Awake

Awake grabs you, unnerves you, breaks your heart and even makes you work a little.

If Killen and Gordon don't exactly maintain the quality of the pilot each week - subsequent episodes don't look as rich nor pack as big an emotional whallop - they come close enough, particularly in dealing with Britten's work and family lives.

Awake manages something impressive: it focuses unflinchingly on the subject of loss, yet manages to be not a downer or painful to watch, but moving, absorbing and even hopeful.

I'd be happy enough with this cast and this concept to simply wander along for a bit, ignoring the trail of bread crumbs and focusing on the lengths one man might go to hold onto those he loves.

On Awake, the concept is all. Consequently, it takes a little explaining.

It's mentally exhausting, at least in tonight's opener, to figure out exactly what the heck is going on here, and in which reality we're placed at any given moment.

Viewers who don't regularly contemplate alternative-reality issues probably should tape the show as well as watch it, because the non-expert may have to watch it twice just to figure out what's going on, or even to understand what parts we don't understand.