Reverie

It is a great concept, but poorly executed. I feel disappointed. I was expecting better. It feels too repetitive, not really building on the story. I'm was just bored by the 3rd episode. I realized my eyes had glazed over, and I had lost interest before the first commercial of the 3rd episode! Hoping it gets better, not yet giving up on it.

First....it's a great plot and concept, whether it's based upon 'The Cell' or not and it's clearly well cast, specifically utilizing a very under-rated actress Sarah Shahi.

I'm a sci-fi geek to begin with and find myself struggling to watch most series and movies of that genre because of poorly conceived plots and assemblence of poorly casted actors/actresses out of their elements. Yet this one has all the special effects, characters/personalities that mesh, believable and well-conceived story-lines, etc....and comes close to really pulling off a great series.

I think NBC has a winner here and look forward to this show developing and growing into the potential it has....it'll be interesting to see how they can keep the underlining concern and issues of the main character, who has some deeply set issues of her own to deal with outside of her admirable instinct to preserve the lives of others first.

I know that Spielberg signed his name under this and I can't hold it against him, who's going to produce Sci-Fi if he won't? But when he signs his name he also needs to exercise some actual creative control, slap that stupid guy and send him back to do a rewrite instead of being an absentee landlord. He made the same mistake with that nonsense show in which dinos "liked to eat nickel" by a "great mind" of that Braga creature.

Sci-Fi is a genre of ideas, genre for smart people. Melodrama is genre for stupid people to wipe their tears on stupid "oh so emmo" concoctions. They don't live in the same universe and if you mix that you lose all audience. Melodrama lovers can't understand even a single word of Sci-Fi and Sci-Fi lovers puke when they see sappy "designs". Every character has a "sad backstory" which stinks on PVC and formaldehyde beyond endurance and destroys what could have been a decent average show.

In this show every episode is a steaming pile of sap concoctions. What was supposed to be the Sci-Fi "part" was spent in 16 min of the 1st episode, 8 of the 2nd, 4 of the 3rd 2 of the 4th, 1 of the 5th. Then it flatlined but didn't awake as The OA :-)))

Seriously, if he wants to do something really good he needs to stand behind a show like "The OA". I'm sure Brit Marling wouldn't have refused extra budget :-) and a better distribution channel and he'd have something he'd be proud to show around instead of having to hide his name (literally in this case).

The sole bright spot of this show is Sarah Shahi. She's in that class that can make a wooden pole look alive at the other side of the frame but she can't revive brainded scripts - even gods have their limits :-))

So, Steve, be nice, next time, give Brit this budget and you can ask Sarah to join her latter :-) At least she'll get to practice some good non-verbal acting and to learn text that is worth something.

This pilot episode takes me back to the movie "Dreamscape" which depicts a near future (1980s era) where psychic individuals from a government funded agency can enter people's dreams. While visiting people's dreams and changing their outcomes (to help their waking lives) they discover a conspiracy. Some other agency is also entering people's dreams.

What if we could go back and correct our mistakes? What if we could prolong our happiness forever, or re-visit whenever we needed a boost?

Like Westworld, this show is about fantasy. To create a fantasy around ourselves, and the pitfalls inherent.

Sarah Shahi plays a role very different from the assassin in Person Of Interest. Does well in the first episode.

The narrative is slick, the CGI is convincing and the storyline requires empathy.

The only negative is the quick and easy way that the problem was resolved in Episode One.

That said, the show has promise, and I do hope that it will remain interesting.