(no subject)

[skygiants]

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.

Comments

[scifantasy]

It's also a Straczynski show; I half expected Naveen Andrews to be replaced with Walter Koenig when he went on about how the senates were another species of humanity.

[kore]

Ha, I forgot about that! That was what got my husband to watch -- B5 is his favourite show ever. I think JMS and the W's traded off scripts and rewrote as they went, too, so it was all really blended. ....especially the dialogue, at times, heh.

[ase]

Robin Atkin Downes.

[skygiants]

I feel like I should have known the Evolution Monologue was coming -- given givens, it was inevitable -- and yet somehow I'm still always surprised when it ambushes me.

[kore]

That was CERTAINLY a Wachowski show

WAS IT EVER

I enjoyed the hell out of it, probably because I was not there for the plot or the scifi blahblahwha, but the people and acting and diversity, and I really liked the cinematic representations of how they were all connected (the chicken, Sun's fighting, the, uh, orgy). I also liked it as a pastiche of a lot of genres mashed up together, in fact that was what made the parts about the white guys (who, no lie, I had difficulty telling apart at first) watchable for me. That's so Wachowski. "We'll have gritty Teutonic thriller noir AND noble US police heroics AND waify Icelandics with daddy issues AND a Bollywood number!" God love them and keep them safe. It was really nice they had something go viral (I thought it did on Twitter at least?) after the critics hacked Jupiter Ascending to pieces. They're kinda like if Busby Berkley cloned himself and had access to CGI and queer theory.

I cannot lie, I was watching for Nomi and Nita. I loved Nomi from her first moment (have a giant crush on the actress no less) and loved Nita even more (FREEMA). I loved the Bollywood dance number. (I did not love the singalong, mostly because I heard that song WAY TOO OFTEN in the nineties.) It really was a helluva lot like Heroes S1, I didn't catch that at all, but once you pointed it out -- a hot mess, but a wonderful cast, and they all interacted in a neat way, and the sciencegabble wasn't bad enough that it wrecked everything. (Now I am a little anxious about S2. Yeek.)

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.

Let us hope that AT LEAST the still-gorgeous Naveen (my God, that man) does not wind up like Goldblum in The Fly with horrible fake makeup gooped all over his lovely features. That was the epitome of later Heroes for me: take the prettiest actor in the entire cast (which is saying something) and cover him with SCABS. Gahhh.

[skygiants]

Yeah, the cinematography was fantastic throughout. It's such a pretty show! I mean, the trade-off for this is that the pacing is often hilariously bad -- "ok, so how many minutes of this final, climactic episode should we devote to sweeping shots of Icelandic snowscapes?" "TEN!" "I was thinking more like two --" "ACTUALLY MAKE IT FIFTEEN!" -- but I often find bad pacing adorable and charming, so that's OK with me. (Although I definitely thought the last episode had too many shots of snowscapes.)

Nomi and Nita were a delight in every scene! Like, on a narrative level, I have some quibbles about how Nita is written as almost too much of a Perfect Girlfriend to be human, but all the same, yes, OK, I guess, fine, sign me up for two episodes of Freema Agyeman and Jamie Clayton whizzing gorgeously around a backdrop of San Francisco rainbows and fairy dust being adorable at each other, twist my arm.

Oh, Mohinderfly. Oh ....... late Heroes. MEMORIES. Terrible, terrible memories. At least I stopped watching before Sylar joined the circus.

[kore]

Oh, I was also there for Iron Woobie Sun and snarky-too-good-for-him Hernando, who was kind of like Ando (in the Heroes verse, Ando was me, the useless sarky sidekick. "Destiny would lose our number!"). Capheus is definitely Hiro (adored both of them).

[skygiants]

My favorite thing about Sun was how they couldn't decide which trope to use for their Korean plot -- "businesswoman constrained by sexism and terrible chaebol family?" "badass martial artist?" -- and then they were like WHAT THE HECK, LET'S JUST DO BOTH and by shoving them together (and hiring Doona Bae, what a glorious human) accidentally made an super three-dimensional character! WELL DONE WACHOWSKIS.

