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Sense8? Sense8. That was CERTAINLY a Wachowski show. I watched the first two episodes with a headache and without my contact lenses in and so experienced then mostly as a soothing blur of color and sound and people complaining about their headaches, which were so obviously worse than mine that I felt comforted all the way through.
(I still have no idea what was going on in the first half of Riley's plot, but since it turned out to be totally irrelevant except for establishing that she took a lot of drugs, that's probably fine.)
Okay, Sense8 is a show about how eight people around the world get mysteriously psychically connected through their brains via magic evolution. (Mostly they take this in stride; there are a lot of numinous moments of connectivity and none of what I would be doing in this situation, which is having enormous freakouts about my loss of privacy.) It reminded me quite a lot of S1 Heroes, except with much better visual and art direction, and even worse plotting and dialogue. When originally planning this post I was going to say "except at least without the nonsensical Mohinder monologues about evolution," except in the last few episodes Naveen Andrews is like "I heard you guys were missing some nonsensical monologues about evolution, LET ME MAKE UP FOR LOST TIME." And he does. Oh, boy, does he.
Naveen Andrews is not one of the eight people; Naveen Andrews is part of a previous psychically connected group of eight people. He was psychically connected to Darryl Hannah, who dies in the first episode. Naveen Andrews spends most of the show angstily strapped to a gurney being morally ambiguous and occasionally popping up to provide the current group of eight with mystical advice.
Like Naveen Andrews, the current group of eight are all very attractive. They also all have a dramatic subplot and some Useful Skill that they can put to the service of the collective.
NOMI: she lives in San Francisco and her dramatic subplot is that she's very rapidly taken hostage by the evil conspiracy that is in fact the VERY SLOW-BURN main plot. For a while Nomi is in fact the only person in the main plot, because the Wachowskis, as aforementioned, are terrible at pacing. She is also trans and played by a trans actress, and her Useful Skill is hacking.
SUN: she lives in Seoul and her dramatic subplot is that her terrible father and brother want her to take the fall for something she didn't do in order to save the family company, because of sexism. Her Useful Skill is somehow being the world's best martial artist, which has pretty much nothing to do with her main dramatic subplot whatsoever except provide her with a great form of stress relief while taking out everybody else's enemies.
LITO: he lives in Mexico City and his dramatic subplot is that he's an incredibly famous film star who is deep in the closet and his fake girlfriend has just barged into his life with his boyfriend demanding to be his live-in beard. His Useful Skill is BRILLIANT!! ACTING!!!
KALA: she lives in Mumbai and her dramatic subplot is that she is conflicted about going through with her marriage to a very nice man whom she is just not sure she's all that into. Her Useful Skill is knowing about pharmaceuticals.
CAPHEUS: he lives in Nairobi and his dramatic subplot is that there are gangs and his mother has AIDS and he owns a Jean-Claude Van Damme-themed van called the Van Damn, because of course. His Useful Skills are a.) driving and b.) being a delight.
WILL: he lives in Chicago and his dramatic subplot is kind of that he's a cop with an alcoholic dad, but mostly evil conspiracy things. His Useful Skill is, like, cop stuff. NOBLE cop stuff. The Wachowskis really want you to understand the compassion and heroism of this one noble white cop, because that's how it works.
WOLFGANG: he lives in Berlin and his dramatic subplot is something about thieves and heists and murder? The murder part escalated VERY QUICKLY. His Useful Skill is ... pretty much just being really fucked up? I mean, his big climactic moment of triumph is when the bad guy is like 'Will, you're way too heroic to do anything as suicidal and potentially murderous as what you're about to do!' and Will's like 'YEAH BUT I KNOW A GUY.' Take it away, Wolfgang!
RILEY: she lives in London but she's from Iceland and her dramatic subplot is ... honestly, I really could not tell, my contacts were out and I couldn't tell anybody else in her subplot apart. Anyway her Useful Skill is ... DJing ..... and having a high drug tolerance ... yeah, sorry, Riley. Good job on your second-act arc of overcoming your past trauma though!
The two most important non-telepathic people are Freema Agyeman and Hernando, who are respectively Nomi's Wonderful and Supportive Girlfriend and Lito's Wonderful Boyfriend Who Is Probably Too Good For Him. Both of them are clearly designed to be perfect in every way -- I mean, it's nice, in that the Wachowskis clearly sat down when they were writing the show and said, "OK, we've got two queer leads and we are going to give both of them the BEST AND MOST FANTASTIC INCARNATIONS OF TRUE LOVE that we can POSSIBLY CONCOCT and their relationships are going to be GODDAMN HEALTHY AND FREAKING SUPPORTIVE, DANG IT." I could wish that either of them appeared to have anything going on in their lives besides being the World's Best Girlfriend/Boyfriend, but, I mean, it's very nice to watch Freema Agyeman cavorting across my screen celebrating San Francisco Pride, I will take it.
Overall, the show is pretty great on LGBTQ representation and about as ... ham-handed ... as you might expect when it comes to, like, Here Is A Plot About Capheus Trying To Get Medicine For His Mom, Who Has AIDS, Because They Live In Africa. (To go back to the Heroes comparison, Capheus is pretty much the Hiro Nakamura of the show -- like, you love him, you can't not love him, he's wonderful down to his bones, AND YET at the same time you're like, ah yes, the innocent who inspires others with his innate wisdom and childlike sense of wonder ... nothing uncomfortable about sticking the main African cast member with THIS trope .......)
It's super pretty though! Very pleasant to watch as a sensory experience. Occasionally there are Bollywood dance numbers and/or global telepathic singalongs. I will watch a Season Two, although, having already compared it to Heroes, it's quite likely I will drastically regret that statement.
