The first episode was rough, but I pressed on. Finished the third and I’m sold enough to finish the series.
Does feel an awful lot like Heroes, though.
The writing of this series is excellent. Yep, a mix of Heroes and The Matrix, but done immensely better even if the budget is not there.
(I’ve only watched the first two) It’s not a “good” show. It’s something Highest Priority Must See. The plot itself is mediocre to average, but the writing itself and the choices behind it make it something completely unique, unprecedented, and absolutely outstanding.
So I’ve been reading Qt3 for something like six years and I think this might be the first thing I’ve seen HRose actually speak well of. I might have to check this out.
I watched something like the first nine episodes. Spoiler-free thoughts:
I like some of the characters and storylines, particularly Clean-Cut Cop and Conflicted Hindu Girl. Others, like German Who Is Apparently Afraid He May Combust If He Emotes Onscreen and Manic Pixie Dream Girl are less interesting (though her story has finally started picking up).
The pacing is fucking turgid, my god. Juffo-Wup has clearly filled their fibers. Things are finally starting to get moving, nine episodes in, but I was rolling my eyes and making “get on with it” hand gestures to my cat on the regular for a while there.
The show is real, real gay. Very heavy-handed in its IT IS OKAY TO BE GAY/BI/POLY/TRANS/WHATEVER STOP BEING MEAN, WORLD message at times.
It’s also absolutely gorgeous. Even GWIAAHMCIHEO in his grey-ass Berlin has some stunning scenes. More than anything, this keeps me watching the show.
I dunno. I like it, ish, but it’s certainly no Longmire.
The Wachowskis are in need of a strong editor, who should have a run at plot and script before they shoot.
8 episodes in now. The build-up seems really slow given how few episodes are left. Still liking it.
Positives: I like the basic idea, and I think some of the interactions between the protagonists are inventive and interesting to watch. The end of episode 3 certainly is when everything kicks off. The show looks really nice, too, and I certainly don’t mind seeing my hometown in there.
Negatives: As previously mentioned: plot seems to move rather slowly at times. Some of the dialogues and acting is cringe-worthy and feel preachy. Geez, Wolfgang’s (guy from Berlin) sidekick is insanely annoying. Also, while I haven’t finished the season yet, some of the storylines seem utterly predictable.
At least Felix (Wolfgang’s buddy) actually emotes. Wolfgang is just awful.
Sidenote: Is it weird to everyone or just me that they pronounce Wolfgang in the most American way, despite the German accents in their English the rest of the time?
Okay, finished this up last night.
I…I think I recommend it? Kind of. I was definitely involved in it to the end of the season, and there wasn’t anything eye-rollingly dumb in a late-Matrix sense, but it’s definitely a show deep up its own ass and with nary an ounce of subtlety in terms of its message.
That said, it’s probably the most tactile, sensorally (is that a word?) richest show I’ve ever seen. It’s absolutely gorgeous, not just in a “wow they sure shelled out to film on nice locations” way but in a “damn that is some incredible photography” way. I’m not enough of a film person to know all the hows and whys, but the whole show is clearly crafted by people who understand how to use various lighting/color balances, times of day, shot angles, and all those other tools to create different feelings in the viewer.
No plot spoilers, but still:
"
There are shots of childbirth that feel gratuitous to me. Like, really, do I need to see bloody vaginas that much? I get that it’s okay to have a vagina, and that childbirth is a natural thing, but bloody distended vaginas are not generally something I look for in my entertainment.
With TV shows I just usually like something less trite and conventional. For example: Awake, Touch, The Dig, Broad City.
But also something more conventional like Black Sails I consider an absolute masterpiece.
Sense8 does good things with the writing by being not-Hollywood in style, that for some people translates as “slow” because they are used to things exploding on screen every three seconds.
So, still high praises for Sense8 (I’m now up to episode 5). I’m never bored even for a second while watching it, just really well written from beginning to end.
Oh, and after watching episode 6 they managed to get even the science right. Basically all the show is about is actually “true” in the scientific sense, minus the trick of the actual mental link. Everything else is absolutely correct.
See this, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_inheritance_theory
Or even the crazy theories of Dawkins on “memes”.
I finished the season today. I’m liked it overall an am looking forward to another season despite it being occasionally uneven and some of the performances and dialogues being a bit clunky or on the nose. The show doesn’t really come together until the second half of the third episode - less patient minds won’t come that far. I know a few people who only checked out the first episode and quit because they didn’t feel hooked.
The locations are nice and beautifully shot. The plot sometimes moves forward at a snail’s pace, but the action set pieces are really enjoyable. Episode 10 was almost frustratingly slow, but it was an appropriate build-up for the last two episodes. It was really fun to watch when Will, Nomi, Sun, Capheus, and Lito started to function like a well-oiled machine in the finale.
yadda yadda
[spoiler]The plot quality was mixed - maybe because the show is trying to cover as many characters as it does. Will is the engine of the story in that he’s the first to understand and somewhat master the gift; he’s also the first and only one to constantly in touch with Jonas. However, thread pieces like his background, his relationship to his father and his father’s story are set up early on, but not much followed up on later on with the exception of the July 4th meet-up.
