The dream sequence, as a narrative tool, is probably the oldest trope in the history of visual storytelling. I can’t prove this, but I’d be willing to bet that the first movie ever made—the one that was just train footage—had a dream sequence shoehorned in somewhere. It started as a perfect way to tease the viewer, and to sneak an alternate reality into a narrative without committing to it. Like any good tool, it became an overused cliche, and here in 2015, I was pretty sure it had settled permanently into “hackneyed gimmick” territory.
I was wrong. The Last Man on Earth (no. 2 on Paste’s TV Power Rankings this week) has revived the dream sequence. I never thought I’d say this, but the dream sequence is cool again, and it’s all down to this strange, awesome show.
The revival began in episode one, when Phil Miller (Will Forte) dreamed that a beautiful woman had come to his rescue, and was stroking his head lovingly. “May I sing to you?” he asks, and goes into a rendition of the GhostBusters theme song. She loves it, of course, and then start making out. When he wakes up, the woman of his fantasies has been replaced by the oddball Carol Pilbasian (Kristen Schaal), who tells him that he’s pissed himself. Now that’s an A+ dream sequence.