‘Falling Water’ washes over dream world in new USA series
LOS ANGELES – Blake Masters and Henry Bromell had a dream about making a show about dreams. Their idea – which is the premise for the new USA Network series “Falling Water” – suggests that we all are linked by a collective unconscious, but the only way we can tell is through our dreams.
Masters and Bromell came up with the idea in 2000, but Bromell died in 2013. Masters has decided to push forward with the idea, using the script he and his writing partner had created. How the sleepy time links work will be revealed in the new 10-part series from Masters and Gale Anne Hurd (whose producing credits include “The Terminator,” “Aliens,” “Dante’s Peak” and “The Walking Dead.”)
Their show focuses on three central characters:
Tess (Lizzie Brochere) is a trend spotter who is haunted in her dreams by a young boy she knows is the son she supposedly never had.
Burton (David Ajala) is the head of security for a financial institution. He is trying to deal with a woman who is the love of his life, but first he must discover if she is real or a creation of his dreams.
Taka (Will Yun Lee) is a detective who is dealing with images from his childhood. Lee’s character begins to embrace the dream world because he is so broken when he is awake. The dreams are his escape.
“What happens on this other side of this kind of falling water, this waterfall, is the dream side, and he slowly starts getting things that help him become a good detective,” Lee said. “But as he falls further and further into the dream, he starts getting clues that start linking all three of our characters together in finding this is cult obsessed dream group.
“I think it’s kind of all our flaws bring us into this on the other side of the falling water, on the other side of the waterfall, but it all starts bleeding back into the real world, and that’s kind of how we start finding each other.”
These three stories are only revealed in snippets and not as clearly as with most opening episodes for a new show. That’s in keeping in line with the idea by executive producers that everyone is dreaming parts of the same dream. Their world is being presented like a giant mosaic where viewers will have to piece together the parts.
The only things made clear in the opening episode is that these characters can walk into each other’s dreams and what happens in a dream is not some subconscious erratic blast of ideas and events but actually the other half of our lives.
Vague elements are revealed in the first episode, but Masters, whose credits include the Denzel Washington-Mark Wahlberg film “2 Guns” and the TV shows “Brotherhood” and “Law & Order: L.A.,” stresses this other life is the basic premise of the show.
“Everything else beyond that is character in a way. So I think that there are answers to the setup of who is that boy that Tess dreams of, what was Jones doing, all those things,” Masters said. “By the end of the first season, we’re going to give you all those answers. We are not a show that’s going to hold back our answers because we think the people, these three fabulous people, are interesting enough to keep you watching because there’s always more road for them to travel.
“I’m not interested in keeping secrets from the audience. In terms of pacing, I think by the end of the first season, all the questions you have, you will have all the answers.”
Revealing the secrets means no one will lose any sleep trying to unravel the concept.