«Reverie» Has Many Dreams, but No Ambition
From the very start, Reverie was primed to catch my attention. Between starring Sarah Shahi and being super-reminiscent of my videogaming sacred cow Dreamfall, there was no way I wasn’t going to be interested in the series about lucid controllable dreams, the people who become addicted to them and consequently slip into comas, and the hostage negotiator who attempts to save them. That it looked gorgeous only helped, as does the fact that its primary cast is overwhelmingly composed of people of color.
That said, the more time passed between that first trailer and the show’s actual airing—about a year—the more apprehensive I became. While that trailer did a good job of selling the show’s concept, it made far less of an effort to sell the characters—never a great sign. Furthermore, there was no guarantee that the series’ potential could be met: for every Person of Interest, a series that smartly analyzes the implications of its premise, there’s a Designated Survivor, which despite being about the people tasked with rebuilding the U.S. government, still somehow finds little to say. And sadly, the first episode of Reverie seemed to resemble the latter more than the former, spending too much time on mechanics, and too little time on their implications, or making a case for why the audience should care. The second episode, although a considerable improvement, largely followed suit. And that’s a shame: if I’m never going to get a Dreamfall series—and that’s never going to happen, even though Chloe Bennet and Melanie Scrofano are right there to play Zoë and Saga, respectively—then I’d love to see this become the next best thing.
I’m adding pics from Dreamfall because I already have them, and they describe the series just as well as anything from the actual show.
Chasing Sheep 