'Falling Water' Delivers Dream Imagery and a Dense Plot

Falling Water, a new fantasy drama on USA, is asking a lot of its viewers. It's offering up some stunning visual imagery, but it's wrapping that imagery around a difficult-to-understand plot that, according to most reviewers, makes the series frustrating and not exactly exciting.

The series involves several characters, including a designer, a cop, and a corporate security expert, who lead wildly different lives in different places around the world. The thread that connects them is that they're all having extremely vivd, disturbing dreams, and we begin to realize quickly that they are somehow connected by the similarities in their dreams.

The series was created by the late Henry Bromell (Homeland) and Blake Masters (Brotherhood), and it is produced by Gale Anne Hurd (The Walking Dead). With a pedigree that includes such high-powered stars of the cable-TV creative world, you'd expect Falling Water to be perfectly positioned to win over critics.

Not so, apparently. Critical reviews of the first episodes of the series have, in general, expressed frustration with the show's slow pace and cryptic narrative, suggesting that, even if it exhibits some promise, it's likely to test the patience of viewers who don't want to wait around to figure out what's going on.

Falling Water premieres October 13 on USA.