Monsters of Television

I didn’t do a post about the pilot episode of Awake because, well, it had plenty of folks singing its praises, and I was also more interested in what the show’s second episode was going to be. (And because, months ago, I thought Nick and I had decided he was going to handle it, but whatever! Slacker.)

I wanted to wait for the second episode because Awake is a show that is juggling a lot of balls (all of which are actually very compatible in my mind), and how the show manages to keep those balls in the air is what will determine its success, not how well subsequent episodes live up to the pilot. This is also connected to the idea that Awake simply isn’t sustainable as a television program, an idea that was widely circulated by TV critics who had seen the initial round of episodes (4 of them, I believe.).

Even after the first episode, and after seeing this one, I felt that Awake was sustainable just as it is. But then “The Little Guy” has to go and do something idiotic. Truly idiotic. Unnecessarily idiotic. And while I don’t think it’ll kill the show, it’ll certainly detract from what the show is ultimately about. Read more »