'Awake' on NBC HD - Page 5

These are not dreams. No sign of sleep depravation. I see three parallel realities following the same timeline. The two that are obvious and the third that he is dead.

Well, I guess we're not going to be seeing any stories from that third timeline.

Anyway, as a leading proponent of multiverse theory in TV shows, I'm with you. Gives them a way to explain all this in the series finale. But what concerns me is if this is what they ultimately have in mind, the lack of any other sci-fi tropes mean a sci-fi explanation of the primary plot driver would be coming totally out of left field.

I don't thnk the writers have decided yet which one the the real one yet, IF it's only one, or even one. Because I don't think it has been decided, I doubt that any CLUES we see are genuine.

I feel rested and energetic in my dreams, maybe because I'm asleep.

I only feel sleepy when I'm awake, maybe because I'm not asleep.

**not reading**

I forgot to watch last night's episode. I'll catch it this weekend.

Last night's episode certainly suggests that neither one is the one and only real one. After all, we saw scenes in each where the main character was not present (the bike repair and the conspiracy meeting at the end)

this.
was I the only one bothered by it? it took me right out of the story.
there's a technical term for it, something about violating the p.o.v.
who has dreams about what other people do?
in order to be a story about a person who is dreaming, that person MUST be in every scene or the premise falls apart.

I'm no dream theory person by any means, (in fact I hardly ever even remember my own dreams), but as long as the things happening in the dream are connected to the dreamer (son, wife), is it not possible for the dreamer to simply be an "observer" of the things going on to his emotionally connected loved ones? But the whole thing is obviously not simply standard dreaming by regular definition anyway IMO (if it's even dreaming at all). Thought the brief mystery progressing segment at the end was quite interesting. First, to hear the Captain complain to the man, "Why did you have to kill off his whole family." in regard to the "crash", indicating that neither wife or son lived. Second, that it obviously raises a bunch of questions about who's doing what to whom and why is it being done? Opens a whole raft of possibilities. Unfortunately from a review article I read the other day, it sounds like they completely avoid any further exploration of the Captain and that little reveal in at least the next couple episodes...


ron

I have. I'm a lucid dreamer and it's probably why I like movies and shows like this. In some dreams I have wondered about other people and instantly saw where they were and what they were doing as if I had remote vision.

This seemed like an ordinary ability in my dream. Why? Because we have a similar ability in real life. Say that you know your friend is at the grocery store right now. You can create a mental picture of your friend in the checkout line or something similar.

You know this is an imagined image of course. When we're awake we know that we've manufactured this vision and it's not real. In dreams this distinction is not clear for some of us.

There have been interesting papers that describe watching movies as something like being in a dream state because we're seeing things from points of view which aren't possible in real life.

Maybe our assumptions about the premise of the show are incorrect and inaccurate.

No logic in that assertion, seems to me. The perspective in this show is omnipotent, not from the central character's point of view. Among other things, if it were from his point of view, there would presumably be no camera shots of him except reflective. Also one might dream about scenes and scenarios wherein the dreaming party is not an interactive player in the dream vignette, so.....

Besides, as I read the premise, we are not made witness to anything that occurs in the man's dreams -- he falls asleep, then awakens into two distinct alternating realities -- whatever he dreamt about has not yet been explicitly featured from the omnipotent view. Of course one or the other reality might be a dream, the whole construct might be a dream (or other such psychic invention), or we could just go with what they are giving us: two distinct realities alternate upon each day's awakening.

Regardless of what's really going on, a fun thing friends and I are discussing is which reality seems more "real", the warm one or the cool one?

The warm reality seems more real to me because people are more harsh to him. The shrink wants him to dump this fantasy world where he pretends his son is alive. He boss was on him for wasting his time interviewing a crazy homeless person. He's being pushed to quit his job. He's not been a good cop so far.

The cool reality had a complicated crime which he brilliantly solved using vague hints from the other reality. His female shrink is visibly impressed with his apparent ability to use his superhuman "subconsciousness" to solve crimes and almost wants him to embrace the dual reality he's living. That sounds more like a fantasy to me.

I think the show got a lot more complicated with his boss in a conspiracy to keep him from finding out that both his wife and his son were killed. That could be the "reality" and one dream is his wife is still alive but his son is dead and the other dream is his son is still alive but his wife is dead. These two dreams might be controlled by his boss or someone in the conspiracy. I think the show will get more complicated before we see any answers.

I really like this show. I'm a fan of the main character since Brotherhood. I know exaclt what is going on in the show. It's... doesn't matter. This show will not last. It's too high concept for the masses. It will go away just like Journeyman...sad but true.

This.

I'm really loving this show. It requires thinking in order to enjoy and follow it. They don't just give you all the answers on a silver platter. Nielson families want shows that they can watch with their brains turned off. Awake will be lucky to last 1 full season.

