The three of them are connected in hazy ways, clearly by their dreams and some larger purpose, and each moves through their separate lives with the suspicion that all is not quite right. The person who seems to be drawing everything together is Bill Boerg (Zak Orth), who stalks and corners Tess to convince her to take part in a creepy sleep study that proves his theory that cerebral connection is possible. He's the one who actually gets to the point more often than not. It's through him that the show finally gets to the point at the end of its hour-long pilot as his sinister voiceover reveals there is a war being waged over the dreamscape.There are a lot of Big Ideas presented in Falling Water's pilot, and the show clearly thinks very highly of itself. If it was a bit more compelling from the start, it might justify its aggressive intellectualism, but dialogue like "Bring me the ocular proof" come across as pretentious. While the show offers numerous rich opportunities to dive into interesting themes, it's often too on-the-nose with its metaphors -- there are no fewer than six instances where the camera lingers close up on falling water in the pilot -- causing its abstract storytelling to lack necessary substance.
For all that its pilot makes it seem like it could skew too similar to Inception, Falling Water does feels unique on the TV landscape. It's Bill Boerg's final voiceover and the corresponding imagery that offers the best hook for the show. It feels like there's a cool mythology under all the highbrow storytelling, if only you're patient enough for it to present itself. There's a lot of bizarreness here that seems only included for the sake of being bizarre -- hey, why wouldn't Tess ride on a scarier version of the Knight Bus when she's in a dream? -- but there's something to be applauded for picking a challenging style and committing to it.This is a pilot you need to pay attention to, with the sense that storytellers are expecting you to memorize the little breadcrumbs being dropped for when they're paid off down the road. At least Falling Water isn't out to play games with its viewers; it's clear when a character is within a dream verses awake, though it also seems intentional that everything on the show has a hazy, dream-like quality. Bigger stories are at play -- something to do with Topeka, Tess's mystery child and whatever that thing is that's vibrating. The real question is whether Falling Water will be able to stick the landing after it's asking for so much of viewers' faith up front.