Topic: Sex Education (Netflix comedy)

[kidsick5000]

Has anyone seen this?
I can't help but think it has been mis-promoted.
I thought it was some borderline American Pie/Inbetweeners gross out comedy.
Turns out it's much better than that.
It has a lot of heart, the acting is really good (you feel that we'll be seeing much more of the young cast) and while it's not laugh-out-loud funny, it is highly entertaining.
Gillian Anderson is in it, and similar to one her previous series - Hannibal, it is filmed in a stylish way that gives it an 'out of time' feel.
Asa Butterfield and Emma Mackey are great as the leads. Utterly convincing as two people cautiously dancing around that friends/couple line.
Mackey has a Margot Robbie/Eva Green vibe, so that probably helps.

I hope that season two comes out soon, I kinda regret binging it.

[Ja'moke]

It's really enjoyable, some top-notch performances, and quite sweet in places. I just feel it would have benefited from shorter episodes. A comedy series like this doesn't need 50+ minute episodes.

[remedial_gash]

Pretty much binged it over the course of one night, while suffering from the aftermath of another kind of binge. I can't for the life of me understand why it was billed as a comedy, but it was an amiable teen drama/thing with some cracking actors.

The setting was weirdly compelling with its strange mid-atlantic mix of  British grittiness and weird anachronistic American iconography - school jackets and swim meets? Didn't even recognise Scully till the second episode, and generally thought the cast top notch, the thug/bully/Herring was a stand out as a thoroughly believable shit-bag.

[McFlymo]

Episodes / Seasons being too long is always my biggest criticism of Netflix shows. There's always unnecessary padding and fluff that can ruin these otherwise brilliant shows. But I really enjoyed Sex Education! I'd happily watch several more seasons, as the characters, while not all massively original, feel fleshed out and believable. I love that the setting is slightly fictional (80s feel but with mobile phones and internet and a college that seems very American, but set in some posh part of Engerland).

[danielreal2k]

Some middle aged executive at Netflix "right take Skins, Inbetweeners/American Pie/Ferris Bueller stick it in a blender set it in California,  no Wales, actually fuck it blend those 2 together, add some 70s cars and music, fuck it add 80's music too and 2010's"

[Sin Agog]

Think it has a little more soul to it than that, but there are bits (like the pneumatic beginning of every bloody episode*) that feel contrived and exec-ordered.  The characters are way more betterer than most Netflix bilge, though, whose main problem is thinking a scarf or being a lesbian counts as an entire personality.  The more run of the mill shite would never write a character like Adam Groff, the principle's son. They did start to teeter a bit by the end of the second season, I think, even though generally speaking it was improved all round.  I could have been a bit put off by the self-conscious 'A Very Special Episode' bus subplot, but I wasn't and the other girls' show of solidarity for Aimee actually made me tear up a wee bit.


*I know I brought it up in another thread, but it's definitely Only Fools & Horses playing in the background as some lissome teens go at it in one of the openings in the first season

[danielreal2k]

I think I would appreciate the series more if they decided what age (are they 16 or 28?) , decade or location they are in.
Maybe the writers will turn this into a Life on Mars/Black Mirror weird time travel thing, the cars are all 1980-1983 registrations if it wasn't for the mobile phones I would swear this was set in 1984.

Or maybe like the characters that is the point of the show, like the gender, the decade, age and locaton are fluid.

[MojoJojo]

I believe the writing team is mixed US/UK which is their excuse for the weird UK/US mash up - they couldn't set it in a realistic UK/US setting as half the writing team wouldn't have any experience of it.

It is weird and distracting for about a half a series though.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Has anyone seen this?
I can't help but think it has been mis-promoted.
I thought it was some borderline American Pie/Inbetweeners gross out comedy.
Turns out it's much better than that.
It has a lot of heart, the acting is really good (you feel that we'll be seeing much more of the young cast) and while it's not laugh-out-loud funny, it is highly entertaining.
Gillian Anderson is in it, and similar to one her previous series - Hannibal, it is filmed in a stylish way that gives it an 'out of time' feel.
Asa Butterfield and Emma Mackey are great as the leads. Utterly convincing as two people cautiously dancing around that friends/couple line.
Mackey has a Margot Robbie/Eva Green vibe, so that probably helps.

I hope that season two comes out soon, I kinda regret binging it.

I was late to the party with this as it was released just when I broke up with Mrs SMBH V.1.0, and didn't want to see attractive people fucking, but now I'm happily coupled up with Mrs SMBH V.2.0 I gave it a shot and enjoyed it a great deal, it's smart, funny and packed with extremely likeable characters. Have to admit that the first couple of episodes of season 2 didn't appeal as much as the show normally does, mostly because many of the main characters weren't really interacting with each other, but the final half of the season was superb and even though I hated him during season 1 I really liked the direction Adam's storyline took, and Gillian Anderson was especially superb this year too. Hope disabled man dies next year though, especially after what he did in the final episode, if only because it means the Will They / Won't They plotline with Maeve and Otis is going to drag on for another season.

