20 Hidden Sci-Fi Movie Gems To Watch On Netflix

By Tom Baker /

5. Awake

Jason Isaacs doesn€™t have the best luck on television. In film he€™ll forever be remembered (and forever get some sweet royalty cheques) for paying Malfoy€™s evil dad in the Harry Potter franchise, but on the small screen he has hopped from critically-acclaimed commercial failures like crime drama The Brotherhood, to perennially underrated procedural Awake. That might not be the best way to describe Awake. Whilst it does have the structure of a police procedural, with crimes to solve every week, there€™s an added wrinkle: Isaac€™s detective was in a car crash, and his wife died. Except, when he goes to sleep, he wakes up and it€™s as if his son died and his wife is still alive. The Life On Mars-esque mystery sustains the story arc that runs through the whole series, and sometimes discoveries in one €œreality€ help him solve cases in the other. It€™s a very effective, brilliantly acted and well written sci-fi cop drama with some visual flair owing to Hard Candy director David Slade working on it. Somehow, it only lasted one season.