2011-12 Fall Preview: NBC.

You know how I always say, "Life's too short to watch bad TV?" Well, today I discovered something: Life's also too short to watch bad TV previews.

NBC has a ton of new shows coming up this season. Most of them were just aiiight. Not terrible, but also not terribly original. You know, some workplace comedies, some yuppie comedies, some detective dramas. Snore.

And then I saw It. You know, It. The show that makes you sit up and say, Wow. I've gotta watch that RIGHT NOW.

That show is the midseason drama Awake.

Here is the plot: A guy gets into a car accident with his wife and his son. The guy wakes up and his wife is alive, but his son is dead. He goes about his day with his wife, trying to cope with his son's death. Then he goes to sleep, and wakes up, and...he is now living in a world where his wife is dead, but his son is very much alive. He goes to sleep, wakes up, and he's back in the first world. Back and forth.

I am stunned by how terrific this show is.

Just think about it. In one world, he cannot tell his wife that he wakes up in an alternate world where their son is alive but she is dead. She'd think he was crazy. In the other world, he is trying to raise his son as a single parent. No matter which world he's in, he can never properly grieve for the loss of either his wife or his son, because technically, they are both still alive. Wow!

To make things more interesting, the guy is a detective. (On NBC, there are only two professions: Detective and Office Worker.) He solves crimes in both worlds, and sometimes the clues overlap, and he has to piece together what he knows from both worlds to figure out the clues in the world he's in. Neat, huh?

I'm not sure why NBC is holding this winner back until midseason. I mean, why put us through Free Agents when you don't have to?

(Pictured: The promo photo for Awake. Are you as excited as I am?)