-- OK, my other favorite thing about Sun was how happy she was towards the end about the opportunity to just murder the heck out of everyone else's bad guys. I'm not so sure where she got so OK with straight-up murder, given that nothing in her past indicates that she'd ever actually killed anyone before, but SURE WHY NOT.

(ANDO WAS ALWAYS MY FAVORITE TOO. Man, I can't wait until Hernando finds out about the main plot, I hope that he and Lito have MANY flailing sinister conspiracy adventures.)

[ase]

I loved watching Sense8, but I loved it through the lens of my Babylon 5 teenage fangirling. I am deeply invested in watching a second season, if there is a second season, to see if it hits a plotty stride, B5 fashion, or falls apart, Matrix style.

I adore Nomi's plot, because AMANITA AND NOMI, and also the wonderful location shots in my beautiful city. Not all locations get that loving attention: Seoul and Nairobi, for example. Sense8 is very cozy, very supportive in its approach to the protagonists, but it's also trying to pack eight loosely connected stories into twelve episodes and also kick off a mytharc. That's a lot to pull off, so it feels like some of the subtleties (or... not so subtle issues) are getting shortchanged.

[skygiants]

Yeah, this is also my question! I'm SO CURIOUS, because at this point it very clearly could go either way.

Not to mention that they are trying to pull all this off and are completely unable to resist temptation whenever they get sidetracked into a five-minute shot of atmospheric grandeur. Most of them are very pretty! See: San Francisco location shots. Is it plot-necessary to have two episodes of Nomi and Nita dancing through Pride? No, but who cares. But it does often throw the show dramatically out of balance, plot-wise. (And, like, then on the other hand, all the shots of naked lounging Wolfgang, which a.) is this necessary? and b.) do you really not need to wear clothes in German swimming pools? Is this a thing?)

[aquamirage]

I watched this very quickly and so much of it is so stupid but...when it worked for me emotionally it did the job surprisingly well. They're all so sweet and attractive and kind! They all get along without really ever being jerks to each other! Except I guess for Wolfgang, but whatever. KARAOKE AND AN ORGY.

I haven't seen Heroes, but I heard a bunch of people say it's kind of like Lost if Lost was less terrible and I kind of agree. Maybe it's just healing the part of me that suffered through seven years of Lost, I hope it is also doing this for Naveen Andrews.

The best non-sensate besides Hernando and Amanita is Riley's elfin ukelele father.

[skygiants]

Yeah, that's pretty much how I felt too! SO MUCH OF IT IS REALLY DUMB but the parts that aren't dumb are really pretty, and the actors are all so pretty (EVERYONE IS PRETTY! like, dang, Capheus' mom!) and people love each other and there's very nice music.

(I was willing to put up with Wolfgang until the very last episode when he pulled a classic "I'M A MONSTEEEEERRRRR and that's why you should marry Rajan!" Like, OK, I am not arguing that Rajan is a much better choice than you, he seems like a perfectly nice guy, but have you ever considered that Kala doesn't actually have to marry anyone? "WOLFGANGPAIN," says Wolfgang, in response to my reasoned complaints.)

Heroes S1 was really enjoyable! Heroes .... did not have any other seasons after S1, I don't know what you're talking about. But yes, I hope Naveen Andrews also uses this show to find a kind of redemption.

RILEY'S ELFIN UKELELE FATHER. <3 I was so confused when he appeared after four or five solid episodes of "Riley is involved in London crime!" and then sudden left turn into QUIRKY ICELANDIC FAMILY DRAMA," but in no way complaining.

[littledust]

I refuse to refer to this character as anything other than "Riley's elfin ukulele father" from now on, A+!

[intothespin]

I was also thinking of the Heroes comparison! But you're the first person I've seen make it.

[skygiants]

Maybe we've all just worked too hard and succeeded too well at erasing the trainwreck that was Heroes from our collective memories ...

[hannah]

Over on Tumblr, I suggested the show would be vastly more interesting if the characters' jobs were shuffled around - transowman doctor, African DJ, Icelandic cop, white male bus driver. Like that.

[littledust]

WOULD WATCH THAT SHOW SO HARD.

