...
In a way there is no point talking about Awake at all because it is certain to be cancelled by NBC in the next few weeks. Pace the New Yorker the critical reviews have been mixed and the ratings have been disastrous. But before Awake disappears forever into TV hell I decided to watch the pilot episode on iTunes.
...
Ok so what did I think? Well the first thing to say is that this is not a show that should have been made on network TV. 40 minutes is not long enough to hit the story points of a conspiracy and to solve two different police procedurals. It would be tough to do all this in an hour on HBO but on NBC each homicide investigation gets about 15 minutes tops of screen time which is less even than on Law and Order. Everything feels very rushed and not in a good way. On the plus side I liked Jason Isaacs in the lead and the supporting cast was ok if a bit lacking in charisma. There are two therapists in the two realities, one of whom tries to nurture Isaacs, while the other is more confrontational and I really liked this idea. As I say I felt the stories were all a bit too hasty and I also wonder if it was a good idea to go this dark this early on Awake which begins with an Elizabeth Smart style rape and abduction of a child.
...
There was one clever moment on Awake that really got my attention however and that was when Isaacs was talking to his therapist and wondering if his reality was all a dream. She considers this, goes to the web and prints out a copy of the US Constitution and asks him to read a piece of it at random. He reads an obscure passage and then the therapist asks him how its possible that he could gain knowledge of something he had never read before in a dream. In dreams you can't acquire new information you can only process information you already had. I enjoyed this scene very much because I've had exactly the same experience in my dreams. When I've been suspicious in my dream that I was actually in a dream I've tried to read books that I know I haven't actually read and every single time the incongruity has woken me up. I know this isn't a dream that I'm having right now because with a couple of clicks I can go to Project Gutenburg and read a page or two of the Encyclopedia of Needlework or the Castle of Otranto books I'm pretty sure I have never read before (of course I can't be metaphysically certain). I thought that Jason Isaacs would immediately raise this issue with the more confrontational therapist in the other reality but (at least in the pilot episode) he did not. Maybe this has been solved already in the episodes I havent seen but if not I hope that NBC gives the creators of Awake a few weeks notice before they pull the plug so that they can come up with a plausible solution for this nice epistemological conundrum.
27 comments:
There was an article recently in Entertainment Weekly (which I can't find at the moment, sorry) that quoted Aaron Sorkin as saying that, "TV is all middle." Movies and novels have a beginning, middle and end but TV series are all middle.
So, that's where the problems start. If a show has some long issue to be resolved - if in the new show "Missing" Ashley Judd actually finds her missing son - it's over. If there's no long issue - CSI, Law&Order - then it's just variations on the same thing over and over.
Network execs want as many episodes as possible so they like the variations on the procedure - cop shows are perfect and I don't think there could possibly be a cop show premise too ridiculous to throw out at a pitch meeting - I thought "Alien Nation" would do it, which just shows how limited my imagination is.
So, what network TV is after is the perfect merging of long story arc and procedure. This show sounds ideal - two worlds! Imagine the possibilities, it could go on forever!
Or until the long story drives everybody crazy and they give up on it.
By being all middle, TV series rarely have satisfying endings.
The sad thing is that NBC has had some very good, if quirky, shows and then inevitably reschedule them against fluff that pleases more people. meanwhile, they lose people who really like unusual shows. I like Awake because it's fun to figure out how the two lives will connect, and Jason Isaacs is very attractive as a lead. I know this show will probably not last too long, but I plan to enjoy it as long as I can. NBC is so frustrating.
John
Its interesting that David Lynch never wanted them to find out who killed Laura Palmer but the network (ABC I think) insisted that the mystery was resolved and that of course killed the show. But you're right too much baroque mystery drives people crazy. I never watched Lost but that was the problem there I'm told and thats what happened to Battlestar Galactica: too many layers of unnecessary complication.
Lil
Jason Isaacs is terrific isnt he? His accent is flawless and he somehow plays low key and grief stricken in a way that isnt boring, which has got to be tough to do.
NBC will kill Awake soon. Its been getting a 2 rating in the youth demos. The really bad news of course is that it will probably be replaced by a reality show about housewives in a part of the country that hasnt been covered yet.
Well, this summer NBC will be running another Canadian show, "Saving Hope," this one set in a hospital.
Cops, hospitals and lawyers.
I'm surprised there hasn't been "Life on Mars in a hospital," yet...
John
Wasnt there a hospital show called Chicago Hope? Do all hospital shows have to have hope in the title?
How about "Hope's Hope" a plucky illegitimate daughter of Bob Hope who works in Detroit Hope, a hospital in an area of the city savaged by unemployment and deprivation.
I've been watching Awake for reasons not entirely clear to me. I've actually been watching a lot of television that I wouldn't have bothered with because I can watch them in sequence on my computer.
Jason Isaacs is attractive, but he has seemed a bit low wattage on the two shows I've seen him on--the other one was that British one based on the Atkinson mysteries.
Personally, I think this was a bad premise. It's problematic because the main character has no grief, and so can't really share the feelings of either his son or his wife. The wife seems not to be dealing with the death of a child in the way any mother I know would do it. But even if she was, how can he possibly be of any comfort to either of them if he doesn't believe that their experience is real?
I don't entirely buy the premise of the dream conundrum. I'm always reading things in dreams. If there's no one way to prove yourself wrong, if someone hands you a copy of the Constitution in a dream to read, why would you question the words on the page? I'd probably be a bit surprised about a clause on Martians, but I'm sure I'd find a way to explain it to myself.
Here is my much more succinct hit on Mad Men. It just doesn't work without the Betty and Don factor.
