Last dark , something really particular premiere on NBC — Awake , a new show about a gentleman trapped between two alternating realities . But really , Awake is about the mogul of dreams , and the ways in which grief can feel like a pipe dream you ca n’t wake up from .
Spoilers ahead …
It ’s only March , and already 2012 has given us two movie - quality TV archetype — the first being the first time of day of The River , a show which has thus far failed to populate up to that first episode ’s potential . alert is unquestionably another pilot that almost palpate a movie compressed into an hour , both with its lovely imagery and with its deft , fascinating character development . It ’s rare to getone moving picture - quality pilotin a given year , so two in two month is awful .
TV Pilots That Are as Good as Most Summer pic
In Awake , Jason Isaacs plays Michael Britten , a cop who ’s capture in a car fortuity in the pilot ’s opening instant . And afterwards , Michael finds himself in two realness : one where his married woman died , one where his son died . Every sentence he goes to sleep in one worldly concern , he wakes up in the other — but neither of them feels like a ambition . This show pours all of its originative energy into making both realities feel equally fleshed out and valid . Not just in Michael ’s relationship with his wife and kid , but also in his kinship with his fellow cop and in the cases he solves . And in each reality , Michael is solve a dissimilar case — except that the cases seem to cross over .
It could be horrendously gimmicky , especially if it leaned too hard on the “ police adjective with realism - crossing ” vista . Instead , because it rest focussed on Michael ’s fictitious character and the weird liminal state of being in both humans at once , it ’s a beautiful , haunting facial expression at grief . As Michael says at the end of the first sequence :
Yes , I still see my wife and my boy . But I ’ve also watched both of them lowered into the ground . And when you see a loved one buried , you have one thought over and over and over again : and that ’s you would do anything , anything to get them back . So if you ’re telling me that the toll of seeing them , feeling them , of have them in my sprightliness , is my sanity , it ’s a price I will happily pay .
The truth about brokenheartedness is that it is a madness , in which the someone or people you ’ve lost are still there in your life . They ’re tangible both by their absence seizure , the empty space they entrust , and by all the trace they ’ve left behind . Grieving people are literally insane , in that they can not conciliate themselves to the real earthly concern the rest of us live in .
Michael Britten ’s last name is given , in that it evokes the composer Benjamin Britten , who wrote one of the most beautiful Requiems of the 20th century , the War Requiem . ( At left . )
Anyway , the worst part of grieving is that everybody require you to act normal — and they ’re perpetually looking over your articulatio humeri to verify you ’re okay . Not so much out of business concern for you , as vex that your madness is pop off to swage the normal order of thing . In Michael Britten ’s showcase , his fellow cops are worried that he ’s losing his shit . In one world , he ’s assigned a brand raw partner , the freshly promoted Det . Efram Vega ( Wilmer Valderrama ) who ’s put to report on him to the gaffer . In the other , he ’s still partnered with his good friend Isaiah ( Steve Harris ) , who also starts questioning his weird behavior .
Some of the most disturbing , fascinating parts of Awake ’s pilot come when Michael is with his two therapist — in both universes , he ’s been assigned to go see a different therapist . One is Dr. John Lee ( B.D. Wong ) , who bug him and points out all the ways in which the pillowcase he ’s investigating in the other domain could serve as a metaphor for his post in this world . The other is Dr. Judith Evans ( Cherry Jones ) , who is more blue-blooded — to the point where Dr. Lee says her passivity is proof that she ’s not real . When the two therapists start notice on each other ’s statements , it ’s almost too beautiful .
And in many ways , Awake feels like a show about weird therapy , in which both therapists are trying to get under Michael ’s peel in different ways .
None of this would work nearly as well if Jason Isaacs was n’t so warm and so weary as Michael Britten . His lined face and pale eyes convey several layers of feel at any throw instant , as Michael puts on a hardy human face at piece of work and sample to be a just husband and father to the two lonely survivor of the motorcar wreck . Isaacs conveys a man who ’s shin , and establish it look sort of effortless .
But we can already see that it ’s not croak to last — Michael is already hold to recur to wearing little color - coded bracelets , to prompt himself which reality he ’s in at any given moment . And when he wakes up in the earthly concern where his wife is supposed to be animated and the layer is empty , he freaks out , catch a tongue and slicing his hand to see if he ’s really alive and this is really happening — only to have his married woman show up .
Meanwhile , both Hannah Britten and Rex Britten are shell out with their own grief in different way . Hannah is have a immense cause to move on and reconnect with her husband — she ’s painting the house , although she ’s leaving Rex ’s elbow room alone for now . And she ’s speak about kick the bucket back to school , possibly in Oregon . She even gets Michael to go out to dinner with her in a non - cop suit , and then seek to seduce him — until he starts obliquely tattle about his pipe dream of their Logos . Meanwhile , Rex aim up lawn tennis ( his mama ’s sport ) and turn over out to be really good at it … until he wins , and then falls to his human knee sob .
The other thing the show does deftly is to create two separate cases with enough twists and turns to be satisfying — the trouble of this exploit ca n’t be minimise , since many TV shows struggle to make one character interesting , have alone two . In one reality , Michael is enquire a murderer who kills in camouflage and mugs for the telecasting cameras — until Michael realize the killer whale is the witness he interviewed at the fit of one of the murders . In the other , he look into the murder of a yoke , whose small miss turn out to have been kidnapped by a pedophile sociopath … and he finally figures out the killer had a house trailer , where he ’s keeping the missy .
Because this is a internet television set show , Awake set up some long - term mystery story apart from the huge , central one of what ’s happening to Michael . fortunately , this particular set of mysteries is in reality compelling , and make do to debar feel like something out of Lost or whatever . The biggest mystery is the events leading up to the car accident that kill either Michael ’s wife or his Logos — was he drinking ? Why ca n’t he think anything about it ? Did something come about that dark that people want hushed up , and is that one reason Michael is under so much examination ?
And then there ’s the closed book of interweaving cases — even though the two cosmos seem wholly separate and fully realize , there are weird crossovers between them , including in the cases that Michael investigates . The number 611 turns out to be important in both cases , and Michael is able to apply this fact to make progression in the kidnapping case . Plus the criminal in both man has reddish tomentum .
So is Michael woolgather in one world or the other ? ( If it turns out that neither humankind is real , and he ’s actually in a coma in a existence where both his wife and his son are alive , I will hold my television localize out the windowpane . ) Is this literally a story of a serviceman scotch universes , or is it some kind of magical spectral journey ? It almost does n’t matter at this point what ’s “ really ” happening — so far , Awake is rescue a beautiful metaphor that point how grief can sense like a ambition you ca n’t wake up from , or maybe a waking dream . If the show bring home the bacon in deepening this metaphor over the following episodes , we could have a young classic on our hands .
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