TV Review: AWAKE is Sending me to Sleep - Two Birds 1.12

A lot can be said of Awake, I’ve certainly said plenty about it in recent weeks following its cancellation by NBC, that penguin back in episode six should really have been built on more as that was probably the first time Awake dealt with one case in the two realities. Moving onto to last weeks “Say Hello to my Little Friend” and once again Awake pulled it out the bag providing us with it’s best episode yet, build that again to this weeks “Two Birds” and Awake again provided us with a brilliant episode where the conspiracy has finally started to bleed through both realities. This is something which should have been happening a lot more, as everything which spiralled from the accident should have had a consequence in “red” or “green”, had we been given that Awake may well have fared a little better when NBC were handing out second season orders to their shows.

I have really enjoyed Awake the last two weeks but again find myself in a position where I don’t really feel like I want to go into to much depth, after all next weeks season finale will be the last we see of the show and I feel that the cancellation has effected my view on weekly proceedings since then. I really haven’t felt emotionally attached to the show like I was in the beginning, of course I still want to find out which dream is real and see a satisfying conclusion to the conspiracy case, but I'm not holding my breath.

The reality of the show is the one which most people will be wanting answers to, which is it? Red or green? Recent episodes have been focused in the red dream and have certainly started to sway my opinion somewhat, like last weeks falling incident at the fair ground, Britten woke back up in the red dream. That as we all know is a sign of dreaming, however this week they swapped that one round when Britten was shot he woke back up in the green dream, this makes me more inclined to go back with this being the actual reality.

I find that when I watch Awake I don’t really care about any of the other characters involved, I only want to see Michael Britten and only care about his story. There are a host of other things going on however none of them seem to interest me. Vega for instance, not interesting at all, although this is the fist episode where he seems to have sat up and took any notice at all. Captain Harper, not interesting she seems to want to hear Britten out back in the green dream, but you can’t help but think that’s only to cover her own tracks, again I don’t really care. That building where all the heroin was being stored (don’t remember and can’t be bothered to look up its name), this is the centre of the conspiracy, but again I’m not interested.

After all is said and done about Awake you really do have to tip your hat to Jason Isaacs, this guy is a brilliantly talented actor and if anything he has put his name back in the spotlight for the right reasons. In Particular this episode he portrayed Michael Britten as a
man on the edge, at breaking point with some style, note Jason Isaacs looks like a mean ass motherf**ker sporting the unshaven look.

I suppose you can call that more of a summing up than a review but lets face it there is one episode left now and yes I will be watching it hoping for answers to the questions which I have posed above, it will be nice to see Awake rounded off properly with no loose ends left to tie up and I think Kyle Killen will be looking to have that done for us tonight.