Sense8 character collage

Sense8

Finished season 1 of Sense8. It is not a good show. It’s self-indulgent and nonsensical, brimming with melodrama and an unearned sense of its own importance.

I loved it anyway.

I think because I really just like the characters.  You spend a lot of time with them.  They all lead improbably complicated and dangerous lives.  You’ve got a Chicago cop, kick-ass Korean MMA fighter lady, Kenyan bus driver (which, it turns out, is more complicated and dangerous than it sounds), Icelandic DJ in London, trans-woman computer hacker in San Francisco, Indian research doctor and bride-to-be, German jewel thief and Mexican telenovella star.  And they can each channel each others abilities.  It’s a 90s or 2000s graphic novel quasi-superhero story.

And the fact that one of them is a telenovella star is the subtle hint that tells you how to frame this thing.  It’s supposed to be a crazy fantasy story.  So just go with it.

I do wish it spent more time digging into the science fictional premise.  But that’s my taste.

So much of this show is utterly ridiculous.  Bits of it are pointlessly gratuitous (in various senses).  I can’t justify liking it as much as I do.  But I do.