Seana
Well you know the show a lot better than I do from one episode but yes in that pilot the wife's reaction was a bit strange to say the least (unless she's in on the conspiracy? if there is a conspiracy?)
You must be a lot more creative in your dreams than I am because I can never fool myself into thinking the dream is real. As soon as I starting testing the dream world with the book trick or something like it it all begins to fall apart.
I never liked Megan as an actor or as a character so its been somewhat dismaying to have so much of her this season.
The joke in my house is how boring my dreams are. I have very real-feeing dreams where I'm waiting in line at the bank. A couple nights ago I had a dream I was mowing the lawn on a football field. At least I was on a riding mower, but I just kept going in circles. I'm sure dreams are meaningless.
Seana, I agree with you bout Mad Men. It has become (even more) a soap opera. And it's painful to watch Don fall out of touch. "When did music become so important?"
I sure hope they're going to do something interesting soon.
Based on your description, Life on Mars popped into my head, BEFORE you even mentioned it. I really dig Jason Isaac, especially when he was on THE BROTHERHOOD(still wondering what happened to that show?) It does sound intriguing, but I'll pass, for the exact reasons you mentioned.
The execution is flawed, but alternate realities are definitely fun to think about--a Slider multiverse, an eternal return with history that doesn't repeat exactly yet rhymes, the Goldberg Variations played out through an infinite number of universes alightly ajar, subject to the laws of probability.
When Cormac McCarthy drew his self-portrait, he showed himself at his typewriter. Under his signature, he provided a caption which is a Bob Dylan quote from "Talking World War III Blues" (which appeared on The Freewheelin Bob Dylan album).
It says, "Them old dreams is only in your head."
But the unconscious may be deeper than materialists generally acknowledge or than scientists have yet discovered. Talking with Garry Wallace about spirituality, McCarthy said he used LSD back before it was illegal, and absurdist author Tom Robbins said that he was a materialist atheist before his own spiritual LSD experience.
I tend to agree with what renown scientist Julian Jaynes wrote in THE DAWN OF CONSCIOUNESS. There are dreams, and then there are visions.
It is fun to think about alternate universes, but they do have to be well executed or it's just a waste of time.
I am not a more creative dreamer, probably just a more gullible one. But another problem with that therapist's test is that the dream in the show is not like anyone else's dreams, being continuous and sustained and replicating reality so closely. It doesn't seem like anything ever strikes him as bizarre or illogical. One thing I always think when I'm watching it is, wouldn't this guy start to feel awfully tired?
John,the one thing I did enjoy was seeing Pete Campbell smile like an actual human being for once.
I do think dreams have meaning,though. Look to the metaphor.
Yeah, Seana, I agree about Pete. I admit I was surprised when the insurance guy said, "Your old man died young, but it was in a plane crash right?" I'd forgotten that about Pete and that's the kind of thing that might be interesting to explore as Pete builds his life in the suburbs without his father to talk to. I guess there's a fear of cliche, but instead all we got was soap opera.
Though I hope we see Beth again...
John, Seana
2 things puzzled me about Mad Men. How come when Don puts on the Rubber Soul it plays the final track on side 2? And Pete's reading The Crying of Lot 49?
Sean
I like J Isaacs too and thought he was pretty good in this. Certainly the best aspect of the show.
Rich
Jaynes sounds like an interesting cat. Dan Dennett likes him so that puts pretty him up there for me.
I of course didn't pay any attention to what Pete was reading, and I haven't read Pynchon, but a lot of people seem to wondering that out on the web. Here is one take.
Seana
Aha so I was right! I recognised the edition. Its not the one I own but I know it.
You should read some Pynchon. I've read them all and I'd be the first to admit that they're not for everyone. Vineland might be a good place to start for someone in your locale.
Adrian, Megan tells him which song to start with.
Though the choice fits the show, it doesn't seem like the one Megan would have chosen.
Not reading Pynchon is one of the indicators that I did not hang out with the lit crowd in college. I don't know if I'll get back to him at this point. The clever names don't work in his favor for me.
John, yes, I'd forgotten about his father dying in a plane crash too.
John
I must have missed her remark, I was too busy focusing on his stereo equipment I suppose.
I own Revolver in vinyl (dont know why I said Rubber Soul (I have that one too, much better album if you ask me) and its a very patchy record indeed. Its pretty much a disaster: the cheesy mixed with the unmemorable and the bland. I think if any other band but the Beatles had put this out it would have disappeared into oblivion. Its striking too that right at the time Don is listening to the establishment's version of rebellion, only a few blocks away the Velvet Underground is performing.
Seana
Just cos the cool kids like it doesnt mean it isnt good. I still liked The Art of Fielding even though it was the book all the wankers were recommending.
Right, I'm not against Pynchon. I think I just didn't get the cues that some of my friends did at the time. But I do have a feeling that that particular ship may have sailed.
Funny--Jason Isaacs is Mr. Darling/Captain Hook in the Peter Pan my sister and her kids wanted me to watch. It's about ten years old, but he is a true chameleon, always a good trait in an actor.
One of the themes of Mad Men, particularly in this series and the last, has been the fairly square personnel of the agency trying to get their heads around some of the new stuff that is going on in the world around them. I can see Pete having a crack at Pynchon for research purposes.
I've been a fan of Awake since it started. I had a pretty good idea that it would not make it to a 2nd season; any TV show that requires a tiny bit of attention span or thinking is generally doomed.
Awake reminds me of another recent favorite, "Rubicon". That show was similarly doomed because it required people to pay attention and it didn't offer a quick resolution.
I see a future for Isaacs. He's a good actor in the right roles. I also liked him in the UK series, "Case Histories".
Well, he was great, if virtually unrecognizable as Captain Hook in one of the more recent Peter Pan adaptations.
Post a Comment