The Warchowskis and J. Michael Straczynski hit Netflix yesterday with their new show Sense8, about 8 people who find themselves linked together. It's kind of like Heroes, but much more focused on their personal lives.

Four episodes in and I've been enjoying it, despite a number of obvious flaws. Like anything the Warchowskis do it's something which thinks itself much more deep and profound than it actually is, while JMS seems to bringing his on-the-nose political preaching to the table in one of the major story arcs (although seeing as it features a transsexual, that might be Lana Warchowskis' doing). But its chief virtue is it's trying to do something a bit different, to show us lives we might not have seen on TV before. And like Cloud Atlas, there's some really nice transitions between characters as their experiences bleed into one another.

So far, the underlying mythology has barely been scratched, apart from the Sayid from Lost laying down a bit of exposition and the idea that the various Sense8 cells are hunted by some mysterious agency, but the show is so embedded in the personal lives of its characters this isn't really an issue.

What's kind of neat about it is that it allows any one of the characters to channel the skills of another, usually this involves them trading out actors so the Korean kick-boxing business woman fights African bus driver, Van Dam's battle. And the different cultures on display means they can have a Bollywood number featuring the Hindu woman. And they can all have a big sing-along to 4 Non-Blondes "What's Going On?" as Doctor Who's Martha Jones saves her lesbian lover from being lobotomized.

Is this show good? I'm not sure I'll commit to saying yes right now, as it's not like anything else I've seen (it's more soap opera than science fiction), but I'm becoming more and more invested in it with each episode.

“Van Damn is a man! He doesn’t need gadgets to fight. He fights with his fists and with his heart!”

I thought this was going to be about HTC's Android phone skin update.

I just watched episode 12 and I can't commit to saying if it was a good show or not.

There's a beauty about the show, very much like Cloud Atlas in that it seems to operate beyond plot and characters. Its more about how their stories complement each other. Cloud Atlas was like a piece of music, this is like a poetry, evocative and beautiful and more than a little pretentious.

Six episodes in and no real sense of an over-arching plot, but its all connected.

Don't be silly. No one cares about that.

Hell I don't even care about it. I don't have one of their phones anymore. I just thought it was weird that it would warrant a thread. Sounds about as interesting as this show though.

Having watched 10 episodes now... I think it delivers on the promise of Tomorrowland. Not the technological side, but in the sense of boundless optimism in the face of cruelty and tragedy. More importantly, it doesn't dwell on the negativity like Tomorrowland did, trying to pin the blame on some external force.

It's really a tough show to explain without making it sound completely boring, because it's largely about a bunch of people dealing with their own issues and drawing strength from these strangers who can see right through the lies they tell themselves. When one character is going through a break-up, he is drawn to the other character who is separated from her girlfriend, and they have an earnest conversation which helps give him the courage to risk something very important to him in order to save something far more important to him. Like Cloud Atlas, it seems determined to blur the lines between all sorts of entertainment, so we have a relationship drama mixed with action elements mixed with a sci-fi premise mixed with a conspiracy story mixed with a Bollywood musical mixed with a crime drama mixed with whatever else they decide to slip into it.

If anything, the show gets a bit boring whenever they decide to explore the central mythology, which means the Lost guy shows up, drops a bunch of exposition, and a bunch of sinister types chase them around for a bit before the show goes back to doing what it does a whole lot better, which is getting inside the hopes and dreams and fears of its eight leads, and watching how they draw strength and inspiration from one another. It's almost like a religious program, but instead of all your problems being solved by faith in a god, it's about how your problems can be solved by having faith in other people.

So I'm sitting in the living room getting some work done the other night when the Mrs. and the Jr. sit down to watch some TV. We're a sci-fi household, and the Mrs. heard about this new sci-fi show on Netflix, so they sat down together to watch it because the premise sounded interesting.

Then 20 minutes into the episode some gal is reaming another gal with a rainbow dildo, which flops to the floor with a wet splash when they were done.

The Jr. (which is 18, by the way) could only blurt out, "Well, this is awkward."

I don't think they'll be watching more of it together.

Eric sighting!

Along with mention of rainbow dildo.

I've been singing Rainbow Connection all day.



I got to the end of it yesterday. Thoroughly enjoyed it. The last two episodes are especially good with three action set pieces. But I loved the personal stories that weaved through the other episodes.. I especially love the end of Lito's story in which his beard completely fails to learn a lesson. "Really?"

Clubbsy, is the whole series self-contained or does it leave the door open to being ongoing?

It's definitely on-going. There's still some stuff up in the air at the end of the season, but not obnoxiously so.

If there's no second series, I would be happy with the finale, even though the villain is still in play and a couple of story arcs didn't really conclude. Every story had some kind of pay-off, but a couple of stories don't have a solid conclusion. No big, obvious cliff-hanger I guess is what I'm saying.

Makes sense. Good enough for me if I decide to give it a go.

Just don't go in expecting it to hit the central mythology too hard. They do it a bit at the start, then really don't really get back to it until near the end. It's much more about how these characters interact with each other in fairly mundane stories. There's a sex farce with a gay Mexican actor, a prison drama, a Bollywood story of an impending loveless marriage, a family crime story, a Van Damn martial arts story set in Africa, the aftermath of a tragedy, and the big conspiracy story (the primary focus of two characters).

Soooo...just fast forward to the 20 minute mark or so? Got it.

Just draw the curtains first.