Don't let the silly premise and straight forward title of Netflix's latest series "Sex Education" fool you into thinking that it is a shallow dive into the peculiar sexual lives of millennial high school students because it isn't. What creator and writer Laurie Nunn and Directors Kate Herron and Ben Taylor were able to create is a little bit of everything that makes this one a surprisingly compelling watch from the first episode to last. Silly and quirky humor, loads of drama and tension, "Sex Education" is a ball of silliness, fun, and discovery.
Otis Milburn (Asa Butterfield) is a socially awkward high school student who lives with his sex therapist mother, Jean (Gillian Anderson). Surrounded by the topic of sex his whole life, Otis has become an expert on the subject. When he accidentally provides helpful sexual advice to one of his peers, Otis realizes that he can use his knowledge to gain status and gain some cash on the side. He teams up with Maeve (Emma Mackey) and his best friend Eric (Ncuti Gatwa) as they set up an underground sex therapy clinic to deal with their fellow students’ sexual issues.
It might be its British roots but "Sex Education" has a very different vibe from your typical teen-focused series. The premise of "Sex Education" could have easily been its downfall but it plays around with this topic without becoming just all about the sex and nudity. Like its main character Otis, "Sex Education" only uses sex as a vehicle to drive in what's more important in the overall picture - the relationships between parents and their kids, best friends, enemies, crushes, towards oneself, and a whole lot more. One of the major factors for its success was its relatable characters. The band of high school misfits features everything you'd come to expect from jocks, bullies, losers, nerds and everyone else in between. But what caught us off guard was how the show heavily focuses delves each character's personal lives - how cool or big and how small or weak a character may be in school, we really get to know their good and most of the time, darker sides. Another thing that made us appreciate the show was the stellar acting and dynamic between Asa Butterfield and Gillian Anderson. Butterfield was able to portray his silly and sexually-struggling character of Otis perfectly while you'll have to watch Gillian Anderson's performance on your own to appreciate how awesome she was in "Sex Education". If we could point out issues on the show it would be the screenplay. Major plotlines turned out to be rather pedestrian and predictable while the first season just ends and the show could have used ten episodes instead of eight or maybe it's that good that we wish it could have had more episodes to present us. Overall, "Sex Education" was a total surprise. It's easily one of our favorite Netflix releases to date and one with a lot of humor, a lot of drama, but most importantly, a lot of substance.
Rating: 4 reels
Why you should watch it:
- Asa Butterfield and Gillian Anderson lead a well-acted series
- quirky comedy with deep drama and tension in between
- the overall story works out to be great
Why you shouldn't watch it:
- some key aspects of the screenplay were predictable
- the first season ends on a high note but the ending feels a little bit too sudden
Why you should watch it:
- Asa Butterfield and Gillian Anderson lead a well-acted series
- quirky comedy with deep drama and tension in between
- the overall story works out to be great
Why you shouldn't watch it:
- some key aspects of the screenplay were predictable
- the first season ends on a high note but the ending feels a little bit too sudden
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