Reverie is a Science Fiction drama that began airing on NBC in the summer of 2018.
Mara Kint (Sarah Shahi) is an expert on human behavior and a former hostage negotiator, but left the field after a tragedy. Her former boss, Charlie Ventana (Dennis Haysbert), recruits her for a new role at the new company he works for, Onira-Tech, a start-up that has developed the technology, with their "Reverie" program, to allow individuals to enter an especially engineered, customized, and programmable dream world. Her job? To pull clients out of Reverie who want to stay there, instead of returning to the real world.
It was canceled after one season.
Needs more troper love.
Tropes in Reverie include:
- Benevolent A.I.: Dylan, the AI that runs the Onira-Tech offices. Aside from answering everyone's questions, he plays board games with Alexis.
- Bilingual Bonus:
- The word to launch Reverie, "Apertus," is Latin for "open." Similarly, the word to exit the program, "Exitus," is Latin for "exit."
- "Oneiri" of Onira-Tech is Greek for "Dreams."
- Brain/Computer Interface: The "BCI," a tiny, tadpole-like device that gets injected into the user's arm and makes its way to their brain. It wirelessly interfaces with the Onira-Tech servers to provide access to the Reverie program.
- The Chessmaster: Monica Shaw is noted for manipulating events:
- "Blue is the Coldest Color": She convinces the pharmaceutical company that Glenn's Reverie-planned drug heist is actually a test of their security.
- "The Black Mandala": It's strongly implied (by Charlie) that she arranged the "crossed Reveries" that caused Mara to find out about Ehmet's plight.
- Hidden Depths: Monica Shaw has a PhD in Computer Science, as said in "Black Reverie", the seventh episode.
- Holographic Terminal:
- The Reverie tablet resembles one of these. It's an open plane of glass with handles at each end, which displays a mandala image keyed to a specific Reverie. Staring at it and saying "Apertus" causes one to enter the program.
- Dylan uses one to play games with Alexis.
- Apparently Onira-Tech has made the technology inexpensive enough that they can use it in their business cards.
- Justified Criminal: Glenn the agoraphobe from "Blue is the Coldest Color" hacks into Reverie to create a simulation of a pharmaceutical warehouse in preparation to steal experimental medicine that will save the terminally ill son of his neighbor and Only Friend, whom he is in love with.
- Like Reality, Unless Noted: Other than Onira-Tech, the general technological and cultural level matches the real world, with 2018-model cars and smartphones common. The Reverie program is quickly spreading in popularity, but isn't so common that someone who sees an unconscious person with a Reverie tablet next to them is likely to understand the situation.
- My Greatest Failure: Back when she was a hostage negotiator, Mara tried to use her skills to calm her unstable brother-in-law, and he shot her sister and niece in a panic when he heard approaching police sirens.
- New Tech Is Not Cheap: Subverted; Onira-Tech practically gives away Reverie to build up its user base. That doesn't mean the tech itself isn't expensive; given the fancy open-plan office building with its own built-in AI, Onira-Tech clearly has a lot of money to work with. Where does it come from? Given how often Alexis or Charlie needs to run off to a board meeting to soothe worried investors, Onira-Tech seems to be following the path of many tech start-ups: burning through venture capital in the hopes of making it all back in spades further down the line.
- No Man Should Have This Power: Oliver Hill believes the Reverie program can too easily be abused as a weapon, and doubts Alexis designed it with selfless intentions.
- One-Word Title: Reverie is the name of the program that is the foundation of the story. It's also the first word of the opening for each episode.
- Papa Wolf: Charlie has a strong protective instinct for both Alexis and Mara. when Oliver says that Charlie would rip his head off if he knew what he was doing with Alexis, he's not joking.
- Prefers the Illusion: One of the key themes of Reverie. People who join up and immerse themselves into the program sometimes find they do not want to leave, neglecting their jobs, family, and health in the real world. Mara is called in when this rises to the level of medical danger—lying unconscious for hours or days is not a healthy thing to do.
- Holly from "Pas de Deux" is a ballerina that lost the use of her legs. She wants to stay in Reverie because she can dance and be with the daughter she miscarried in her accident.
- Elderly and sick Pilar from "Despedida" feels her life is pointless and uses Reverie to relive the moment from her youth when she did something meaningful: Escorting refugee schoolgirls across the border during the Chilean coup d'état.
- Shout-Out: It may be a coincidence, but Reverie's defense department contact is a Monica Shaw. Sarah Shahi played Sameen Shaw in Person of Interest. Again referencing Person of Interest, Reverie's AI, Dylan, has an interface the viewer sees on occasion that looks similar to the Machine's view.
- Trauma-Induced Amnesia: Mara talked her brother-in-law into shooting himself after he killed his wife and daughter, but could not remember doing it until Charlie played a recording of it for her.
- Unfinished, Untested, Used Anyway: Mara uses Reverie 2.0, which is still a prototype, because only it allows more than one person to be in a Reverie at the same time. Unfortunately, it's known to have a few glitches, like "derealization"—recurring and worsening hallucinations both within a Reverie and out in the real world. In Mara's case, the program is smart enough to read her repressed memories and try to help her work through them by showing her people from her past, which no one at Onira-Tech sees coming.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Mara's usually pretty good at sussing out what each subject is trying to accomplish or experience in their simulations, but she's occasionally wrong. In "Despedida," after witnessing the setting and characters in Pilar's simulation - and maybe a little high off of finally getting laid herself - Mara assumes the elderly Pilar is trying to relive an old romantic fling. But Pilar's actually trying to relive her moment of heroism, saving a bunch of children during a military coup, and the romance is incidental to the plot. It's not a love story. It's a political thriller.
- Your Mind Makes It Real:
- Mara seems to suffer symptoms of this the longer she stays in Reverie.
- In "The Black Mandala," Mara gets shot in the side while she's in a Reverie. After she exits, she finds a bruise on her side in the location where she was shot.
