Sense8

[schneefink]

I got to the end of season 1 of Sense8 (I can't say I finished because I still haven't watched the early episodes I accidentally skipped.) I enjoyed it, but I don't think I'll recommend it to people yet. I think there's a strong chance I'll like the second season better.

The premise is very cool. I like stories where people suddenly get superpowers, and this was a neat version of it. I like the characters and I like how they were from different countries and backgrounds. I enjoyed how natural the show has LGBTQ content, that was refreshing.

I wanted them to do more with the premise than they did, the show but especially the characters. I might have missed something in the episodes I didn't watch, but all of the eight seemed very passive with their new "abilities", willing to accept what's happening but not really interested in experimenting with what they can do. In the beginning that worked well, but after some of them relied on others' skills to survive it became odd. I loved the scenes where they did work together with great success, like helping Nomi escape and rescuing Reilly.

They also didn't really seek each other out to get to know each other better. I wanted them to become friends, to build relationships with each other, and I was disappointed that that didn't happen a lot. Will and Reilly, yes, and Kala and Wolfgang, and a bit of Will and Nomi (but they were mostly working together), but other than that it only lasted from episode to episode or very few scenes. I wanted a lot more of Sun and Capheus, I really enjoyed Lito and Wolfgang helping each other, Reilly and Capheus could have become friends… Of course it's difficult with eight main characters, but I think they could have done more than they did.

Instead there was a lot of focus on their individual storylines. Which is also good, and some of them I really liked (you go Lito!), but others less (Kala's is moving soo slowly, and Sun's to this point reads mostly as backstory/maybe prologue and they could have done much more with her.) Which also sounds like they just didn't have the time in twelve episodes, but they moved so slowly in some places, imo there was definitely space for more.

I want the sense that they also talk to each other off-camera, because it seemed like we got to see every instance of them talking. What I want to see eventually (surprise surprise) is the cluster become a family. Sun would be the older sister and Capheus the younger brother, Kala the younger sister, Reilly would struggle with a mom role, Will and Lito and Wolfgang and Nomi are the middle children. (Or differently, they could fit together in a number of ways, as long as they're close.) Amanita would also be there, of course, and Hernando once he learns about the cluster (hopefully soon), and then Felix and Capheus' mom and Reilly's dad…

I understand it's planned for later, but I was disappointed with how little we got to know about the villain(s). Whispers is evil, but what does he want? And how does he do what he does? How does communicating with people outside of their cluster work in general?

I'm looking forward to season 2, because it'll most likely have the cluster interacting more, more info about the villains, and more attention to the plotlines that have been neglected so far. I read that they planned for 5 seasons, so there's a lot of room to grow.

Comments

[fearsome_turtle]

I agree that not very much actually happened over the course of the season. I felt like a lot of aspects of it were just kind of shallow, and yet I got invested anyway? I think it was around the time that Riley and Capheus were talking in the graveyard that I realized I was going to finish the season wishing more had happened and that the characters had spent less time having philosophical conversations, especially since the dialogue tends to be a bit wooden and obvious. BUT I ended up caring about the characters. The Lito/Hernando & Dany story was awesome. Kala finished the season almost exactly where she started it. Sun has so many tropey elements to her story that it's ridic, but I still like her. So it's a show where I can say what's interesting or rec it to people with a lot of caveats. I wouldn't say it's GREAT television.

[schneefink]

I wanted more character interactions, but when they happened I was sometimes frustrated anyway because they seemed so formulaic. A has a problem and gives B a very vague explanation, B tells a semi-related story from their own life and then gives as advice what they thought they learned from the experience. It seemed so artificial at times, I especially noticed it when Sun and Capheus talked about promises and one scene where Nomi talked to Lito. But I have hopes it'll get better.
I especially want them to do so much more with Sun, there's so much potential there :)

[northskys]

I personally think the show took about the right amount of relationship development, provided they improve it next season. It could be chalked up to them trying to save each other so much, and the powers are new and they're not using them to their full abilities yet. But I really hope next season will change all that, and see them all interact in different ways.

I think you're right about wanting more information though! But the show was awesome for me, if you ignore that it took til episode 3 to properly get into it.

[schneefink]

Maybe it's just my personal perspective, but I can't imagine after discovering one has strange new abilities NOT immediately trying to experiment. To be fair I can maybe imagine it for some of the characters (Riley, Sun), and others were kept fairly busy with investigations and stuff almost from the beginning (Nomi, Will), but still. But now that they're more aware of the threat from Whispers they'll probably practice more, I'd expect. I have high hopes for season 2 :)