‘Awake’ – ‘Pilot’: Seeing red and seeing green

reviewed NBC’s “Awake” yesterday, and since the pilot has been available online and On Demand for a couple of weeks, many of you have already offered your thoughts on it. But since I figure at least some of you still watch TV on TV, and on a more traditional schedule, here’s one last opportunity to discuss the first episode. Did you find the shifts between worlds easy to follow? Did you prefer one world (or partner, shrink or family member) to the other? Given the subject matter, did it feel too depressing? And do you plan to watch more?

As I said in the review, one of the smartest things Kyle Killen did was, as Britten insists on doing in his first session with B.D. Wong’s Dr. Lee, skip over the beginning of this phenomenon and start in the present. Britten’s been experiencing this for a little while, and has started to adjust to it, with the biggest change to his situation coming when one case starts to offer clues to the other. I’ve seen too many shows similar to this waste too many early episodes explaining the premise over and over and having the hero be incredibly slow to adjust to it, but Mike Britten’s a simple, straight-forward guy. He sees what’s happening, just accepts it and goes on. (Though he has moments of occasional doubt, like his harrowing breakdown when he wakes up in the red world and Hannah’s nowhere to be found.) And though Hannah Britten has largely, understandably rejected what he tried to tell her about Rex, there’s that beautiful moment at the end where she quietly accepts that this is what Mike believes is happening and asks him to tell Rex she loves him.

So what did everybody else think? Looking forward to discussing the show in the weeks ahead, just to see which parts people respond to most strongly.

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