Review - Sense8

Sense8 is the newest, original series from Netflix, created and written by The Wachowski's and J. Michael Straczynski

The series is about 8 strangers from all around the world, who are mentally and emotionally linked to each-other. The show explores themes that Sci-Fi shows tend to ignore like; religion, sexuality, politics and gender. 

I have never seen a show like this before, it is so ambitious, like most of The Wachowski's work, but unlike most of their recent work, this project really pays off, i think it is The Wachowski's best work since the original Matrix film. I think that thanks to this being a show, The Wachowskis have a lot of time for their story to play out, compared to something like Jupiter Ascending, which seemed like they squeezed a ten hour story into a 2 hour film and i think The Wachowski's have found their place on TV. Going back to the ambition of the show, this show has the most diverse cast I've ever seen on TV, there are 8 main characters in the show, from all around the globe; Capheus (Aml Ameen) in Africa, Sun Bak (Bae Doona) in South Korea, Nomi (Jamie Clayton) and Will (Brian J. Smith) in different parts of America, Kala (Tina Desai) in India, Wolfgang (Max Riemelt) in Germany, Riley (Tuppence Middleton) an Icelandic woman in England and Lito (Miguel Angel Silvestre) in Mexico. Juggling 8 main characters in a show is really hard, but the show does a good job of it and by the end of the season you will care about all of the characters, some more than others though, even though its 8 main characters a few of The Sensates get more screen time than the others, with Riley, Will and Nomi in the forefront with the more central story-lines. while Sun Bak and Kala have the less relevant and less development for their characters. 

Capheus & Sun Bak meeting each-other for the first time

   The story-lines are very separated and unique to the characters in their different countries at the start of the series, just learning about the characters we are following, showing their jobs and their      special traits unique to them. Then slowly we start seeing the other characters start to use their Sensate abilities and talk to the other Sensates, which was my favourite part of the show, seeing          someone borrow one of the other's abilities was great and fun to see everyone's abilities being used in really awesome ways, and seeing someone in Japan talk to someone in Africa is really interesting to see these two people that we already care about talking to each-other. In the latter half of the season is when things start to really kick off, peoples story-lines really start to entwine, a few of the Sensates have romantic relations between them which is perfectly done, the chemistry between the couplings are really well done and are a highlight of the season for me and the finale is fantastic, all of the story-lines come to a head and finish spectacularly. The weirdest and best thing about the show is that it switches genres a few times through the episodes, it can switch from a cop story to a heist story or a thriller with someone trapped in a hospital.

Kala & Wolfgang

   I think the show is fantastic but it still has its problems, a problem that the show was always going to have was that the first episode is hard to get through, with all of the different characters and different story-lines going on its very hard to care about them at the start, but after a few episodes you start to familiarize with the characters is when it starts to get going. I think that it would've been easier to introduce the characters if they showed half of the characters in the 1st episode and the other half in the 2nd episode, it would've been easier to introduce the characters, but that's just my opinion. My other problem with the show is the Antagonist, there isn't a very strong presence of   an overarching villain, there is Whispers, who is a Sensate tracking down his own kind, but he isn't in it too much and the show doesn't explain why he is tracking down his own kind, which makes for a very weak villain, the best type of villain is one that you understand and care about, they could easily rectify this in Season 2 (if the show gets one) and hopefully they will.

Sense8 is a brilliant show, its interesting, mysterious, funny and action-packed, I've never seen anything like it and that's a great thing. They do a great job juggling 8 main characters and you'll at   least fall in love with one of them. This has reason to one of the best shows on Netflix.

  4.25/5
 
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