Let me begin by saying that I genuinely have absolutely no clue on who Mark Edward Fischbach, aka Markiplier, is prior to watching The Edge of Sleep. I had no idea he is a mega YouTube star with over 37+ million followers. I had zero clue that this show was based on a book and a podcast series of the same name. Therefore, I consider myself to be completely unbiased when giving my views on this television series after having completed it. Why did I just type all that out as a disclosure? Well, it just so happens that whenever I write out a movie/tv series review, I need to download their cover poster and usually the first place I’d go is IMDb. Suffice it to say, my bullshit antenna perked up when I saw that this show earned a whopping 7.6 out of 10 score. Say WHATTT? There is a zero possibility in any timeline on earth that this show, as I saw it, justifies that high a score. After reading some of the user reviews, it became pretty clear to me that a lot of those 8-10 scores were likely from fans of Markiplier himself as a YouTube megastar.

To be honest, I like the idea of this show. As someone who suffers from insomnia from time to time, the idea of not being able to sleep otherwise you’d die feels like a true nightmare. The show has a Lovecraftian feel to it right from the beginning. At only six episodes with each clocking in at around only 20 minutes, it’s about the length of short movie film. Not sure why they had to split it into six separate episodes instead of making this a movie? But that’s irrelevant. The more important question is whether the show is good or not. The answer I got is, not really. Acting is just so-so from all around and there were a couple of main questions about the story that were left unanswered by the end. Who or what exactly is The Elephant Man? How and why is it that The Dream People are able to only protect that small island to which the special few who are able to make it there able to safely fall asleep? What is the meaning or importance of the triangle that gets seared into someone’s brain? We talking about zombies at the end? Please, please, don’t. If I had to pick out of the four cast members, I’d have to say Eve Harlow playing Linda takes it.

Don’t act like it’s just me. Ya’ll must see the resemblance between Eve Harlow and Michelle Rodriguez!

Unfortunately, the show is not able to really hold my attention to want to continue whenever season two comes out. The pacing felt really weird as they wasted a lot of what little time each episode had on some unnecessary things while rushing to try and conclude it at the very last episode. I mean, is Dave supposed to be some sort of Neo-esqe type of chosen one that leads the others in the war against the The Elephant Man in the dream world? I found it hilarious they even found a Polynesian(?) looking Morpheus to help explain, sorta, to Dave in the end about what is going on. I’m likely to forget about this series. If I happen to run into season two, I may watch it.