Netflix has grown to become a platform for some really interesting movies and TV series. Starting with being well known for dramas like ‘House of Cards’ and then black comedies like ‘Orange is the New Black’ and reboots of ‘Arrested Development’ then the house of the Marvel TV series such as ‘Daredevil’ and ‘Jessica Jones’, ‘Sex Education’ is a new take on dramedy in a high school setting. And the result was surprisingly refreshing.
‘Sex Education’ is high school dramedy, so expect all the clichés of mean girls and popular boys in usually movies or TV series of the similar kind. However, the similarities stopped here. The premise of the show banks in on teenager’s curiosity and experimentation about sex without knowing what it is actually about. In came our protagonist Otis (played by the brilliant Asa Butterfield) whose mum (Gillian Anderson of the ‘X Files’ fame) is an established sex therapist whom he felt awfully weird about. However, because of him being soaked in this sex therapist environment, he unconsciously learnt the skills, which was discovered by the Harley Quinn like Maeve Wiley and decided to establish a clinic business with Otis as the school sex therapist. Together they have a great variety of clients with issues from masturbating with a melon to unsatisfying lesbian sex. The process was hilarious and it was through this process that both Otis and Maeve slowly discovered who they are.
The series focused a lot on both self-discovery and helping others to discover themselves, their partners and they true feelings around the world their people. Some of the therapy sessions were outlandishly hilarious and others were touching. It has graphic descriptions about teenage sex and their curiosity about their sexuality, but in a lot of cases, it transcends the physical aspects and dealt with the emotional and psychological aspects. And I think this provided a distinctive point of view for the series. Also the journey that both Otis and Maeve went through during the 8 episodes was intriguing as they came to terms to their change of status at the school and dealing with new relationships and falling out of old ones. The constant question of ‘Is it me or is it them’ continued to haunt them while they presented as a united front to help all those desperate souls at the school, with a fee.
Gillian Anderson as Otis’ mother Jean was without a doubt a screen stealer. Her sex therapist persona that sometimes unconsciously bled into her relationship with Otis at times made really good TV and was always a joy to watch. I think her casting was absolutely spot on. Asa Butterfield’s Otis has everything you can expect from an awkward kid who wanted to just stay invisible. However, the thriving school sex therapist business had put him into the limelight and forced him to gradually open up to the world around him. This development slowly brought him out of his comfort zones and look at the world in proper light. Emma Mackey’s Maeve was deep and rich and provided a great premise for Otis to thrive. Her unapologetic attitude to life while at the same time has massive insecurity because of her ‘deficiencies in the family department’ provided a great canvas for character development. And how Otis and Maeve fed off each other’s vibe to survive while enriching each other’s life was very interesting to watch. Ncuti Gatwa as Eric did a decent job with a character that was initially quite cliché and bland. For me initially I was a bit disappointed with a gay side kick character again and it felt token and stereotypical. However, as the character grew and you found out more and more about his background the character became a bit more full-fledged and I started to appreciate him a bit more. There are a number other interesting characters in the show too although in my opinion a number of them were quite under-developed, probably because of the shortness of the series.
The soundtrack of the show was as unapologetic as the premise. It strangely complements the theme of the show in a way that it brought out the rawness of young people in a seemingly protecting but in reality, a rough environment. The high school they were in looks like a prestigious high school from the look of the campus but within the walls of this majestic building are raw souls yearning to break out and march without regret into an unknown adulthood. This emotional (or probably hormonal) yearning was masterfully magnified by the soundtracks played throughout the series. And the soundtracks were not monotone but covered a wide variety of genre.
Despite breaking new grounds, the series itself is not flawless. For example despite the presence of two lesbian relationships, with which one of them were quite graphic from a sexual depiction point of view, the only ‘gay scene’ in the series was only lightly touched on despite there were two prominent gay characters in the show. For me this kind of imbalance made me wonder whether the writers or producers still think lesbian relationships are more acceptable than gay ones so trying to downplay its impact on screen? Also as mentioned earlier there were some interesting characters that were seriously under-developed. For instance Adam Groff, the headmaster son’s character was extremely one-dimensional and his action was too predictable to be interesting. Similarly the mean-team at school was just mean-team. Although it touched lightly on its in-group dynamic, they were never really that interesting to watch. That goes the same with some other characters such as Ola and his plumber dad, Jackson the head boy whose background story though interesting did not have sufficient materials to flash it out. The other really annoying aspect are the numerous on again and off again relationship with some characters and all those cliché chance co-incidence encounters putting characters out of phase with each other. I personally felt that the show would be so much better without them.
Although ‘Sex Education’ is not without its issue but it did serve up a new template for teen dramas. It is not your average teen drama and I must say that if it is not on Netflix, it might not be produced. It is a short series of 8 episodes so if you are looking for something different and engaging ‘Sex Education’ can be one of your choices.
