Written by series creator Kyle Killen, "Pilot" earned a Nielsen rating of 2.0, being watched by 6.247 million viewers upon its initial broadcast.

The pilot introduced the main character, Michael Britten, a detective who works for the Los Angeles Police Department.

The concept of Awake was devised by Killen, who previously created the American television drama Lone Star for the Fox network.

NBC encouraged Killen to conceive a concept for a future television series after Lone Star's cancellation.

Detective Michael Britten (Jason Isaacs) is at therapy sessions with Dr. John Lee (BD Wong) and Dr. Judith Evans (Cherry Jones).

In the "green reality", his partner is Isaiah "Bird" Freeman (Steve Harris), while Efrem Vega (Wilmer Valderrama) is a uniformed officer.

[1] It was described as a procedural mixture that is based on the life of a detective experiencing a parallel universe after a car accident with his family.

[2][3] Killen previously created the American television drama Lone Star (2010) for the Fox network, which was canceled shortly after airing two episodes due to low ratings.

[4] Killen stated that the cancellation of Lone Star was a good platform to explore new ideas for a potential television show.

[5] In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he further elaborated on the conception of the series: My wife is an ER doctor and she once had a patient whose chief complaint was that they were covered in worms.

"[5] Jennifer Salke, the president of the entertainment division of NBC,[7] encouraged Killen to conceive a concept for a future television series after the cancellation of Lone Star.

[8] Korman phoned Salke, and stated that the script was "remarkable", and praised Killen claiming that "for a guy who has never written a procedural show in his life", he is "making two cases work".

[8] Although it successfully made its way into the lower executive branches of the company, the script was declined by entertainment president Kevin Reilly, who felt apprehensive upon reading it.

[15] Wong chose the role in lieu of his position on the police procedural television drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

[5] He and his writing team would often get confused with exchanging and executing ideas for the script; as a result, they created outlines and distinguished them in green and red ink.

"So the things that are initially confusing to us when we are just trying to break story, I think by the time they reach an audience, so much attention has been paid to how to make it clear where you are that all of the little tricks that we needed sort of go away.

Salke evaluated that viewers will enjoy the "clever mythology that overlap and affect each other in very interesting ways", despite the series' Sliding Doors-like script.

[23] In the United Kingdom, the episode was first broadcast on Sky Atlantic on May 4, 2012, and obtained 334,000 million viewers, making it the third most-viewed program for the channel behind Game of Thrones and Blue Bloods.

"[27] NPR's Linda Holmes asserted that "Pilot" laid the foundation for several emotional storylines, ultimately evaluating it as amongst the strongest showings in recent memory; "This is a richly interesting narrative, and it's worth watching closely, and if you do that, it's entirely digestible.

[28] James Poniewozik of Time noted that while its concept seemed melodramatic, the episode "focuses unflinchingly on the subject of loss, yet manages to be not a downer or painful to watch, but moving, absorbing and even hopeful.

Michael himself needs to hold on to markers to anchor his sense of reality—for instance, he wears a red and a green wristband in the existences in which his wife and his son are alive, respectively—and those help us follow along too.

"[29] Reuters' Tim Molloy avouched that the episode was the "best new show of the season": "Despite the most complicated narrative since ABC's Lost kept skipping through time, Awake makes a fast, emotional connection that gives viewers an almost immediate stake in the lives of its compelling characters.

"[33] "Pilot" was highly anticipated by Los Angeles Times journalist Robert Lloyd, who observed that "it promised to be one of the year's best and most interesting new series.

Writing for The Washington Post, Hank Stuever felt that despite having high ambitions, the pilot episode was slow and drowsy.

VanDerWerff concluded that the cast's performances were "delicate and almost perfect", while Wagner felt that Isaacs was well-suited to the lead role and could easily captivate the audience; "his touching, solid work grounds everything.

"[31] Denise Duguay of the Montreal Gazette thought that Isaacs evoked a "reservedness" and ambiguity that attracted viewers to his character.

[22] Tim Goodman of The Hollywood Reporter echoed analogous sentiment, writing, "He perfectly conveys a man struggling with two horrible options.

"[35] Fowler noted than Allen and Minnette's performances in the series "deserve some praise for having to play characters who are also dealing with loss, but without the benefit of being able to see their lost loved one like Britten can.