This entry is cross-posted at Livejournal from http://skygiants.dreamwidth.org/413037.html. Please feel free to comment here or there! There are currently
comments on Dreamwidth.
(I still have no idea what was going on in the first half of Riley's plot, but since it turned out to be totally irrelevant except for establishing that she took a lot of drugs, that's probably fine.)
Okay, Sense8 is a show about how eight people around the world get mysteriously psychically connected through their brains via magic evolution. (Mostly they take this in stride; there are a lot of numinous moments of connectivity and none of what I would be doing in this situation, which is having enormous freakouts about my loss of privacy.) It reminded me quite a lot of S1 Heroes, except with much better visual and art direction, and even worse plotting and dialogue. When originally planning this post I was going to say "except at least without the nonsensical Mohinder monologues about evolution," except in the last few episodes Naveen Andrews is like "I heard you guys were missing some nonsensical monologues about evolution, LET ME MAKE UP FOR LOST TIME." And he does. Oh, boy, does he.
Naveen Andrews is not one of the eight people; Naveen Andrews is part of a previous psychically connected group of eight people. He was psychically connected to Darryl Hannah, who dies in the first episode. Naveen Andrews spends most of the show angstily strapped to a gurney being morally ambiguous and occasionally popping up to provide the current group of eight with mystical advice.
Like Naveen Andrews, the current group of eight are all very attractive. They also all have a dramatic subplot and some Useful Skill that they can put to the service of the collective.
NOMI: she lives in San Francisco and her dramatic subplot is that she's very rapidly taken hostage by the evil conspiracy that is in fact the VERY SLOW-BURN main plot. For a while Nomi is in fact the only person in the main plot, because the Wachowskis, as aforementioned, are terrible at pacing. She is also trans and played by a trans actress, and her Useful Skill is hacking.
SUN: she lives in Seoul and her dramatic subplot is that her terrible father and brother want her to take the fall for something she didn't do in order to save the family company, because of sexism. Her Useful Skill is somehow being the world's best martial artist, which has pretty much nothing to do with her main dramatic subplot whatsoever except provide her with a great form of stress relief while taking out everybody else's enemies.
LITO: he lives in Mexico City and his dramatic subplot is that he's an incredibly famous film star who is deep in the closet and his fake girlfriend has just barged into his life with his boyfriend demanding to be his live-in beard. His Useful Skill is BRILLIANT!! ACTING!!!
KALA: she lives in Mumbai and her dramatic subplot is that she is conflicted about going through with her marriage to a very nice man whom she is just not sure she's all that into. Her Useful Skill is knowing about pharmaceuticals.
CAPHEUS: he lives in Nairobi and his dramatic subplot is that there are gangs and his mother has AIDS and he owns a Jean-Claude Van Damme-themed van called the Van Damn, because of course. His Useful Skills are a.) driving and b.) being a delight.
WILL: he lives in Chicago and his dramatic subplot is kind of that he's a cop with an alcoholic dad, but mostly evil conspiracy things. His Useful Skill is, like, cop stuff. NOBLE cop stuff. The Wachowskis really want you to understand the compassion and heroism of this one noble white cop, because that's how it works.
WOLFGANG: he lives in Berlin and his dramatic subplot is something about thieves and heists and murder? The murder part escalated VERY QUICKLY. His Useful Skill is ... pretty much just being really fucked up? I mean, his big climactic moment of triumph is when the bad guy is like 'Will, you're way too heroic to do anything as suicidal and potentially murderous as what you're about to do!' and Will's like 'YEAH BUT I KNOW A GUY.' Take it away, Wolfgang!
RILEY: she lives in London but she's from Iceland and her dramatic subplot is ... honestly, I really could not tell, my contacts were out and I couldn't tell anybody else in her subplot apart. Anyway her Useful Skill is ... DJing ..... and having a high drug tolerance ... yeah, sorry, Riley. Good job on your second-act arc of overcoming your past trauma though!
The two most important non-telepathic people are Freema Agyeman and Hernando, who are respectively Nomi's Wonderful and Supportive Girlfriend and Lito's Wonderful Boyfriend Who Is Probably Too Good For Him. Both of them are clearly designed to be perfect in every way -- I mean, it's nice, in that the Wachowskis clearly sat down when they were writing the show and said, "OK, we've got two queer leads and we are going to give both of them the BEST AND MOST FANTASTIC INCARNATIONS OF TRUE LOVE that we can POSSIBLY CONCOCT and their relationships are going to be GODDAMN HEALTHY AND FREAKING SUPPORTIVE, DANG IT." I could wish that either of them appeared to have anything going on in their lives besides being the World's Best Girlfriend/Boyfriend, but, I mean, it's very nice to watch Freema Agyeman cavorting across my screen celebrating San Francisco Pride, I will take it.
Overall, the show is pretty great on LGBTQ representation and about as ... ham-handed ... as you might expect when it comes to, like, Here Is A Plot About Capheus Trying To Get Medicine For His Mom, Who Has AIDS, Because They Live In Africa. (To go back to the Heroes comparison, Capheus is pretty much the Hiro Nakamura of the show -- like, you love him, you can't not love him, he's wonderful down to his bones, AND YET at the same time you're like, ah yes, the innocent who inspires others with his innate wisdom and childlike sense of wonder ... nothing uncomfortable about sticking the main African cast member with THIS trope .......)
It's super pretty though! Very pleasant to watch as a sensory experience. Occasionally there are Bollywood dance numbers and/or global telepathic singalongs. I will watch a Season Two, although, having already compared it to Heroes, it's quite likely I will drastically regret that statement.
This entry is cross-posted at Livejournal from http://skygiants.dreamwidth.org/413037.html. Please feel free to comment here or there! There are currently
comments on Dreamwidth.