Sense8

That orgy was pure Narm and a waste of time. It's typical Wachowski-an artistic crudity, though.

I thought it was a beautiful scene.

I wouldn't mind it if it were the only scene of this kind. There are way too many of those more or less pointless scenes which are only there for artistic reasons, and even those which work tend to overstay their welcome. For example, I loved this scene when they all sang the same song...but it kept getting on and on for way too long.

Well they had to finish the song.

Why? There are a couple of possibilities to break up earlier, from interrupting one of the characters to simply blending out of the scene.

It's a good song.

I feel like it somewhat had a point; It really drove home EXACTLY how much they feel from each other and I thought maybe it might lead to some point that 'This is a bit invasive' or something.

It just ends up being a Big Lipped Aligator Moment though.

I kind of wish they'd discuss the people's opinions of each other. Everyone seems to get a long fine... but that's kind of not fuel for conflict and drama. I could see the girl's different cultural perspectives of family (Nomi rejects her family entirely while Kala is conflicted about her own happiness over her family's and Sun was expected by her family and her cultural epectations to go to jail for her family. There could be interesting conflict there if they wanted.

Or, you know, some people might be really uncomfortable being dragged into a sex orgy with people of the same sex? It doesn't have to be homophobia, but I think its perfectly reasonable to be uncomfortable being dragged into sex you may not be aware of or exactly into.

Oh god... It sounds like rape if I say it out loud. It makes sense in context! But, I wouldn't exactly be interested being dragged into sex because someone else is having it...? I'm not sure if I'm making sense.

A lot of that stuff could potentially come up in future seasons.

It doesn't make it feel any less odd that it wasn't addressed then and there.

Maybe, but I think it should have come up in the first season at least once.

It also bothered me that you nearly have always a male and male or a female and male character talking to each other, but rarely one of the females talking to each other.

edited 1st Jul '15 12:33:29 PM by Swanpride

I noticed that too. Or, at least the female-female part. The fameles and men have had a few conversations. Kala jumps in with Wolfgang a few times and talks with Capheus, and Sun jumps in with Capheus twice, Nomi and Riley talk with Will repeatedly to move the plot a long. And Nomi talks with Lido and gets him to do the right thing.

I can't think of a single time that a female character jumped in with another female character and it provided a conversation or character development. I don't think Nomi interacted with Kala or Sun ever and Riley only through the plot.

Speaking of that, I kind of get the impression that Kala is the least 'known' of the group since I think she only talks to Wolfgang and Capheus and no one else. Or, I don't think she talked with everyone else.

Sun and Riley have a pretty important conversation with each other right before Riley leaves for Iceland.

Swanpride

I'm curious, if you were writing the show how would you go about it and how would you fix it's flaws? I agree that maybe the main eight should've from being uncomfortable to gradually accepting the connection for character development ,but I don't understand your complaint about the characters problems being soap opera baggage. There are abusive parents and children who still have issues from that. There plenty of people in life who had moments of not wanting to dissapoint their family. They are people who take way too much crap from their families than they should and tolerate their families behavior for various reasons.There are people in life who do bad things for good intentions,such as stealing food to feed their families,because they dont have the same opportunities as others.What about that rings unrealistic to you? I'm curious? There's actually more than one question,but whatever.

edited 1st Jul '15 7:33:20 PM by docia

Well, first of all, I would have either provided an common enemy for all of them or an enemy for each of them, but not both. Preferably I would gone with option one and would have kept their struggles more grounded. For example, fighting to provide good medicine for your mother is already an interesting struggle. I don't see why the character should get the attention of a mob boss on top of it. I really liked Riley better before they told the story about her past, which felt horrible contrived. Why does she need a reason for her drug addiction and life as a drifter? Can't she simply be into drugs because she fell into the wrong crowd at one point? Isn't Kala's inner struggle about her marriage interesting enough, is there any reason to add a terrorist attack on her future father in law into the mix?

Also, there is something cliché about all those characters. It is set in Africa? There has to be HIV as theme. We have a transsexual characters? San Francisco is the only place she can be. A cop? Chicago, naturally. Berlin? We HAVE to mention the holocaust. And the lover-boy has to be latino, preferably Mexican. I wouldn't mind it if it were only one or two characters, but they all feel more like a representation of what American's think a foreign country is like and less of what they are actually like. Not that I don't think they did their research, they certainly did.

