There are so many new series I've felt like getting into including "Lodge 49" (which would have made my top 12 had I watched it earlier), "Russian Doll", "The Orville", "Those Who Can't" and "The Other Two" but alas, I haven't had the time.
I did, however, make notes on the TV show "Sex Education" which is much like "Derry Girls" in showing awkward adolescence on the other side of the pond:
-The show starts to get seriously Dawson’s Creekesque in the last couple episodes as the weight of these characters starts to finally kick in. The show moseys through much of the season with a certain emotional detachment from its characters. It’s not entirely comedic but it’s insight into sexually confused adolescence is observational. Towards the end, we (AKA me) really start to care about the primary love triangle, the general well-being of Eric, and the mother-son dynamic, Maeve fending off her brother’s decadent influences and at some point the emotion sneaks in. It’s hard to say whether that’s better but it does set up season two quite well if they can tread the line between drama and melodrama.
-Just like “Burn Notice” is entertaining because it reveals
wayward insight into how an espionage agent would think or “Monk” reveals
insight into how a detective would solve crimes, there’s something
light-bulb-inducing about being presented with a dilemma and seeing a 16-year-old solve the
problem. “In Treatment” was equally satisfying as a drama but to watch a 16-year-old
come up with such insight has a certain underdog quality.
-French horns, yeaahh! I’m a proud French horn player
through one and three-quarter years of high school and this might be the most
visible use of the instrument in a teenage drama. What a thrill. And the
instrument wasn’t used for sexual purposes like “American Pie.” Even better!
But from the expert: It’s hard to play the French horn that
badly. I was something like the last chair trumpet in my high school then
switched to French horn where I was, within a few months, fourth chair out of
seven horns. I found it relatively easy
to stay on the same tone as opposed to Eric who wobbles a lot. I generally
found if I picked up a French horn years later without practice then I would
wobble between notes a lot more, so I’m left to believe Eric doesn’t practice
enough which is indicative of a slacker.
-Before the final episode, the headmaster came off as stuffy
and any antagonistic airs he had were simply attributable to how Americans like
us can be put off by upper class British accents. Then he becomes evil with a
capital “e” after he reneges on Jackson’s deal but there wasn’t much build-up
to it. He was sorely undeveloped as a character but from what little I
glimpsed, I saw him as a man trying to maintain a stiff upper lip in the wake
of an encroaching tide of puberty-driven chaos and that was an interesting
interpretation of him.
-The TV tackled nearly every teenage issue under the sun but
they were surprisingly lax on bullying. As characters matured and went through
various forms of self-enlightenment, they still fed into a culture that felt
unusually harsh for the school. In particular, the untouchables paid relatively
little for their casual cruelty. On the other end of the spectrum is “Mean
Girls” and “Glee” where the bullying popular crowd softened up towards the end
of high school. Which is a truer reflection of reality? To some degree people
mature as they get older, but at the same time you’re personal enlightenment in
adolescent into a more receptive person doesn’t mean that the outside world
necessarily changes.
-Why didn’t Maeve and Otis trade their therapy for favors
beyond cash? In the opening episode, Otis negotiates with Adam for Eric’s
safety. Afterwards, they seem content to exchange for cash. Perhaps, they could
-If I was going to analyze this show as socially responsible
(and I try to avoid such precedent since this show doesn’t represent all teen
drama), the idea that Eric’s tormentor would also be secretly gay seems like a
horrible generalization and “Glee” didn’t look any better when it tried that
storyline with Karofsky
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