[Keebleman]

My former housemate is in this, as Courgette Connor.  I've seen him in two trailers in both of which he uses the word 'wanking'.

I'm in it too.  I can just be made out in episode 1 of season 2 when Gillian Anderson is talking about 'The Three Ts'.  I don't use the word 'wanking', nor any other word in fact.  I just sit there.

[kitsofan34]

The lead character, Otis, is a bit of a selfish twat. I’m on series 2, episode 2, and the first two episodes, him and Eric have done nothing but talk about his problems. Whenever Eric wants to talk about something that matters to him, Otis gives it short thrift and moves the discussion back to him. This was seen in series 1 too but was an actual character arc, with Maeve distracting Otis to the point where he neglected Eric. Unless they’re doing literally the same arc two series in a row, I struggle to see beyond the fact that Otis is just in fact, a selfish tear.

[mjwilson]

Why did they have to use such a stupidly unrealistic quiz question to settle the final?

[MojoJojo]

The lead character, Otis, is a bit of a selfish twat. I’m on series 2, episode 2, and the first two episodes, him and Eric have done nothing but talk about his problems. Whenever Eric wants to talk about something that matters to him, Otis gives it short thrift and moves the discussion back to him. This was seen in series 1 too but was an actual character arc, with Maeve distracting Otis to the point where he neglected Eric. Unless they’re doing literally the same arc two series in a row, I struggle to see beyond the fact that Otis is just in fact, a selfish tear.

While I'm wondering why Eric inviting loads of people to the party is being overlooked and no one's even mentioned it was a twatty thing to do.

I know I'm going to come across as a bit of a gammon, but it feels a bit ridiculous that everyone is gay.  Otis and Maeve seem to be the only straight main characters*. Nothing wrong with that perhaps, but it does feel a bit like "well, we've got a will they/won't they relationship, that's the only entertaining straight relationship, now who else can we have discovering their sexuality?".

To be fair I think it just grates a bit with Ola and Lily cause it came out of nowhere and was resolved too quickly. In one episode it goes from Ola being Otis's girlfriend, rightly pissed off with him because he's being a dick, to "actually, I'm pansexual and in love with Lily". I suspect the writers needed Ola to get with someone else instead of Otis and wanted to give Lily a larger role, which is fair because she is good on screen.


(* ok, Otis's mum too)

[MojoJojo]

So finished this last night. Felt a bit cheap Adam and Eric getting together - think Adam's storyline would have ended better with the scene where Ola called him a friend and he hugged her (which was great). Him finding happiness that doesn't involve his penis.

Also, Lily having vaginismus just seemed a bit unnecessary, and isn't very consistent with her wanting being desperate to lose her virginity.

[ishantbekeepingit]

My flatmate's been watching this and so far I've reckoned that the main character was a trans woman, then I reckoned he was gay.  This is just further proof that I cannot understand human beings and live in a cave, conversing with spiders until I offend their queen and move onto pebbles.

[Small Man Big Horse]

My flatmate's been watching this and so far I've reckoned that the main character was a trans woman, then I reckoned he was gay.  This is just further proof that I cannot understand human beings and live in a cave, conversing with spiders until I offend their queen and move onto pebbles.

In the first season someone described him as a "Victorian Ghost" and I think that's about right.

[Ian Drunken Smurf]

Am late to this, as with everything. Just into the second series now.

Does anyone else think S1 Gillian Anderson looks and sounds like Paula Yates? Although there is also a hint of Thatcher from the Crown in it too...

[Mr Trumpet]

Could not get into this show. They all look like sixth-formers but in the first episode one of them gets robbed for his lunch money by a bully? Just feels like it was written by people who've never set foot in a British school.

[Ian Drunken Smurf]

Could not get into this show. They all look like sixth-formers but in the first episode one of them gets robbed for his lunch money by a bully? Just feels like it was written by people who've never set foot in a British school.

The Head Boy into swimming was the reincarnation of Benny Green in Grange Hill. Adam Groff is a bit Gripper Stebson-esque. I didn't like the whole anarchic school with American High School refit.

[Ian Drunken Smurf]

PS Wonder if the ghost of Dustin Diamond will appear in third series...

[paruses]

Never fancied watching this but from the bits that Netflix has shown me is it a other candidate for the thread about UK places filmed as if they are American (the thread title is better than my description)?

[SteveDave]

I remember watching the first episode of this and being really put off by everything it did. The sex, the "humour", the setting, the actors...everything seemingly designed to get my goat and give it AIDS.

[MojoJojo]

Never fancied watching this but from the bits that Netflix has shown me is it a other candidate for the thread about UK places filmed as if they are American (the thread title is better than my description)?

It's deliberate and weird. It does seem like they wanted to make something in the UK with UK actors, but didn't want to put off a US audience by it being unfamiliar. Apparently US audiences won't think there is anything odd about it?

You do get past it after a bit. I'd say it's OK overall.