Last Monday, 13.5 million people watched the first episode of Under the Dome, making CBS’s thirteen-episode miniseries based on Stephen King’s 2009 novel the highest-rated scripted summer debut in six years. Of course, King’s output has been big business ever since the first television adaptation of one of his works aired in 1979, and each successive decade has even put its own spin on the author’s output — anthology series one-offs in the eighties, multi-part movies and miniseries of the nineties, and remakes and made-for-TV stories of the aughts. Dome also presented Vulture with the perfect opportunity to follow up on last spring’s ranking of all 62 Stephen King books; to come up with this definitive second countdown, we spent countless hours watching and rewatching the many episodes, shows, movies, and miniseries produced from his novels and stories, as well as a few things he wrote directly for the small screen...
