Sense8 Christmas Special and Season 2 Release Date Announced

Deadline reports that Netflix will release a two-hour Christmas special episode of Sense8 on December 23. Season 2 will released on May 5.

 

Ooohhhh! Christmas Orgy! Christmas Orgy!!!

 

Nice Christmas present but a near two year delay bewteeen S1/2 hurts a little.

I appreciate that Lilly underwent a large portion of her transition through 2015 and 2016, which no doubt impacted on production (there was a press release late last year that Lana was solely running the production) but 23 months between seasons could impact on figures. At least being part of the Netflix model will allow subscribers the chance to rewatch and new interested viewers the access to all previous episodes.

Still nice to have a release date for the most ludicrous and frustrating show on TV. I wonder if they will actually start telling a throughline story now that we have had 12 episodes of character groundwork?

Hugo - Christmas Monoply... on 4 continents! Imagine the arguments!

 

Really looking forward to this! As for the two years between seasons, I'm amazed anybody expected any different given the global nature of the show. They filmed in twice as many locations for season 2 as they did the first.

 

Yeah, I'm not at all surprised by the time gap. I think I'll watch season 1 again before the special because I've largely forgotten most of it other than how I generally loved the show.

 

Perhaps! The Christmas Special was screened at a Brazil Comic-Con this weekend and, though there's an embargo about discussing it,

Spoiler

the one article I've seen does indicate that there will be - probably scenes from the Pride Parade in Sao Paulo that were shot.

 

There's a small write-up here: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/14/a...istmas-special-is-coming-to-netflix.html?_r=0

And the official FB and Twitter pages say that there's a trailer coming tomorrow (Friday 12/16). Don't know yet if it will be just for the Special or for the full season.

 

They could have at least titled it "A Van Damme Christmas"

 

We have a trailer!!

 

I'm so disappointed that they recast Capheus. He was my favorite, because he was just so charming and optimistic despite everything. Who knows if the new actor will be able to capture that?

Still, it looks like there's a lot of interaction among the whole cluster, instead of just a couple at a time. That's something I would've liked to see more of in the first season. There was a lot to like about the first season, but I felt it was too gradual about developing the interactions among the characters. It spent too many weeks on the characters' initial confused reactions over and over again before finally giving them a chance to really get to know each other and do things together. Now that their connection has evolved more, hopefully that means we'll see more of the interactions I'm interested in.

 

The cast seems to adore him so that's a plus. I agree that Aml Ameen was great but I'm hopeful Toby Onwumere will pull it off.

I liked that the confusion was fairly gradual. I really hate when unbelievable things happen to characters and they adapt like it's making a left turn instead of a right. I especially liked that it took them time to learn to control their abilities, progressing from only interacting at extreme times to being able to participate more.

 

But it was just the same thing over and over again for the first 3-4 weeks, and that got repetitive. There are only so many times you can put up with confusion beats before you want to see them move on to something different.

Also, the characters showed a bizarre lack of curiosity about their situation. They reacted in confusion, but didn't make much of any attempt to investigate or ask the obvious questions or anything. It felt like they were being artificially made incurious in order to prolong the mystery. Maybe that was the point -- that they somehow sensed that this was natural and were inclined to accept it even though they were confused by it -- but it made the pace of things too slow.

I'm not saying I wanted them to adjust instantly, just that it could've been relatively less dragged out. I wanted to see more interactions, more connections, more group activities. The show was supposed to be about these eight people forming a larger whole, but mostly it was just individuals and pairs and the occasional trio, and it wasn't really until the finale that they consciously came together as a complete team to help one of their own. And that's what I wanted to see all along. And now that they've reached that point, I hope we see more of it.

 

I'm not sure I'm understanding your reasoning. The first season only encompasses about two weeks from what JMS said at an appearance before the first season dropped. It's not really spelled out in the episodes but we saw Pride in San Francisco in late June and the Fourth of July. It's also not as if they were in instant and constant contact - it was a growing presence, as we saw and triggered at first by extremes of emotion. If I found anything unrealistic at all, it was that only Nomi seemed to seriously doubt her sanity.

 

I'm not tallking about in-story chronology as experienced by the characters, I'm talking about the pacing of a fictional narrative as experienced by its audience. In the first few episodes, there were too many repetitions of the characters' surprised and confused reactions to seeing each other in their heads. That beat was reiterated often enough that it got to feel repetitive. It takes until episode 3 before one character draws on another's abilities to get out of a jam. It isn't until the end of episode 4 that all eight of them seem to be aware of each other and literally start to ask "What's Going On?" It isn't until episode 5 that any of them other than Will and Jonas actually have a conversation with each other. In a 12-episode season, that's just taking too long to get to the interesting stuff.

That's got nothing to do with in-story chronology, because the storyteller can control what gets covered and what gets skipped over. One of the most basic lessons for a writer is learning where to start a story to avoid a slow opening, to resist the tendency to "walk to the plot" and take too much time to set things up before events start to happen. From the characters' perspective, the events may take the same amount of time, but you can choose where to start your depiction of them. You can skip over the boring parts that the characters have to live through but that the audience doesn't need to see.

 

That's where this show is so different. While pretty much every other show will cut away to the 'bad guy' to get information, this show stays entirely with the cluster and the audience doesn't know anything they don't. It was a risk. I like it. But then I'm almost always a fan of off-format shows and episodes. Plus to me the characters' evolution *is* the interesting stuff.

 

Yes, that's what I'm saying! That the characters' evolution is the best part, but it took too long to get to the characters' evolution, because it was four or five episodes before they even started to have conversations with each other instead of just staring dumbly when they saw each other in their heads. I'm not talking about "cutting away to bad guys" -- I have no clue where you got that from. I wanted to see the eight main characters talk and interact with each other, and it took a third of the season for them to even begin doing that. And even then, it was piecemeal, and hardly any of them made any real effort to find out more or to seek out contact. I don't disagree with you about what the good parts were, I just think it took too long to get to the good parts.

 

At least we both care for the stories. Really looking forward to the special and then to May and the season. Hoping that the main characters' partners don't get left by the wayside. I love Hernando and Amanita and Dani almost as much as the cluster.

 

Anybody else seen the Special yet? I liked it a lot. I had a couple of nitpicks but it hit the emotional beats I expected and it was beautifully done. No spoilers yet...

 

I haven't yet. I forgot it was out today, so I spent the day watching the first season again. I'm embarrassed by how much I had forgotten, especially considering how much I loved it the first time around. Hopefully, this time it'll stick better, particularly since I still loved every minute of it.

I didn't comment on the earlier discussion because of how little I remembered, but I have to agree with Jan now: the gradual progression for how the cluster reacted individually and as a whole felt natural and didn't feel like it took too long at all.

 

I thought it was okay, but there were some bits that didn't quite track, and it chose an odd place to end. My main issue with the former is

Spoiler

Kala apparently being fine with participating in the full-cluster orgy and then immediately afterward being shocked about being linked with Wolfgang during their respective sexual encounters. I mean, sure, it's different with just the two of them than the whole group, but he was part of that too. It seemed inconsistent.

Also, why did Sun need to channel Wolfgang and Will for help fighting off the assassins, when she's the best fighter in the bunch? Their help at recognizing the threat and stalling for time made sense, but it seems like letting them take control of her body would downgrade her fighting prowess.

I don't like the new Capheus as much as the old one. As I feared, he doesn't have the same screen-brightening charm and optimism as the original actor. And they overdid the "faces change, deal with it" gag in his first scene. Iron Man 2 got that out of the way in just two lines.