Since I don't really follow TV properly, I don't really have a clue what is airing right now and what is decent, what I do seem to find however is I discover an interesting show, then find out soon after that it has been cancelled. So while I wait for Supernatural and Teen Wolf to air again, I'm planning on doing sporadic 'should it have been cancelled?' reviews. I just won't put that in the title, since apparently 90% of my audience wont read something with a subtitle. Enjoy!
As touched upon, Jason Isaacs plays a cop called Michael Britten who loses his son in a car accident, finds himself in counselling and is having to deal with a wife going through the most basic forms of grief. However when he goes to sleep, he awakes in a second reality, a reality where his son survives the crash, but his wife dies. To keep himself in check between the two realities, Britten wears a green rubber band in the reality his son survived, and a red one in the one where his wife survived, unsure of which reality is the real one. And although not exactly an original concept, the original set up is strong. The two counsellors Michael sees say the opposite of one another, in this almost tug of war, they battle with which reality is the real one, Michael battles with which reality is the real one and we battle with them too. The central accident that is the catalyst for all of this is largely unexplored for much of the series before a slightly left field twist towards the end, that explains all...sort of. Overall the execution of the central concept is a mixed bag...in some senses it works really well...in others less so, which I will attempt to explore throughout the review. Awake is kind of of Life on Mars meets Inception.
A show with this many twists and mysteries makes it easy for you to get swept up in it all. But if you cling to the sides, take a deep breath and really think about this, none of this really makes any sense. Why are some characters completely different between Green and Red? If you are a surgeon in one universe, how is a different person dying who is completely unrelated to you going to mean you are a tramp? Plus, this isn't even consistent, there are seemingly no rules, for every surgeon in one, tramp in the other there will be a character with a much more subtle difference, in one world they get the job and the good life, in the other they don't and their life unravels. And the villains too, sure in one reality it goes well, in another it goes bad but in either reality they are still the same people, still driven by the same motivations and so on, they aren't different in either reality, they just meet different ends.Why the inconsistencies? And it still has absolutely no logical correlation as to whether the son or the mother died. Even the show itself, can't quite seem to make up its mind, even when it is drawing attention to these differences as plot points. Early on in the show it is suggested a higher power of sorts is manipulating and building these cases (subtle and not so subtle differences and similarities and all) to somehow create clues for Britten to tell him which universe is the real one. This brought central importance to the otherwise filler like police cases but then later on in the series, even characters that have nothing to do with the case he is working on, become central to the mystery and it makes you wonder why the case is there at all. Plus they add this whole schizophrenia thing into the mix, even though we already know people are manipulating him, although that could be a delusion too and ah! I mean don't get me wrong, it is fascinating to see the different directions characters go, this show was really calling for a larger central cast, but I just wish the show, a show all about the details, just made more sense of it all, it demands more focus, a tighter pace.
And if you must know, by the end of it all there is...nothing. The whole dream thing...really has no place in its own show, it's more coincidental than anything else. Was a mysterious force behind it all along? Was he in a coma? The Matrix? Recall? Dead? Well...we don't ever actually find out. And in the end, Awake turns out to just be about a few dirty cops with some heroin who try to take out Britten because he is getting too close. In the end, his dreams are really a side story in the overall show, just given central focus. And as such, we never do get answers to what exactly was happening to him through the season. Awesome. Well that leaves me with a thousand and one questions, thanks.
If you just take this as a cop show, the weekly whodunits are interesting enough. That is really all I have to say on that, because I was too frustrated that the cases never really tie into the mystery of which world is real and so they can feel a little disconnected, filler-like almost. I didn't come for a cop show, I came for the mystery. I know Britten uses one case in one world to solve another, and each one is apparently a clue, but it just doesn't come together quite as well as other parts of the show. This can make the pacing feel a little off and can make episodes feel a little more stretched out than needed. The cases, ultimately, feel somewhat rushed. With two different cases per episode, plus time concentrated on the central question which gets more and more complicated as the series goes on, there really isn't much investigation and there is barely any investigation in the usual cop dramas, so in this one it just feels rushed. It doesn't just effect the pacing, either, most of the actors put on a great job, but I find it difficult to really feel anything/care about an actor of a week, no matter how much ability they had, because I never had any time to get attached to their character. Especially as they play two completely different characters with the two characters easily ending up getting ten minutes of screen time between them and that is like the max. I just can't help but feel Awake would have worked better as a movie, two cases - one for each universe, that hold all the answers to which reality is the real one, it would have felt tighter, and less rushed and given us more time to appreciate everything. I mean this show is thirteen episodes long and still feels like it is struggling, so could you imagine if they kept this and tried to drag it out for eight seasons?
