Notes for Episode 19: "Awake"

Hello everyone, and welcome to your first set of patron notes for 2025! That's crazy... we started this podcast in 2023... and now it's much later. I'm really, really grateful to have you all here. I'm also really proud of the "huge doctor" riff in these notes, which is for my money the funniest thing we've ever written down in one of these. I just can't stop laughing at the idea. A huge doctor coming at you like that scene in It Follows. It's absurd. See you all next month!

• Plot / Structure Stuff:

  • It’s kinda fucking insane that this wasn’t already like, a movie from the 90s

    • That SHOULD’VE been the Lostalike promise. 22 episodes of a 4-star movie from the 90’s, every season, for five seasons

  • Given how amazing the pilot was it’s gonna be wild to see what a “normal episode” is like. Is it near or at that standard?

    • No

  • I didn’t expect it to get into wife/son plotlines that don’t actively feature Michael so soon… interesting choice! I think if it was really leaning into the “which world is real” it’d have a very Michael-limited perspective but that seems less important

  • This “little guy” thing is so funny because like……it really demonstrates how the show is building these really effective narrative beats out of ways you would teach a child about the concept of “opposites” 

    • Network TV, innit. That’s what this medium is for

  • Again, between this and Day Break it’s like… the promise of a Lostalike is that you can do the coolest fucking setups for a cop show imaginable

    • The suspect gets shot so to get answers from him you have to talk to him in the other world???

  • This show really does fly through premises like crazy because it’s episode 3 and they’ve already done “he takes sleeping pills to travel to the other world”

  • The stuff about the two worlds drifting apart at the end of episode 5 is really cool, they really had a lot of fun episodic ideas for how to iterate

    • And there’s no like, mechanical discussion… he doesn’t say “if I move to Oregon, will that break the world-swapping?” It’s totally irrelevant!

  • Funny that the conspiracy has not shown up ONCE since episode two. In a generous way you can say that’s X Files pacing, in a less generous way it’s the network being like guys we need a Lostalike mystery and we need it stat

  • Ok the hostage taker in episode 6 knocking Michael out with a syringe of ket and forcing him into the other world is FUCKING SICK

    • LET THE RECORD SHOW THAT HANNAH CALLED THE TWIST WHERE HE WAS HALLUCINATING DR. LEE

  • The middle stretch, 7-10, are… not great. They focus so much on the cop plots and so little on either the crazy dual universe stuff or honestly even the personal stuff. Not much from Hannah or Rex in these episodes

  • Okay the pregnancy stuff is really good, that needs to be the fucking bread and butter of the show

  • This is the rare show that I think would have been better if it was an 8 episode streaming thing. There’s just undeniably 5 hours of fluff here

• Character / Performance Stuff:

  • Dylan Minette only ever plays fake sons

  • In Esther’s words: “That really is such a Hannah character. The beautiful wife who’s tragically dead but maybe not”

  • I think it’s such a good choice that he has troubled but fundamentally loving relationships with the surviving family members. He’s not just Jack Shepard

  • STEVE HARRIS FROM THE PRACTICE

  • There’s so many dads in these shows that flip a Parental Acting Switch and do very generic expressions of parenthood when a scene calls for them to have depth. But Michael is a fucking father

  • I was skeptical they’d be able to wring new emotional premises out of this concept but I find the idea from episode 4 that Michael can’t understand Rex’s grief because he’s not himself experiencing any grief at all really compelling

  • I like that Michael IS just unhinged. Like even if he’s right he’s constantly doing unhinged dangerous shit. He’s a violent thug

  • Technical / Aesthetic Stuff: 

  • This is instantly much more visually stylized than most network shows of the era

  • The score is really nice… the duo behind it works with Tykwer and the Wachowski sisters a lot it seems like

  • Shows that are actually set in Los Angeles just have such a cheat code in terms of having a sense of place lol

  • This show sometimes has the insane NBC Hannibal backlighting and it owns

• Notable Quotes:

  • “For me, the room upstairs isn’t empty” is such a good emotional beat

  • “We got views in this city, right?” “Hell if I know”

  • “I’d be very disappointed if you woke up”

  • Michael Britten on sports: “For me, the game could go either way. So it’s hard to get invested.” 

  • “That’s me! Through the window, I see me!” That’s so fucking good

• Cute Things We Said:

  • This teen’s bedroom is so sick. Eric Adams would plant drugs here

    • Welcome to our new sub-podcast, Popular Knapsack

  • Oh my goodness oh my goodness oh my goodness. I’d love to be the wife in this situation. It’d make me so fucking wet (obviously this was Hannah speaking)

  • Kyle Killen must go fucking nuts when he’s out about his day and he sees two of something. Like if he sees a guy walking two dogs he’s like holy shit… what is the one dog, in relation to the other dog

  • I think it’d be really disturbing to have a huge doctor

    • Like imagine you’re going in to urgent care because a sinus issue is fucking you up and a 6’11” guy stoops through the frame. I’d think I was dying. I’d think monsters were real on Earth

  • They found searches on the kid suspect’s computer… “how to kill father” “Oedipus” “Oedipus myth how to win”

  • I get that they’re setting up a love interest thing with Tara the tennis coach but I think it would be really funny if in the green world everyone just has that relationship with their tennis coach

  • This is also very SVU because of how it writes various random denizens of LA with a lot of spice

    • “EY MAN IT’S THE CITY OF A MILLION STORIES. WHO WILL YOU BE, HERO OR VILLAIN?”

  • Alfred. The Riddler is asking me green questions

    • Michael’s often asked green questions

  • The hoops in episode 12 are from the defunct Contintental Basketball Association. The Yakima Sun Kings are versing someone with white and gold jerseys

    • The best we can do is: an exhibition game with the Albany Patroons vs. a team in Cavs colors with CBA on the front of their jerseys

    • I would guess we’re looking at footage from the 1980s, because that’s when the Patroons had that silvery colorway