't bothered with Under The Dome and probably never will (I'd rather go watch the the Simpsons movie again).

Well whaddaya know.  True enough.  Somehow my IMDB surfing of Under the Dome got me into a West Wing episode which was erroneous.    the Times regrets the error.

That's actually a relief of sorts - I'm much happier knowing Under the Dome was perpetrated by people who had no connection to the West Wing.