Plus the way this show is structured, doesn't even really make sense within itself anyway. I know American TV likes to make things episodic so people can jump in wherever they want and not be confused, something I despise immensely but I know they do it for ratings and money and whatever. But even with the two self contained cases a week, you could not just jump into this show wherever you wanted. Sure there is a small intro every episode to kind of introduce the overall concepts but I can barely follow this thing and I've watched it from the start, so I don't think you have any hope if you started like half way through the series. And so in the end, it just leaves me frustrated, because the pacing - this need to ram in these episodic self contained cases is what makes the show feel like such a mess because it takes so much time away from what could be exploring the central concepts, which in the end are barely explored at all.
I mean seriously, Awake is extremely hard to follow. Well...not exactly, the show is never difficult to follow as such, but jumping between completely different worlds - and you can be looking at six or seven times in one episode, all with the same actors and sets which all do something depending on Red and Green, just means you're being chucked around so much you can barely get your bearings before it throws you somewhere else. It is easy to get relaxed and realise you aren't paying attention to the details. Cases especially, quickly blur together, since the general overview is the same, it's just the details that are just changed and it gets really easy to forget which detail goes with each case, it's easy enough to pick up again, but often at the beginning and end of each jump, I think I am more confused than Britten is. Plus, these aren't just basic cases, some of the villains of the week are really interesting, with lots of little details added to the case which often end up dropped without explanation because they run out of time. This is a show all about the details, so it could do a better job of keeping you fixed to them.
Look, I don't hate this show, okay? So let's try to be positive. One thing the show does really well, is keep itself grounded, there are fantasy moments, the strange, CGI penguin that wanders around straight from a storybook for example or the way he exchanges dialogue with the cop from Britten's imagination right to stepping from scene and rewinding, pausing and fast forwarding 'reality' but in the construction of the show, you find yourself seeing Britten as more of a nutter than anything else, your first reaction isn't 'oh yes, someone was trying to kill him' it's 'this guy has made up a fantasy conspiracy theory', this makes the show a lot more interesting because you find yourself questioning him, more than you do the show itself and he is the only one we can really trust.
And don't get me wrong, the central chemistry between Britten and his family is strong. Every actor does a great job in this, as said, but really Britten and him dealing with his wife's grief in the one universe and his sons in the other is the only real times we can have any real emotional investment. I found myself especially invested in Rex, Britten's son, as I can relate a lot to a teenager dealing with his mothers death and all the things that come with that, because it happened to me. But although I can't really relate say to Michael and Hannah's failing marriage it is well scripted enough, that I still felt deeply moved by it. The fact that Michael gets the best of both worlds, but then in the end each world starts to go south felt like perhaps a somewhat bitter, but honest representation of reality which gave the show a certain sense of groundedness, even with Michael flipping between realities which allowed me to at least at moments, really appreciate things - I just wish the show had more time, and more focus.So do I think it should have been cancelled? Awake isn't the problem, the network is. There is an interesting, central mystery screaming to get out that never makes it with a well acted character piece of someone struggling through loss and mental illness but No! Says the network, we must water down every episode to stretch out the concept for as many episodes as we can! No! Says the network, we must make every episode self contained, even when it doesn't make sense too! And thus, the show falls apart - you can't tell two self contained cases, have character development and exploration of a central mystery every episode, when each episode is forty minutes long. I mean the show tries, it tries its hardest, but all that means is the show is jumping around all over the place, corners are cut and you are left blinking trying to follow the damn thing, you'd have better luck keeping pace with the Flash. If this was done in like a British Special format or as a movie, even with a not so original concept and lacklustre conclusion, this probably could have been really enjoyable, Awake isn't a bad show so much, and with only 13 episodes, I can't tell you to avoid it but I'm still not surprised it got cancelled, it got crippled by the American TV Format.
Think About It!
-Locke
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