WAKING DREAMS is also the name of the 2022 Burning Man theme, the last year I attended. 2022 was also the first year the event came back officially after taking 2020–2021 off for COVID. I was really looking forward to this episode that covered MY very own return to Burning Man. One thing the show’s creators got right: shifting the focus away from the Burning Man Organization (BORG) to actual burners/attendees. Unfortunately, in doing that, the episode just felt like a series of extended interviews. It missed the magic that was Black Rock City, 2022, where the city itself was the biggest character.
Since watching the first two episodes and subsequently reviewing them, I’ve had a chance to discuss the series with friends who are also participants. One thing that’s been said over and over is that the series looks and sounds beautiful, but the focus is on the wrong protagonists. So many people are frustrated with the leaders, and even those who aren’t just don’t care enough about them to want to see them as the narrative focal point. Where are the artists? The camp leaders? The rangers? The ground crew? There are a few sprinkled in there, sure. But as we learned from 2021, even without the official organization, without the infrastructure, ticketing, placement, schedule, and rules, thousands of people who just love the spirit of Burning Man will show up in the Black Rock Desert anyway and have the time of their lives.
The interviews in WAKING DREAMS gather a lot more participants than earlier episodes, but the event itself – the return of Black Rock City – is largely left out.
We do get to experience a few pieces of art, a smaller performance, and a talk (with CEO Marian Goodell), but that’s really it. Yes, 2022 was a HOT year. The temperatures were well above 100 degrees every single day. It was hard on me, and it was hard on a lot of people there. We often found ourselves hiding out in coolish places during the day (anywhere we could find a good AC drip), but by sunset, we were off to bring our art car to the masses. And if I wasn’t working alongside my campmates, I was out constantly exploring. Even the return of the “man” and the Temple felt like afterthoughts in WAKING DREAMS.
That year, I took some time to myself to bring to the Temple an offering of photos and notes for my mother, who had died in 2021. Elsewhere, I attended a wedding that year. We got food, we danced, we participated in interactive art displays. We climbed up art pieces that welcomed this. I even played putt-putt golf and visited a camp giving out frozen lemonade every single day. There was more to do than any one person could have done in a lifetime, and yet from this episode, you would never know it. I understand wanting to keep the focus to just a few participants, but did these people not do much that week? Because even when I was hiding from the sun during the day, I still saw A LOT, and I even had to leave the day before the man burned to make it to a family wedding in New York.
THE MAN WILL BURN is on the right track to give the audience more about the participants and less about “executives,” but the number one priority should be making it interesting, and this episode wasn’t that.
THE MAN WILL BURN airs Thursdays on HBO and HBO Max.
