Under the Dome...Didn't the Simpsons already do this?

I have now watched two episodes of Under the Dome, and the only thing that goes on in my brain is does  no one own a shovel?  I know after tonight's episode they have a backhoe, but apparently no one knows that it is used for digging.  The other problem is, of course, that The Simpsons did this for their movie, and they did it better.

For those of you who didn't watch this summer TV series, it is based on a Stephen King book and produced by Steven Spielberg.  Sounds like a pretty good pedigree until you consider Spielberg's success with TV shows is not that great.  The most successful TV shows he has produced are cartoons, Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain.  Stephen King is well Stephen King.  His most successful adaptations have been ones that he had nothing to do with other than selling the rights.  To be honest, I don't like Stephen King as a writer and I have given him his chance.  The only book he ever wrote that I liked was the Dead Zone.  The only thing I can say is that he is prolific. So I didn't hold out much hope for this show.

The premise of Under the Dome is simple.  A dome is dropped covering a small town, and no one knows where it came from.  King said he thought about it as a way of creating a microcosm of what would happen. And so the show begins with the most exciting moment when the dome appears from no where and cuts a cow in half.  After that pretty much a series of mysterious events like why is the town council involved in a plot to "hoard" propane?  What does the Sherriff know and what has he hidden?  Will we ever know since he died?  Why are people who are touching the dome suddenly falling into seizures?  Why is the boyfriend of that girl so afraid of her new attitude and locking her up in a bomb shelter?  Why has the female cop, who also touched the dome, not fallen down having a seizure?

Why has no one tried to dig a hole under the dome? How are they getting air?  When the fire breaks out, where did the smoke go?  Why can they hear some news from the outside, but no one outside can hear their radio station?  For that matter, why is the radio station still operational when no other reception is working?  Doesn't anyone have cable?  If the military knows about the dome, why are they not visible all the time outside the dome? Is the fire department from a nearby town  the only ones who care and show up?  Why do they seem to have medical services and no fire department?  Why does the town have no fire hydrants?  Why isn't Big Jim really that big? How long before every time they say "dome" becomes a drinking game?  Why should we care?

Because there is little else to watch on Monday night,  I will give the show one more shot, but it needs to go somewhere.  It is adapted from a 1000 page novel that I have not read nor will I read it.  All I can say is  so far the show has been little more that trite, somewhat boring, and really not much else.