Episode 4 - Awakenings: Wake Me Up Inside

This episode, it's a deep dive into 1990's Awakenings and Robin Williams isn't funny in this medical drama. Except when he definitely is. Nick & Stephen take a journey into the world of clinical neurology in this adaptation of Dr Oliver Sacks's best-selling 1973 memoir of the same name. Robert De Niro co-stars alongside Robin Williams in this film about the extraordinary results of a 1969 clinical trial of L-dopa in comatose patients.

More reading:

Sacks OW, Kohl M, Schwartz W, Messeloff C.  Side-effects of L-dopa in postencephalic parkinsonism. Lancet. 1970 May  9;1(7654):1006. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(70)91137-2. PMID: 4191927.

Note: There's two f-bombs in this episode. Normally I edit those out, or bleep them if they come as part of our commentary. However, in this case, they're used in direct quotes of the only profanity in the film, which occurs at kind of an important part of the film, so I've left it in there. Hopefully your virgin ears won't be too traumatized.