It’s been available On Demand and online for a couple weeks now, but, due to some family issues, I didn’t actually get to see the pilot for the new show Awake until last night. And I’m not sure if I’m going to keep watching. One of the problems with interesting premise shows on network TV is that they have to fill 22 episodes with interesting stuff and that often leads to significant fluff being introduced or for long term plots to proceed at a snail’s pace. On cable or premium channels, with only 10-12 episodes needed, the shows move much faster. So, I have some concerns about the science-fiction parts of Awake (namely the multiple universes) actually meaning something or just being a background piece that gets some play in once or twice a season. So, let’s check out Awake.

Mike Britten(Jason Isaacs) is an LA police detective who got into an accident in the family car. When we join the show, we find out that Mike is living dual lives. In one life, his son died and his wife survived. Then when he goes to sleep, he wakes up in a universe where his son lived and his wife died. He has separate partners, separate psychiatrists and works a separate case in each universe. Both of his psychiatrists try to convince him that they are in the real universe and that his dreams of the other universe is a coping mechanism because his wife or son died. From Mike’s point of view, he gets the best of both worlds, since he gets to see both his son and his wife (although not together). But, he does have moments where he freaks out because he has trouble remembering which universe he is in.

To help out the viewer keeping things straight, the different partners(Wilmer Valderama and Steve Harris) and different psychiatrists(B.D. Wong and Cherry Jones) are complemented by slightly different color schemes with one universe being slightly red and the other slightly green. With all the slight differences, it was fairly easy to keep track of which universe Britten was in at almost any time (except for the freak out scene where they purposely left it vague).

The show is very similar to the movie Sliding Doors with the multiple universes, but it’s a police procedural at its heart. Most of the pilot has to do with Britten trying to solve his two cases (without confusing them) and using things from one universe to help solve the case in the other universe. But, I doubt much is going to happen from the multiple universe angle (and most reviews of future episodes seem point that out as well). It’s a decent police procedural, but that doesn’t really interest me. And since I doubt they are going to deal with the multi-universe angle much, I’m probably not going to be watching the show much longer.