I never really cared much for Riley, and the sudden revelation of her having lost her baby in the last 3 episodes didn’t do much for me plotwise. Felt somewhat sudden and rushed. Maybe I’ll watch the season again some day to see if it was telegraphed earlier on.
I’m glad they made the other characters more useful in the last two episodes. For the most part it seemed that they all get to talk with each other, but when it came to actual sharing of skills it was mostly focussed on the physical bits, i.e. Sun’s martial arts and Will’s fighting and gun skills.
Question about the ending: So, once you’ve had eye contact with villain guy, he’s hooked up to you the way Jonas is, right? I get that drugging will is what made it possible to escape, but wouldn’t they need to keep him drugged all the time now? After all, the ‘connection’ between characters seems to work regardless of the distance between them. And villain guy was able to communicate with Jonas while being onsite on Iceland at the same time. So, no matter how far Will runs, he’d still pose a risk?[/spoiler]
Can’t say much more than what’s already been said, except that it’s indulgent. Episode 10’s portrayal of eight births with a backdrop of a Beethoven Piano Concerto is one of the better examples.
Apparently this isn’t Jamie Clayton’s first trans character. Interesting that we now have two non-trans female actors playing male to female trans characters in the same year (this show and Hit & Miss starring Chloe Sevigny, which you might say is even braver because it shows genitalia).
Yeah, the birth scene was just really weird. Didn’t really know what to make of it. Was it just their birth scenes intercut with the concert, or was the music/event somehow letting them ‘remember’/experience their birth? I assume it was the latter because it triggered you-know-what-character’s traumatic memories, no? Wolfgang’s part probably was the strangest of them all because we see his birth, immediately followed by him smiling and nodding as if he’s like “fuck yeah.”
Apparently this isn’t Jamie Clayton’s first trans character. Interesting that we now have two non-trans female actors playing male to female trans characters in the same year.
According to her Wikipedia page:
Clayton is a trans woman.
Wow! It’s JMS! I hoovered up the entire season. It’s really very visually striking - I’m normally the type of guy that yawns in special effects and explosions. The opening scene is also very artfully done.
The show does like to show you things instead of having someone explain it. That’s appreciated.
It seems everyone has genuine accents which I appreciate. They speak a few words in their own language, then shift to an accented English to make clear they are still speaking another language. I know the Spanish is real. I assume the same is with the German, Swahili and … Parsi?
I suspect there will be an issue next season as the mystery unravels. It will be a major tone shift and will change the nature of the show from exploring a sense of wonderment to some sort of action-driven heroes clone.
At a basic level, this is disappointing. There’s so much nonsense in there, that it just makes me wish they could have done the job properly. The gay dudes are pretty much a by the book stereotypical story, and incredibly cheesy. The trans+partner are not over the top, but when
ahem
the van pulled up and the neuromancer type decks were rolled out…
Wolfgang and his idiot friend are stupid beyond reason in their cliche decisions. The indian girl has her storyline almost bollywood plot bad.
But I think this series is greater than the sum of it’s parts. Despite all the nonsense and the basic cheesiness of it all, I think for what it is, it’s extremely well written and made and that covers a lot of it up. Even when the dumb shit is happening, I’m still immersed. The integration of characters and the switching between them is generally a perfect fit.
transdude
I didn’t pick up the trans character was actually trans until way after the mother started calling him Michael. I figured the mother was just a bitch and had named her daughter a boys name… don’t ask me why. Then after nomi got out of the hospital, I just started hearing the standard trans voice, and it clicked.
Still got around 3 episodes to watch, but looking forward to it.
Well, just finished the story and was overall pretty impressed with it. There are definitely some pretty cheesy moments that seemed too over the top but overall still a bit better than anything else I can think of watching recently.
vague ending discussion
Still not sure what they are going to go to start the next season. Looks like Will is going to be unconscious for a long while, or Whisper is going to have to die fairly early on. Or maybe Will being stranded in the middle of the north Atlantic will keep everyone safe for a little while.
Just finished it. I enjoyed it, the discovery of their connection and the who the characters were. And I was constantly impressed by the shots, the interleaving of them, etc. Really brought the whole thing together. I am not sure next season could be as good.
Though one thought I could not shake, it came into my head a couple episodes in and just stuck there. They were assembling a D&D party. You had your fighter, paladin, rogue, wizard, healer, bard, useless person on their phone almost all night, and the newbie that really wants to get into it but is still learning the ropes.
Yeah, I got the D&D party vibe as well.
I could list a ton of complaints but I’m enjoying the show.
The main thing that keeps driving me crazy is that it took 6 episodes before one character decided to share cell phone numbers to check if they were crazy, and then they still haven’t done it with any other characters as of ep 8. And worse, the cop was given a basic explanation of what’s going on by Jonas, he then made the one phone call and proved he wasn’t nutws. Why isn’t calling everyone he’s randomly shown up to prove he’s real and then filling them in with what he was told about what’s going on!