If a sudden malady caused everyone around you to die after falling asleep, how would you stay awake? That's just one of the questions that characters in new science-fiction horror series The Edge of Sleep must find out to survive.
Starring Mark "Markiplier" Fischbach, Lio Tipton (Crazy Stupid Love), Eve Harlow (Watson, Agents of SHIELD), and Franz Drameh (The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow), the show follows two nightwatchmen as they discover that everybody around them has mysteriously died in their sleep.
One of the men, Dave (Fischbach), must race to find his former lover Katie (Tipton) before she succumbs to the strange affliction, and while trying to find answers they meet a nurse in a hospital (Harlow). Filmed primarily in Vancouver in 2021, the show is based on a audio drama of the same name. Fischbach reprises his role.
The Edge of Sleep deserves to reach more people
The Edge of Sleep has a quiet confidence, taking risks with its editing, on-location filming and ambitious airplane sequences. Yet its home, Tubi, a free streaming platform hosting a variety of different titles, is not among the traditional streamers nor is it that widely known. Marketing has been led by lead actor Fischbach primarily (his YouTube channel Markiplier has 37.5 million subscribers) and not even he can reach everybody. Is it possible that television fans aren't aware of a great new limited series?
In short, yes and no. The Edge of Sleep has the same number of reviews on IMDB as you would expect from a show on a main streaming platform, largely due to Fischbachâs large online audience making efforts to push the show to a wider audience. Additionally, a short run on Amazon Prime before its move to Tubi saw The Edge of Sleep gaining a top 10 position on the Prime TV charts in the US. Clearly, some people have seen this show.
Despite this, it doesn't appear that major media companies are taking note of this short but sweet gem. The show is well-made for its small budget, does well to condense the source material into 20-minute episodes and is well-acted, edited, and shot. Fischbach in particular pulls off a mammoth performance, with executive producer and trailer-editor roles to boot. While the script could do with tightening, this is all the criticism I can really find for this show, which is remarkably engaging and cares about its worldbuilding, crazy elephants and weird triangles and all.
The Edge of Sleep podcast makers, Q-Code, announced last year that a season 2 of The Edge of Sleep podcast will be recorded with Fischbach returning to voice Dave. With that, we can guess that discussions of a season 2 of the show are possible, but we can't at all predict with any certainty whether the television show will get a renewal, even with that crazy cliffhanger. Largely, we would imagine, it depends on this season's success, and whether Fischbach can work his magic in finding season 2 an equally charitable home. Either way, there's more to come from the universe, so we think the show a worthwhile investment at only six episodes.
The Edge of Sleep season 1 is available to watch for free on Tubi in the US, Canada, and the UK.