English actor Jason Isaacs sheds his Lucius Malfoy persona from Harry Potter and takes on the lead role in this clever new US police drama series with a twist, Awake.
Issacs is Michael Britten a police detective who has just returned to work after a car crash that has changed his family forever. As Britten and his wife cope with the death of their son. He learns to work with a new partner Detective Efram Vega played by Wilmer Valderrama (That ‘70s Show) and receives counselling from a psychiatrist Dr Lee, played by gay actor BD Wong.
When Britten goes to sleep at night he wakes up in an alternative reality, instead of his son being dead, it’s his wife who perished in the car accident. In this reality Britten and his son deal with the loss of a respective wife and mother. He returns to work where he still works with his old partner Isaiah Freeman played by Steve Harris (The Practice). In this reality Efram Vega hasn’t been promoted and is still in uniform and Britten attends regular counselling sessions with psychiatrist Dr Evans, played by another gay actor, Cherry Jones (24, The Village).
Both psychiatrists assure Britten that the reality he is speaking to them in is real, but Britten is unable to determine which version of events is real and which one is imaginary. To complicate matters further, details in the different cases he investigates in each reality begin to appear in both versions of events.
This is a show that you have watch closely, fearing that you might miss a little clue that is dropped along the way, and as the show progresses I imagine there will be a growing preference for one reality over the other, for both the central character and the show’s viewers.
To help differentiate between the two realities Britten wears a rubber band on his wrist, a red one for the reality where his wife is alive and a green rubber band for the reality with his son. The show has been filmed in subtly different colours to allow the viewer to differentiate between the two worlds. It’s a slightly more sophisticated story telling technique than sending Gwenyth Paltrow for a serious hair cut.
The combination of Issacs, Valderrama, Harris, Wong, Jones and former E.R. star Laura Innes – who plays the precinct captain in both realities – makes a striking ensemble cast and a top notch drama. It’ll be interesting to see if the premise is able to go the distance for a long running series, but based on the pilot episode, I’ll be setting my Foxtel IQ to record episode two and beyond.
 Awake commences on Foxtel’s W on Wednesday April 11.
Graeme Watson
