“Everybody is either thinking about to shag or shagging”.
Sex Education is a coming of age story about 16-year-olds, their life in high school and at home, and, most importantly about their sexual developments. The main storyline unfolds around a boy named Otis. His mom is a sexual therapist, which makes sex and everything connected with it even harder for him to talk about. Ironically, Otis, who has very little experience and feels tremendously awkward when it comes to sex and relationship, is surprisingly good at giving advice on those subjects to others. Therefore, this edgy cool girl Maeve, who is, as most would say, way out of Otis’ league recognizes his “talent” and encourages him to start a sex clinic inside school. And so that the story starts.
I believe it's important to see this series. It opens a subject about sexual developments of teenagers that should not be ignored. It also shows how everybody has their problems and nobody is perfect, and that there is an explanation to everything. We can see the fact that everything happens for a reason, that everything has a start somewhere and that if we as a community help to find that start, we can also help one to get rid of their issues, feel full as a person and happy with who they are.
Compared to other teen series and films found on Netflix, Sex Education may be the most substance-rich, but it lack innovative concepts and novel themes to be called a round work. So you get presented many important discussion that deal with homosexuality, family problems to far-reaching critical issues such as abortion. However, I found dealing with these conflicts often very clumsy and superficial. In many places I had wanted more depth and a more intensive handling of the individual topics. Instead, the discussions were kept to a minimum and barely picked up by the characters and packed into meaningful dialogues.
Another point of criticism was the often stereotypical portrayal of many protagonists and the entire social environment shown. So it seems almost a trend to be that just standing in the corner inconspicuous boy may someday have the girl of his dreams. I do not doubt that there are such social structures or at least similar ones in every school and in almost every life of a 16 or 17 year old. But the creators of the series could have trusted more and to be able to present a story without the obvious presence of such clichés. There are some clichés, but it has no special effect on the whole. Even at its lamest, cliche moments, this quirky show remains quaintly entertaining. In many series or films for similar target groups, puberty, first love and first sex are often portrayed romantically and therefore often appear unrealistic. Sex education, however, shows a blunt and sincere approach and may perhaps convince one or the other viewers of this uniqueness.
In terms of acting performance, Sex Education painted a picture similar to own. The individual performances were in some cases quite authentic and convincing. However, some protagonists were so over-cliched in my eyes that the performance of the actors had to suffer as well. So you may praise some protagonists for their performance, others were not particularly prominent and therefore not very credible.
Although most of the time the viewer will know what the stories are all about, "Sex Education" is the first pleasant surprise of the production year. With consistent and clever ideas, playful performers and a lot of charm, this coming-of-age comedy with adult audiences should be a reliable "binge watching" candidate for many. "Sex Education" was certainly not a bad series and could also take some positive points with its open-hearted nature.