[littledust]

I am eight episodes in and have noticed all of these things, except I did not think to make the Heroes comparison. IT IS TOTALLY HEROES S1. My boyfriend also made the "Lost, the good parts of Lost" comparison, but I stopped watching Lost after early S2 and don't really remember anything but pretty people + how mad I was when they killed my favorite characters.

THE SIGNIFICANT OTHERS!! I do want more backstory for Hernando and Nita, because they are SUCH DELIGHTS IN EVERY WAY. Part of me noticed that yes, they do seem to have no lives outside of being sensate SOs, but a much larger part of me was singing LALA I DON'T CAAAARE LOOK AT THEM STEAL EVERY SCEEEEENE. I do want a scene where Nomi is like, "Neets, why do you believe me so unconditionally?" and Nita is like, "Society has a LONG HISTORY of erasing people like us, so why would I believe it over you?" What I'm saying is I spent a lot of time clutching my heart when the queers (and old hippie moms) of SF helped Nomi and Nita without question. BECAUSE DAMN THE MAN AND HIS SHADOWY SCI-FI CONSPIRACY.

That is the best description of Capheus ever. I adore him with my whole heart, but yeah. Writing subtext. D: Also, Wolfgang is really boring! And I don't like that his being boring makes Kala's storyline ALSO boring! Kala is wicked cute, I enjoy all of her family scenes, and yet... why would you choose Angsty Thief over Bollywood Magic? I would be all for a narrative about a woman who just isn't that into the Perfect Man, and breaks away to follow her heart despite overwhelming pressure to get with Perfect Man, but... I would like that narrative to be written by somebody else, please.

[skygiants]

You know what I really want? I want Hernando and Amanita to hang out TOGETHER. Maybe talk about their actual jobs! That would be amazing.

I also really, really want the scene you describe. (Man, Nita's old hippie mom! On the one hand I'm like "not only is Nita perfect but her mom is perfect too??" but on the other hand, like with everything about Nita, I am just completely won over by HOW MUCH OF A DELIGHT she is and her mom is!)

I enjoyed Kala's plotline way more than I expected to, because the actress is so adorable and charming (and really good at selling everything she does!) and her family is so cute and fun and supportive -- those actually felt like some of the most natural and believable scenes to me out of the whole thing. EVEN THOUGH I don't care about Wolfgang at all. I am super excited for her to actually interact more with other people, though. How great was her scene with Capheus? SO CUTE.

[musesfool]

Ha, yes, it was kind of like s1 of Heroes.

I mostly enjoyed it, but the writing was...something that wasn't good a lot of the time. And I thought hanging the emotional climax of the season on Riley was a really poor choice. She was such a drag, and while I understand that she was clinically depressed and had PTSD etc., the only parts of her story that worked for me were the ones with her elfin ukelele dad. Or when she interacted with Capheus or Sun, but that's just because they make everything better.

[skygiants]

Yeah, that seemed a bit strange to me too, especially since it sort of rose up out of nowhere -- up until then, Nomi had been pretty much the center of the plot plot, and Riley's plot had felt even more disconnected than everybody else's. I don't object to the story of Riley's emotional recovery, but it did feel weird as the climax, and, like, did we need quite that much of the episode to be devoted to STAGGERING DRAMATICALLY ACROSS THE SNOWY TUNDRA? I feel comfortable in saying that we did not.

[lnhammer]

Wait. Riley is ... SO ... not an Icelandic name. Just, no.

I'm sure there's some other things in your post to talk about, but I'm kinda hung up on this. I mean, what? NO.

---L.

[skygiants]

It made sense when I thought she was British but apparently she was never British at all, so ... yeah, I got nothing.

[plinythemammaler]

my introduction to Sense8 was a friend trying to explain the opening scene with Daryl Hannah giving birth to eight people in an abandoned church and dying dramatically and then her friend was on the run somehow and in any case this kept recursively looping back to my trying to understand Daryl Hannah giving birth to eight people in a church somehow and she tried to explain this single scene of Sense8 for a good 10 minutes of vigorous and confused walking so thank you very much for clarifying this show for me!!!

[skygiants]

It's metaphorical birth! All metaphorical.

...at least until episode ten and the ten-minute montage of actual people giving actual birth to those eight people, quite graphically, set against a beautiful classical concert. "SYMBOLISM!!!!!" say the Wachowskis.