I appreciate a little mystery, believe me I do. Heck, I hung on to Lost for six seasons and if that doesn’t tell you that I love a mysterious plot, I don’t know what does. So, in a sense, I appreciate Sense8 as well as it is holding its cards very close to its chest and not spoon-feeding the audience answers.
The problem is, it’s holding its cards so close to its chest that, one episode in, I have absolutely no idea what the heck this show is supposed to be about. You can blame it on my habit of avoiding spoilers or just my general cluelessness about this Wachowski Sci-Fi Netflix series, but I’m completely in the dark and, for a premiere episode, I’m not sure that’s such a good move.
I mean, sure… you want the audience to be in the dark… but this series did little more than introduce characters in its first overlong hour that I’m imagining that first time viewers like myself are going to be scrambling for a reason to tune in to the second episode.
I won’t lie… as far as drama goes, Sense8 is pretty good if a bit disconnected. We’re introduced to a bunch of different people with different backgrounds from a cop to a safe cracker, from a transgender woman in San Fransisco to a businesswoman from Seoul. Individually, their stories are interesting enough to sustain the hour, but only just so… I actually think that this episode would have been much more entertaining had it lost fifteen minutes.
But, you know… despite that, Sense8 is decent enough to merit me watching the next episode. The mysteriousness of the plot does leave enough scant clues that I am intrigued and, as I said, I like the characters enough to keep going… I just don’t feel the need to binge watch as I did with, say, Bojack Horseman or the fifth season of Clone Wars.
Still, as I said, I am intrigued if not blown away. I think I’m one of six people in the world who loved Cloud Atlas and I’m seeing a lot of similarities here so maybe that’s what’s gotten my attention. It could also be that, for a Netflix series, Sense8 is beautifully shot.
I really hope that the Wachowskis have a success on their hands with this one (it doesn’t hurt that J. Michael Straczynski is writing). Despite their missteps, they are talented filmmakers… they just get a little too ambitious for their own good. Hopefully, episodic drama is kinder to them.
Jason Gaston 