Oh, and I would have called the Show Sense5 or Sense6. I think there are too many characters from the get go, which makes it more difficult to let them interact with each other.

edited 1st Jul '15 8:22:58 PM by Swanpride

Nairobi is in Kenya, not Africa. It's the capital.

And I dunno. HIV is a big problem there. There are a lot of transexual people in San Francisco. Lito is more than just "a loverboy."

Swanpride So how would you have introduced the eight charcters or are you suggesting there should've only been only six to begin with? So are you saying there shouldn't have been a main villian (BPO/Whispers) and just have the charcters have there daily struggles,because I dont think that alone could carry the entire plot/show. I'd personally want to know HOW sensates came to be in the first place instead of just leaving it this hanging thread. And honestly,how would you have gone about the Capheus plot without the mob boss thing? (because I thought that the mob boss added a nice shade of dark grey,contrasting him with Capheus,though making the daughter ill was too much.) What would you have replaced Riley ' s contrived story with? You do realize that there are more reasons as to why people take drugs other than falling in a wrong crowd. She could've been bored,wanted to escape reality,finds it fun etc. I don't think have stereotypical traits are bad as long as a character is fleshed out and developed. Which, they may not be. But that depends on how good a writer is.

Mukora I agree. I do think there's more to Lito than just suave Latino. For one,he has pretty nasty flaws such as being self centered to the point where he was willing to let Amalia go back to her abusive boyfriend for the sake of his orientation not getting out.Not to mention that the only reason that he started dating her in the first place is so he could maintain a public image,so he was using her.Sure,he fixed his mistake,but the fact that he was willing to do that at all says something. (Which really doesn't make sense to me,seeing as how theres plenty of real celebrities who've come out and it hasn't dented their careers. Maybe it's because he's primarily marketed as an ladykiller.) And a big part of the suave Latino mask is a facade on his part. Speaking of transsexuals ,what do you think of Nomi's girlfriend?Do you think she's too unrealistic?If so,how would you handle her?I personally believe that she's a girlfriend who geniuelly cares for her partner and is open minded.

edited 1st Jul '15 9:21:17 PM by docia

Just bingewatched this. First couple episodes were really lackluster. I think the shit-just-got-real moment is Sun helping Capheus. Overall I loved it, despite some flaws. Heavy-handed at times, but sometimes almost adorably so.

Terrence Mann plays Whispers. I kept expecting him to rage "And soon the moon will smoulder, and the winds will drive!! Yes a man grows older, but his soul remains alive!!" Underdeveloped, but, eh, maybe next season.

Y'all h8ers back off from Lito. He's awesome. A total poser whose lies to himself bring him mostly pain but who would've thunk there were useful applications for acting, seduction, and lying? Also liked he got his ass handed to him until Wolfgang stepped in. Though, -adjust nitpicky glasses- did he just cruise in on six tequila shots and expect to win an altercation? I'm just a lady, but six shots with no food would have me laughing in that dude's face and reminding Daniela she promised to take me to her pedicurist.

My nitpicky glasses could stay on a helluva lot longer, but I had a ton of fun watching this. Favorites were Nomi, Sun, and Lito. Riley seems the Ma-Ti of the bunch.

edited 1st Jul '15 11:05:13 PM by Phoenixflame

If I were in charge of writing...

I think I would have probably structured the first Season far more as an origin story, character introduction, and concept exploration Season. I'd inevtiably hit Early Installment Weardness and maybe slow down the pacing a bit, but I'd keep the focus more on the characters and their indivudal stories and playing with their interpersonal realtions, opinions on each other's plotlines (Wolfgang might be perfectly fine with Capheus killing everyone with Sun, but Kala and Nomi might be horrified by it).

Obviously this could clear up how Will and Nomi get the sense8 Info dump while no one else does. And we could get a better developed romance out of Will and Riley this way too.

The 'Main Plot' arc of the season would probably be each person's individual stories instead of those only taking up about half a season's worth of material.

I probably would have saved Riley being kidnapped to be the cliffhanger of the Season and have Will's rescue open Season 2 where the Main Antagonists are established and revealed.

