We told you way back in October that reportedly-mid-season new NBC series Awake was taking a break in production to sort of regroup. We have been waiting ever since then for NBC to announce when they will air the series, but so far have only heard the crickets chirping.
Happily, on Tuesday NBC released new posters for the series, to accompany the first episode photos they had already posted, and we bring them all to you now. We are VERY HOPEFUL that their release of these new photos is in advance of an announcement that the series will finally be given its start shortly.
We’ll give you two reasons why we’re really looking forward to this series:
1) The cast. Jason Isaacs is the star and he is exceptional. While he is most well-known for sporting a long white-blond wig and kicking a house-elf (yes, he played Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies), he’s been in dozens of other series and movies. (As an aside, we once again quietly shake our fists of rage in the air at the powers that be who demand that British actors must use fake American accents in American productions.)
Also in the cast are Laura Allen of Terriers and The 4400, Dylan Minette of Lost and Let Me In, Steve Harris of Friday Night Lights and Eli Stone, and BD Wong of Law & Order SVU, Oz, and Jurassic Park.
2) The premise. We love multiverse stories in their varying permutations. In case you’ve forgotten, here’s the press release and the TV spot:
Lots of people find themselves leading some kind of double life… but none quite like this. After Detective Michael Britten wakes up from a car accident with his wife and teenage son, he learns the devastating news that his wife died in the crash. Trying to put the pieces of his life back together, he wakes up a few days later to realize that his wife is very much alive and his son died in the accident! Did he lose his wife or his son? Or neither of them?? What if your life split in two in the face of a situation like this, and you could actually have everything you wanted, just not all at the same time?
Michael goes back to work solving crimes while trying to put things back on a “normal” track, but alternating between realities provides some challenges – one moment he and his wife are grappling with having another child to replace their loss, and the next moment he’s finding himself attracted to his son’s tennis coach to fill the void from the loss of his wife. At the same time, he is solving crimes in each world which sometimes overlap in fascinating and inexplicable ways. Is he dreaming or going mad? Michael begins seeing two different therapists to help him sort things out, but then again why would he want either “reality” to go away when the totality of both means having his family complete?
From groundbreaking writer Kyle Killen (Lone Star) and starring Jason Isaacs (Brotherhood, Harry Potter) comes a drama about the power of the mind, where the inception of life is a mystery and reality might just be overrated.
As always, we’ll keep you posted.
