Awake Pilot Review

I've just seen NBC's bold new drama "Awake" and in a word, I found it fascinating. Stripped down to the nuts and bolts, Awake is a police procedural drama. Similar in that respect to the show it replaces in NBC Thursday night line-up; Prime Suspect. What holds Awake apart from that show, and every other cop show is that it has one of the boldest, and most innovative premises I've ever seen on network television. Awake is about a police detective named Michael Britten(Jason Issacs) who was in a very bad car accident. The twist is that he's now living what appears to be parallel lives. In one reality his wife Hannah(Laura Allen) died in the accident, and in the other his son Rex(Dylan Minnette) died. Michael doesn't know which one is real, and while he's in one of the realities the other one appears to have been a dream. 

He also has a therapist in each reality which Michael distinguishes by wearing a colored rubber band around his wrist. In his wife's reality he wears "red", and in the other he wears "green". The Red Therapist, named Dr. John Lee(B. D. Wong), and the Green Therapist, named Dr. Judith Evans(Cherry Jones) both are working to convince him that the other reality is just a dream, and is simply his subconscious trying to deal with the trauma he's been through. The show handles this premise extremely well. Some shows might feel the need to over explain everything, and dumb it down. This show did not do that. While it took time to explain the issues, and strangeness of what he was going through it allowed the audience to join him in discovering it rather than having everything explained to us. 

Jason Issacs as Detective Britten is obviously the center of this show. Not simply as the main character, but as an experienced and respected actor. Having him in virtually every scene helps make those around him better, and holds the show together. Since the premise is so strange that kind of stability is necessary to keep people interested, and coming back week after week. Some people may recognize the Michael's son. Rex is played by Dylan Minnette who also played Jack Shepard's son in the final season of Lost. Minnette already has some impressive scenes in this episode, and really help us understand who he is, and his relationship with his father. 

As I said at the beginning, the show is in actuality a procedural cop drama. Every week Britten and his two different partners will be trying to solve two different cases in the two different realities. The show was also smart in this instance. Instead of having the same case, or similar cases in the two realities the cases are totally different. However, small clues and facts seem to connect them in what most people would see as coincidence. For example, in the first episode he's tracking down a man who shoots cab drivers, and a man who has kidnapped a young girl. The building address in one reality matched the parking lot space number where the girl was taken. Since no one else is privy to the information from both realities Britten is the only one who seems to notice this. His revelations seem confusing to his partners, and his explanation of "a hunch" is less than satisfactory. 

The mystery of the show clearly is trying to figure out which reality, if either, is real, or a dream. There are four possibilities I guess:

1.  Red is a dream, Green is real.
2. Green is a dream, Red is real.
3. They both a real some how(most unlikely in my opinion)
4. They both are a dream.(I find this to be the most likely at this point. Perhaps Britten is in a coma, or even dead) 

I hope #4  didn't solve the show after the Pilot. That would be disappointing. As we all know though, I'm not that smart so I think we're safe. 

My one worry about the show is that how long can we go with this premise? There are aspects that I think really work in the long haul. For example, the growth and journey he takes in either reality will continue to make him a different man, and that really would be an interesting and exciting thing to watch. I don't think that is enough though to keep it fresh week-to-week. In the Pilot it was cool to see how the two realities helped him solve the cases, but I don't think that would remain as interesting. We'll see it coming and it will just be another "oh he figured it out at the last moment" show. Perhaps not, there's a chance that he will be unsuccessful in some cases, and maybe it will be fun for us the viewer to try and solve the case before him. Since the clues are displayed right on screen, we should be able to find the connections each week. 

I really hope NBC gives this show a full chance. Due to the strangeness of the premise I'm sure the ratings will fall as your average TV viewer changes the channel to Grey's Anatomy, or The Mentalist. Give it a chance NBC, you have a truly innovative show on your network. There isn't a single show anywhere that is like Awake, and that is VERY impressive. That goes for you folks too. Give the show a chance, and support it. If only so that Network TV knows that we like more than reality TV.