I REALLY liked the Season's pacing because it was brisk and never got too bogged down, but its ending up causing issues interally that I have no idea how to correct without slowing things down a bit.

I think the pacing was weird (I mean, how long did it take before there finally was some sort of communication between any of those members? Four episodes? It seemed to take ages), but otherwise, I agree. Focussing on the eight members trying to figure out their connection and interacting with all of the others would have done the first season a lot of good.

Swanpride Pacing wise,IMO it was pretty slow at the start,but it picked up at around ep 4 (?).

Ink Dagger I actually like this. Sure,it's causes the plot to slow down,but you have to sacrifice something for character/plot development. The plot itself never really felt that pretentious to me. I will admit the infamous orgy scene was weird. Would you take out all the sex scenes or would you add them where they matter?

Edited: BTW,how would any of you guys improve Will as a character as it seems he's the least favorite so far.

edited 2nd Jul '15 3:39:08 PM by docia

I'd probably keep the sex scenes but use them to convey information to the audience about the characters. For one, I apprecieate such openly gay fanservice since god knows that most shows that do have such fanservice MIGHT have gay fanservice and its once a blue moon.

Having an openly transgender character having sex with her gf is kind of important in a more audience representation point.

But, maybe Kala doesn't like sex or is really uncomfortable with the whole Orgy thing that happened (Could be completely wrong, but I'm pretty sure India frowns upon relations outside of marriage). Meanwhile Wolfgang might be a complete and utter slut. So the two contrast each other.

I think the orgy has a lot of points that could have been brought up later; How does Heterosexual Will feel about, all but, having sex with Homosexual Lido???

I'd have to experiment with weather it could be used or not (mostly out of idk if it might end up being offensive), but maybe Capheus is completely confused by the concept of being transgender because maybe that's a not very common concept in Kenya. I'd have to do some research.

But I think it could be useful in contrasting the cultures that each of the character's live in. Where, here in America, transgender is, at the very least, being discussed to some extent, that is certainly not true everywhere else. Same goes with the concept of sex between other cultures.

It also might be interesting to see the Sense8 try to problem solve working through the issues of constantly feeling each other. Maybe one of them is asexual or, for them, sex is an outright traumatic experience for them? Lido is trying to be happy with his boyfriend and Nomi happy with her's and sex is apart of that so they can't just become chaste, but obviously its something that might be REALLY uncomfortable for someone else to be feeling.

I also kind of want to see multiple Sense8 pooling their knowledge together, such as Lido combining his Acting Skills with Kala's Medical Knowledge to convincingly sneak through a Hospital or something.

As for Will's character... Hmmmm, I'd probably give him some more conflcit. It feels he's... He doesn't have much conflict going on with him. Lido feels conflicted about his career and his relationship, Kala is uncertain about marriage, Nomi has been outright rejected by her family and that's a struggle for her. Will doesn't really have any major issues. It probably helps for him to be the Audience Character, but it ends up making him taste bland.

I actually like Will because he is the one more or less simple character...I just wish he would be allowed to voice his opinions more. Thus said...he would probably be the first character I would scratch if I would write the show with less characters. Mainly because there already is an American character and a character who is able to fight and use weapons properly.

I think the best scene they had was Wolfgang and Kala discussing religion. Germany, especially in the big cities, is a society in which a lot of people are either only nominally Christian or outright atheist, and Wolfgang being a criminal is even less inclined to believe in some sort of god. Him trying to understand why Kala is religious even though she is a scientist too was the kind of scene I wanted to see more in the show. Just contrasting the views without judging either character.

edited 2nd Jul '15 12:51:54 PM by Swanpride

You keep bringing up Kala's virginity, but I don't think she was even involved in the orgy scene? At all. She, Sun, and Riley make no appearance if I recall correctly.

I thought she was. Didn't the scene starts with Wolfgang seeing her walking naked in the bathhouse?

I'd have to watch again, but the only characters I don't remember being there were Sun and Riley. Maybe Capheus.

Ink Dagger I'm not saying all asexuals are like this,but aren't there quite a few that are willing to have sex to make their partner happy/fulfilled? Not all asexuals are digusted by sex either,it's just not a big deal to them like it would be to a sexual person.

edited 2nd Jul '15 3:59:49 PM by docia