The Miss: Is 'The Mist' This Summer's 'Under the Dome'?

IT was such a big movie that I haven't seen it, but I have heard of it. I've seen the memes. The memes are OK, and I watched the 80s movie which is frankly a pretty effective if silly horror movie. Stephen King is doing alright lately. But for every good media product, there is a subpar product created as reaction. Stephen King has provided society with a fair amount of media products as his bestselling books regularly get reconfigured into television and film, and that makes sense: King is a prolific writer with a huge audience. Sadly, his admirers often fail to elevate the material, and a recent case is all the example we need.

Today, we are gathered at this sloppy blog to discuss and explore The Mist - the 2017 Netflix special. Apparently it started its sad life as a new series for Spike TV. Spike TV's last major show was MXC and that was over a decade ago. You're going to ask something about why I would watch a show made for Spike TV. Because, let's face it: I should've known better, right? Let me answer for my actions: sometimes you know the trainwreck is coming and you just have to make sure you see it happen. I saw it on Netflix (where it had been dumped fairly quickly for an American exclusive), knew it would be pretty bad without any research, and dove right in.

I vaguely recall a movie of The Mist released in 2007, based on Stephen King's novel by the same name (at this point I won't read it anytime soon). The movie had weird bugs that the protagonists had to shoot when they were in a supermarket. Big things loomed in the dark. Were they dinosaurs? Then, at the apportioned time, the mist blew out of town, and everyone had endured personal struggles, survived, and grown as people. I assume this TV series is aiming to do the same, but since it was written by committee with little regard for coherence or impact, I also assume it will kind of spin around in annoying circles for 10 episodes.

All you need is a coping mechanism, and you can watch this show.

It opens, kind of like Under the Dome did, with the destruction of an animal. In Under the Dome it's a cow that gets split into two steak-like halves, in The Mist it's a dog that gets eviscerated. And a soldier wakes up without any memory of what's going on... oh yes, friends, you've entered a zone of mass entertainment you've probably stumbled over before. The dead dog looks a lot more realistic than the dead cow, though. If you have Netflix, you can see for yourself. Actually I'll spare you the trouble:

Big mystery: who did the dog piss off to get done like this? Also: nice one, SFX people.

The same team is responsible for The Mist as made Under the Dome. I'm sure that the key people are unchanged. There's a deep connection between the shows. I can sense these strange coincidences... the casting seems similar. The locations seemed to have been scouted the same ways. The special effects: again I'm getting some deja vu. The writing is what really seals its fate. Something about the situations and the handling of characters and the bizarre missteps they have to take in order to make plot lines viable just reminds me of the 8 or so episodes of Under the Dome I watched.

The Descent from Suspicion to Paranoia

I think it's something everyone suffers at least once, and the delusional cases will imagine otherwise and go on their way, so there is probably little to gain 'blogging' about this. The best things are of course suspicions one holds about one's own self, they are like gold nuggets in this context. I don't think enough people are paranoid about their goals and raison d'etre, and many of those that are should probably calm down a bit. That's right: the wrong people doubt their goals and dreams; the wrong people also embrace them. I find it all quite odd to be honest.

But also amusing. If you are mendacious enough you can of course turn people into paranoid wrecks with a bit of clever spitefulness and without 'too much effort'. Paranoid people cause all kinds of things to happen – outbursts and shit ranging from 'humorous', to 'disturbing', and all the way down into 'fatal and misguided'. Paranoia has contributed to or caused most of the greatest crimes in history, and at least as many wars and ideological conflicts as insecurity.

Fear is an important primal emotion. It has kept alive more animals than it has killed, but with the expansion of human culture, fear remained largely ubiquitous, creeping into each new facet of life and leading to all kinds of skullduggery and shenanigans. Add to that fear a good measure of anxiety, and you have the recipe for today's fearful, angsty environment... just waiting to see what or who betrays it, what or who is looking, what or who is next going to do a bad thing that justifies the fear and qualifies the anxiety as logical. The outcomes are everywhere but are epitomized in the rise of super surveillance culture. Yea, they did in the past worry about God's judgement, but now there are others who can count the hairs on one's head and the evil plans in one's heart, and judge one for it...

Most people cross the descent pretty quickly and find it incredibly uncomfortable, even in hindsight. Some people actually grow from it, though, and replace their saner selves with characters they actually admire. Thriving paranoids. I wouldn't pretend to know how or why this happens in some cases – probably related to some kind of dissociation or depersonalization – because I never pretend to be an expert. Have we descended to a point of cultural hallucinatory paranoia? Is it already schizophrenic? Do we care?

When the descent drags on it can really mess people up, but sometimes also provide them with moments of lucidity wherein change is possible. Generally there is a lot of suffering and anxiety, the ability to trust others is diminished, and in the final stages all kinds of the worst suspicions are confirmed without any resort to fact or reality. It is quite sad, and sometimes incurable. 

So be safe: paranoia is the common cold of mental illnesses, and your contribution to it could upset the balance of the world you live in, to even your own detriment (until you disarm your perception of the world with willful ignorance, deceive yourself, etc). Ways of combating paranoia can include reassuring a paranoiac of the fallibility of all people, if they can handle it telling them about the basic uncertainty of life may also help. Society at large is kind of paranoid, and a lot of people get caught up in that, and mostly it's a waste of time that limits potential and enjoyment of life.

Hopefully this post helps someone who is piece-of-shitly considering messing with somebody. Decide against it. People are generally too dumb for hi-octane mind games without suffering a bunch. Your negativity spreads and has actual effects on the world.  It's not worth it: you might win a few points, but you will compromise the game.