So I'm going to enjoy it until it's inevitable cancellation.

That's all we can do, I'll be in the same boat

My wife's been saying up and down since this show was first announced that it would work much better as a mini-series. I think there is some truth to that. When they first conceived of the show, did they really think they could go multiple seasons/years with people still wondering what is the real world and what is the dream world? It's better for a shorter, closed environment IMHO.

That's what they said about Lost. People always underestimate what writers can think up. Whenever there's a show with an unusual concept, the Internet is full of people saying, "Well, jeez, I've seen two episodes now but I can't imagine where this show could possibly go. That means there's no way it can last."

They're a reason why they're television writers and we're not. They were hired because they can think up things that we can't imagine.

That also points out a huge mistake with this show. It's desperately missing attractive actors. That's why lots of people watched Lost even though they didn't understand what was going on (like eventually all of us).

Come on. Laura Allen might not be Evangeline Lily, but she's no Cherry Jones either. And for the men, I thought Wilmer was supposed to be attractive.

Are you suggesting that Awake can go beyond the premise of "Which is the real world and which is the dream world?"

IMHO, Lost never limited itself out of the gate. This seems to have already bottled itself into that one question, "Which is the real world and which is the dream world?"

It already has. See my previous post:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...6#post21762306

The commercials now say, "One man in two dreams."

But the scenario that his boss is trying to control him may not be real. Only time will tell.

Two thoughts:

1) Nothing yet confirms that there even two worlds, let alone that one is the dream one and the other is the real one. Both could be real, or both dreams, or either, or both, something else.

It might well be that there is only one world which features alternating realities sequencing on the basis of night/day cycles -- that is the closest to what they are representing to be the case, seems to me. We don't even really know if this is our Earth, and our protagonist human.

We do know that whatever this reality is, it seems very different from our own, so could be just about anything....seems like one or both states might be produced through dreaming maybe, but I've never ever dreamt anything that had the kind of sequential cause/effect flow of both these narratives.

My dreams at least are a jumble of some coherence, but with elements which profoundly break from empirical time/space continuity, for example landscapes, new scenarios suddenly making appearance where they otherwise have not naturally evolved from say, driving there through an interval of time.....

2) So....if this can be just about anything, it could go just about anywhere the writers want it to go. Remember VANILLA SKY? -- suddenly some sort of sci-fi flick makes a jail break from psychological thriller country.....

To me, that's two worlds. Two realities, two worlds.

OK, perhaps a matter of semantics, but the poster I was quoting had said "dream world' and "real world" -- now semantically that identifies two worlds, but I think most of us recognize that those same words could characterize our one world, where we have a "real" life but also a dream "life".

So in that context, those two worlds become our one, just as I allowed for two realities (as opposed to "real" and "dream") to be two parts of an otherwise unified/connected construct, or world, we are being shown. My impression is that these two parallel pathways are two realities, not one a "dream" and one "real" -- neither looks or feels like any dream I've ever had -- too rock solid clear, logical, lucid for a dreamlike state. And my sense is that they both take place on one planet, or the same world, or the same psyche, though you could semantically bifurcate the dichotomy as "two different worlds altogether"... if that suits your whim of the moment....

But please note, I also allowed that it could be whatever the writers wanted it to be -- maybe this is two different, though analogous, people on two entirely separate planets or planes of existence. My point was that we really have no idea yet what we are seeing, therefore the writers certainly are not limited as to how they could make this run for years.

Example: two seasons he alternates between dead son/wife, next two we start to see evidence of two dimensions, next two seasons they introduce a third that becomes known as the "sideways".....

Then, near the end of season four, out pops a magic cave...

We do not know if he is living the same date twice or skips a day each time he awakes.
What happens if he stays up 48 straight hours? Does he then have to spend 2 days in the other reality to catch up?
What happens if he takes a nap in the middle of the day?

This is the right track, I think. Captain Harper (Laura Innes) told the mysterious conspiracy dude that "you didn't have to kill his whole family". I take that to mean that, for some overarching reason we don't know yet, Michael is living a life where both his wife and son are dead. Therefore, both "lives" are a dream.

I was thinking we'll have to wait and see if we actually get to see either Rex or Hannah interacting with any other people other than Michael, a la The Sixth Sense. But we did, when Rex and his friend Cole both came over to the house and later when Cole brought over the motorbike for Hanna to ride. (Did anyone else get a flashback to the iconic movie Vanishing Point during that scene?)

Of course, Michael could have dreamed up both of those scenarios, and maybe Cole is dead as well - we never saw if there was anybody else in the tumbling car, maybe the back seat...? We'll need to see them interact with more people to verify or rule out that theory.

I think you're on to something...

Maybe he's in a coma ... or just completely mad

I'm suggesting that this may not even be the premise, and that you're jumping to conclusions about it after only two episodes.