Sunday, May 27, 2012

What I’m Watching: Awake (Series Finale)


Awake: Season 1, Episode 13 “Turtles All the Way Down” (B)

I’m not sure how this show could have ended in a both satisfying and coherent way. I am pleased that the final moments of this season do provide some fitting closure since a second season, not unsurprisingly, will never see the light of day. Though it was strange to see Efrem dressed in a penguin suit pointing out the specifics of the event at which Michael was not present, it did help to sew up the case and allow him the satisfaction of getting Harper to be held accountable for her actions in one universe after she got the upper hand on him on the other. Transferring knowledge between worlds was always the best part of this show, an underdeveloped concept that could have been used more productively. It was effective to watch Michael walk down a hall towards an unknown door, with his two therapists bickering behind him about what it meant, and then to have him open it to enter his home, only to see his son, and then his wife come out to greet him. The problem with all this is that it doesn’t make any sense, and just delivering a happy ending without any sort of justification is a bit of a letdown. I think that this show, which was initially plugged as an “Inception”-style drama, could have been improved by taking advantage of its format more and providing a more exciting story, not simply a cop drama split in two. Ultimately, it did prove interesting, but hardly as invigorating and exciting as I and most others might have hoped.

Season grade: B-
Season MVP: Jason Isaacs as Michael

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