It's too bad 'Awake' doesn't rest easily

Jason Isaacs is a cop with two lives, which switch every time he wakes up. (Credit: By Michael Desmond, NBC)

If only all were well that started well.

Were that true, Awake (NBC, tonight, 10 ET/PT, * * 1/2 stars out of four) would easily establish itself tonight as one of the season's best new shows. The premiere concisely introduces a wonderfully intriguing premise — a man who can't be sure which of his parallel lives might be real — and fleshes it out with a strong acting ensemble and an interesting set of characters.

And then come the next three episodes. And instead of digging deeper into the premise, more complications are piled on top of it, to the point where you don't just have trouble remembering what the show is supposed to be about, you have trouble remembering why you liked it in the first place.

In a way, Awake is something of a mulligan for creator Kyle Killen, who tried a variation on this double-life theme in the critically praised but viewer-rejected drama Lone Star. Here, instead of a con man with two wives, you get Jason Isaacs as a cop with two lives, which switch every time he wakes up.

Having regained consciousness after an auto accident, L.A. police detective Michael Britten (Isaacs) discovers he's in two timelines. In one, his wife (Laura Allen) survived; in the other, it's his son, (Dylan Minnette).

To further muddy his waters, he now has two partners (Steve Harris and Wilmer Valderrama) helping him solve two different cases, which sometimes intersect and sometimes don't. He has only one boss (Laura Innes), but she has sent him to two psychiatrists (BD Wong and the always-welcome Cherry Jones), both of whom are certain the other is a dream.

Emotionally, it's a difficult premise to carry off; after all, there would seem to be a sad ending for Michael whichever way he turns. But with considerable help from Isaacs' empathy-inducing performance, tonight's episode does an excellent job of pulling you into his dilemma and making you understand his urge to hang on to both worlds as long as he can.

Yet the further the show moves, the more that understanding frays. In coming weeks, links between the cases become more baffling, and Michael's emotional journey gets buried beneath a growing conspiracy (the last thing this show needs) and the introduction of a new character who may be onto his secret.

As characters drop in and out, it also becomes harder to keep track of what world we're in at any one moment. Yes, the show uses different color schemes to separate them, but they're so similarly bleached out, they're not much help.

No one wants to return to the color-by-numbers plotting of Diagnosis: Murder, but there is such a thing as demanding too much effort from an audience without sufficient reward. Glum, grim and increasingly confused, Awake qualifies. And while this isn't really the show's fault, it has the whiff of a program bound to exit before it answers the questions it raises.

That may not sound fair — but waking or dreaming, life in TV seldom is.