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Why You Should Care About Sense8 (Even If You Haven’t Seen It)

Why You Should Care About Sense8 (Even If You Haven’t Seen It)

Last updated on: June 4, 2017 at 5:35 pm by Matthew Currie

Why You Should Care About Sense8 (Even If You Haven’t Seen It) 2017-06-04T17:35:58-07:00 Matthew Currie

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source: Netflix

Sense8 is a series on Netflix about an apparently random selection of very different people from around the world who find themselves sharing a psychic bond. On the face of it, that’s all you need to know if you aren’t going to watch it (that, and Netflix has recently cancelled it). If you’re a fan, you already know why we need Sense8 back. If not, please: give me a minute of your time to explain why you need Sense8 back — even if you aren’t going to watch it.

No Cookie Cutter Involved

Do you like medical dramas? Romance? Crime documentaries? Superheroes? If so, there’s a ton of that sort of thing out there. I promise you this, though: you’ve never seen anything on TV quite like Sense8. But that’s not why we need Sense8 back.

It’s About People Like You

Okay, so you probably aren’t an Icelandic DJ, a Kenyan bus driver, or a transgendered lesbian hacker. But think about this: come up with four or five basic descriptors for yourself. For example, I am a cisgender white male not-very-religious Canadian. Whatever description you come up with for yourself — someone out there would like you to die for it. That’s right: by someone else’s standards, you are a monster and the world would be better off without you. Sense8 deals with these issues and demonstrates the power of compassion and inclusiveness. But that’s not why we need Sense8 back.

The Fight Scenes Kick Ass!

The series is created by Lana and Lilly Wachowski and J. Michael Straczynski. If you know the name “Wachowski,” you know that they’ve have produced some amazing works, and even the less-successful of these have featured truly spectacular visuals (The Matrix, anyone?). Sense8 has featured some of the greatest visuals made for television, and the action sequences kick some serious ass, Wachowski style. But that’s not why we need Sense8 back.

Great Speechifyin’!

…And if you know the name “J. Michael Straczynski,” you know you can expect complex and compelling characters — and some really moving speeches.

“Who am I? Do you mean where I’m from? What I one day might become? What I do? What I’ve done? What I dream? Do you mean … what you see or what I’ve seen? What I fear or what I dream? Do you mean who I love? Do you mean who I’ve lost? Who am I? I guess who I am is exactly the same as who you are. Not better than, not less than. Because there is no one who has been or will ever be exactly the same as either you or me.”

…But that’s not why we need Sense8 back.

Because This Is All Happening To You, Right Now

You may not be a member of a psychically-connected cluster of strangers who have formed a bond who are trying to make the world a better place. But you are becoming a member of a relatively small cluster of Facebook and Twitter acquaintances. You know: the people who agree about almost everything, all the time, when it comes to politics and religion and sex and so on. You may not have noticed this because you’ve been too busy watching other clusters form: the ones who disagree with your viewpoints on social matters.

This clustering effect should, ideally, serve some sort of common good. But more and more, the Internet is becoming a squirming mass of idealological groups who have nothing better to do than to despise each other and try to shout over each other, all day long. We are all connected, and unfortunately it seems that the uglier parts of human nature are in the driver’s seat.

The Information Age doesn’t have to be that way. There is good in humanity too, and it may take us a while to learn how to use that. And, as is so often the case, a work of fiction can guide us in ways that a collection of data simply can’t.

That’s why we need Sense8 back.

***

So even if you haven’t watched Sense8, but you’ve taken the time to read this: doesn’t it sound like the world needs something like Sense8 now? And if so: why not click here and take the extra thirty seconds to sign a petition to affirm that yes… this is what the world needs now, for all our sakes, no matter who or what or where we are?

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