Can't sleep? Try 'Apocalypse.'

I dreamed the United States was crumbling around me, and I met Jack Bauer. But no, wait, it was Tony Almeida, Bauer’s pal, back from the dead to save the day, without his soul patch, of course, because in heaven soul patches are redundant. Tony looked desperate, or, wait, the desperate man wasn’t Tony, it was one of the Bridges brothers, playing cards with Kate Hudson in drag and a guy once known as Superman, and they were watching "NYPD Blue" reruns on TV when dams started bursting and Mount Rushmore started to collapse.

And I woke up.

And I rewound.

And I turned my attention once again to my advance tape of "10.5: Apocalypse," the x sequel miniseries to one of the faultiest TV miniseries ever, "10.5." The two-parter, which begins tomorrow night at 9 on Channel 7, isn’t just about an earthquake. For this NBC sweeps event, we get a "24"-like ride through tectonic crises, volcanoes, a tsunami, and the possibility of an ocean asserting itself between the East and West coasts. We get millions dying painfully and actors throwing themselves to lesser fates, such as Beau Bridges, who returns as the woefully inappropriate president. Reconnecting amid the cataclysm with quake expert Samantha Hill, played by ‘‘NYPD Blue’’ alum Kim Delaney, he exclaims, "It’s been one helluva ride!"

And then I dreamed I saw a giant video game that made whole traffic jams slide into the earth with no emotional impact, and the game looked suspiciously like the Flash intro to any two-bit website, and suddenly Carly Pope popped up, and why did I even know who Carly Pope was, and why didn’t I care that she was pouting, and when will Superman come to save us from the bursting dams and the collapse of Mount Rushmore?

And I woke up again.

And I rewound.

And I turned once again to the miniseries that is so harrowing — for the viewer. Is writer-director John Lafia cleverly trying to make us suffer, so that we can understand just how profoundly unhappy all those doomed Americans are? The faceless victims run screaming through the four-hour story, the horses go mad, and Las Vegas is punished for its decades of sin. Samantha’s father, played noncommittally by Frank Langella, happens to be at a poker table in a Vegas casino when disaster strikes, just so we can watch CGI take a walk on the neon side.

And it all dreamily dissolved again, this time into electric yellows crashing down, and bursted dams and collapsing Rushmore, and .....

I woke up.

And I dozed off again.

And I woke up.

And I rewound.

And I turned again to the miniseries whose mission is to further discredit the network TV movie genre. The character subplots in "10.5: Apocalypse" are so generic they make Irwin Allen’s characters look deep. Tony Almeida wasn’t just in my dream; actor Carlos Bernard appears as a mentor to the president’s daughter, who’s in the field to prove her grit to her parents. And I really did see a Kate Hudsonesque man — Kate’s brother, Oliver Hudson — and Carly Pope, since they play Will and Laura, a couple who are torn apart. And I did see Superman, since Will's brother, Brad, is played by Dean Cain, who was Superman in "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman."

And I do hope they all made good money.

I give "10.5: Apocalypse" a five-pillow rating. Even with its earth-shattering catastrophes, it will provide you with a very sturdy bridge to dreamland.

10.5: Apocalypse
Starring: Dean Cain, Oliver Hudson, Beau Bridges, Carly Pope, Carlos Bernard, Kim Delaney
On: NBC, Channel 7
Tomorrow night, 9-11. Concludes Tuesday, 9-11.

Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com.