NBC has cancelled Awake after one season. Unfortunately, that’s normally the fate of intelligent TV shows. Most folks would rather watch Jersey Shore.
Jason Isaacs is an excellent actor. I also preferred the father/son scenes to the husband/wife scenes.
At first I couldn’t quite place Valderrama. He seemed familiar, but not quite recognizable. Turns out he was an actor in That ‘70s Show. I sometimes stumble across reruns of that series when I’m channel-surfing. I’ve never seen more than 30 seconds at a time. On that program, from what little I’ve seen of it, Valderrama is soft and swishy, with a girlish high-pitched voice. So it was refreshing to see him play a more masculine character in Awake.
Awake was a mystery. The mystery genre is difficult to sustain. If the mystery angle is what makes the drama interesting, and the screenwriters solve the mystery too soon, the drama loses interest. If, on the other hand, the screenwriters string us along for too long, the audience becomes impatient, bored, or resentful.
Now that the show has been cancelled, will the screenwriters accelerate the storyline and solve the mystery in the last episode of the series finale, or will they leave it dangling?
If this was an SF series, the most plausible explanation for Detective Britten’s bewildering experience is that he’s been immersed in a virtual reality program.
Of course, you also have the parallel universe scenario in SF, but technically, that involves you experiencing your own timeline and your counterpart experiencing a different timeline–rather than the very same person alternating between two different timelines.
But it’s harder to make sense of Britten’s experience on conventional terms. One problem is that you have scenes with other characters when he’s not around. But if he were imaging all this, then he’d have to be in every scene, at least as a spectator, to see and overhear what other characters are saying and doing. Of course, this could just be careless storytelling. Screenwriters often generate inconsistencies by taking narrative shortcuts.
Awake toys with the ancient, perennial conundrum of whether we can distinguish illusion from reality. Can I prove that I’m really awake? For instance:
To be sure, that’s more of a philosophical curiosity than a genuine concern. Most of us don’t worry about whether we’re trapped in a never-ending dream.
I’ve had a few lucid dreams in which I thought I woke up, only to realize shortly thereafter that I simply transitioned to a new dream. I was dreaming that I was awake. That’s a very odd sensation.
I was wondering if the series would end with him waking in a hospital bed with both wife and son dead but him solving the murders while in a coma. Dream-within-a-dream.
ReplyDeleteOne of two or three shows I watch.
Gone, like Rubicon...
I’ve had a few lucid dreams in which I thought I woke up, only to realize shortly thereafter that I simply transitioned to a new dream. I was dreaming that I was awake. That’s a very odd sensation.
ReplyDeleteIndeed. I've even had a lucid dream where I dreamt I woke up and told my brother I'd just had a lucid dream. Weird stuff.
Have you ever experienced sleep paralysis, Steve? It happened to me once, and I would have been really freaked out, but luckily I'd heard of the phenomenon before, so it was only mildly disconcerting. I woke up, opened my eyes, and was paralyzed: I couldn't move a muscle, except my eyes. It took about a minute before the rest of me woke up. Also weird.
Well, hello Zilch!
ReplyDeleteIn the comments section of this post, Steve provided some URLs related to Old Hag Syndrome, and ended by saying..."And I'm inclined to think old hag syndrome is demonic."
When I experienced sleep paralysis in my early years, it definitely felt demonic. I have found that too much sugar in the diet can bring it on for me.
I usually have enough presence of mind during an episode to know my wife is sleeping next to me, and call out to her to her to wake me up - albeit not clearly! Once, when she was doing so, I was simultaneously exerting all of my strength inside the dream to move my arm. She didn't duck and that was certainly an evil outcome.
Not that anyone claimed otherwise, but for clarity's sake lucid dreaming isn't necessarily identical to sleep paralysis, and sleep paralysis isn't necessarily identical to sleep paralysis with hypnagogic and/or hypnopompic hallucination(s). (By using the term "hallucination" I don't imply the hallucination can't be real.) These can involve various senses or sensations including the visual, auditory, tactile, proprioceptive, cenesthopathic, etc.
ReplyDeleteIn any case I think we need to distinguish between the medical (e.g. neurological) and paranormal for starters. Although it's also perhaps possible it could be both.
axis- so too much sugar is demonic? I'll go along with that- it certainly has unpleasant consequences. And I can see why someone might think that the supernatural is involved- it's definitely a bizarre feeling.
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear about your wife not ducking. Ouch. But accidents happen, even to atheists.
rocking- you're right, sleep paralysis is not the same thing as lucid dreaming. I merely mentioned it as another weird sleep state.