'Sense8' episode 1 review: 'Limbic Resonance'

Generally, those who didn’t quite jive with the Wachowskis’ and Tom Tykwer’s three-hour, multi-generations spanning tale Cloud Atlas complained about its cookie-cutter theories and pretentious execution, and that's if they even understood its grand theories. While I certainly don’t agree with these complaints towards their 2012 film, based on what I’ve seen from the Wachowskis’ and J. Michael Straczynski’s new Netflix series Sense8, I’m more inclined to believe the criticisms unjustly given to the film more than apt towards their latest project, particularly from its pilot, "Limbic Resonance."

A disturbed druggie Angelica (Daryl Hannah) kills herself in an abandoned church and, in the process changes the lives of eight strangers from around the world. Those strangers being London DJ Riley (Tuppence Middleton), rookie Chicago cop Will (Brian J. Smith), Berlin locksmith Wolfgang (Max Riemelt), Matatu van driver Capheus (Aml Ameen), Spanish actor Lito (Miguel Angel Rodriguez), San Francisco hacktivist Nomi (Jamie Clayton), businesswoman Sun (Bae Doona) and Hindu pharmacist Kala (Tina Desai). Throughout a course of a couple days, they’re all suddenly connected to one another psychologically, as they find themselves feeling and interacting in their daily lives and struggles. Why are they connected? Who was Angelina? And why were they chosen? These, of course, are the questions one expects answered in the episodes to come.

As primarily an establishment of their characters, we only get the briefest of interactions with each one, with Wolfgang, Riley and Nomi getting the most screen-time in this episode. Written by the showrunners and directed by the siblings, “Limbic Resonance” doesn’t have the production values The Matrix filmmakers were graced with from their previously projects. But it certainly carries the same scope and ambition. The continuous globe jumping is surprisingly not nearly as disjointed as one would think them to be, and their odyssey does contain a nice distinction between the various locations thanks to some key art direction and location scouting. And while it should be enthralling to visit continuously between countries and nationalities, for whatever reason there’s rarely any sense of thrill or advantageous exploration.

It would seem this is primarily because the characters we meet here, at least so far, are fairly generic, and lack much personalities beyond their sexuality, job situation or ethnicities. So it’s up to the different actors playing the parts to make them stand out and, as expected, these range from character to character in terms of quality. Of the bunch, Capheus is the most enthusiastic character, and Riley’s foreshadowed past troubles are mildly interesting. And even though it’s the same tired good-hearted cop you seen on TV for years, there's an undeniable sweetness to Will's persona, although the loving relationship Nomi has with her lover Amanita (Freema Agyeman) may be even more delightful.

But beyond these, however, the rest of these figures don’t strike up much conversation. Wolfgang is a talented criminal with father issues, one of which comes from his dad’s inability to accept him as a musician. Nothing terribly interesting or new there. Although, it does make for the second time a Netflix series has a character literally pissing on his dad’s grave, unless I missed such a moment in Grace and Frankie. Additionally, Lito, a closeted actor struggling to adopt his latest macho-man character, ironically, can’t quite litigate himself emotionally as his character struggles through the various personas of his performed character. If that makes sense.

Sun also is so rarely seen that she hardly makes an impact in his episode, and Kala’s finance troubles has been so overplayed previously, they don’t seem even relevant to the directors. This isn’t even mentioning Hannah’s oddly overblown and near comical first sequence, which immediately sets in doubt as far as what the directing siblings put together with their first TV series. Also, starting your show off with an annoyingly blunt Jesus metaphor is no way to waft off claims of pretentiousness. That much is for sure.

With all its talk of psychology and spiritual connections, Sense8 is weirdly both liberal and conventional. As said before, its ideas and concept are interesting, but its delivery is a little too conceited to spark. The dialogue is so flat and obvious that it comes across as pandering, and the inability to connect to the characters yet makes this a fairly dull watch so far.

Maybe it's the lesser budget, or the cast not quite bringing the same quality performances, and/or that the Wachowskis and Straczynski are working from their own words and not David Mitchell's. Whatever it is, Sense8 is sadly no where near as engrossing as Cloud Atlas, at least so far. It’s disappointing, but to their credit it was right of them to expand this into the long-form, rather than condense it into a single film narrative. There’s a lot of ground to discover still, and that is what makes this episode so hard to review.

Credit should be given, though, to the filmmakers for not only creating this show but also releasing a major studio tentpole movie, Jupiter Ascending, all in one year. With their endless resources, their ideas remain as wide as their scales. That should be celebrated, and it would be if what they made after their invigorating 2012 movie lived up to their potential. But, again, it’s still too early to say this here, especially based solely on this first episode. Though I’m not quite as connected to Sense8 and its spiritually conjoined protagonists as I hoped, and it also doesn’t live up to its pilot’s title by any real stretch of the imagination.

Image courtesy of INFphoto.com