My Review of 'Sex Education'

Netflix has a large number of exclusive television series popping up on their popular streaming app. Sex Education is a yet another Netflix exclusive teen soap opera. Netflix has been inundating themselves with a plethora of teen soap operas lately. Luckily, Sex Education is a series that has enough quirks that keep it fresh and original among the others. There are a number of things that make this series entertaining. Let's get into it.

The main character is a teen boy named Otis who is trying to survive high school. I remember watching this guy in a little known movie called Ender's Game. I didn't know he had a British accent. He's been raised by a single mom played by Gillian Anderson of X-Files fame. It was great to see her back on a TV series. She has issues of her own. You'll understand all of her motivations as the series continue. I didn't realize how versatile she was as an actress until I saw this series.

Anyways, Otis has learned a lot about sex and sex-related relationship issues as he grew up because of his mother's occupation. He's got sex issues himself, but since he's a prepubescent boy he can't simply ask his sex therapist mom for advice. His issues unravel as the series progresses and it's up to him to figure out how to solve them.

Sex Education deals with bullying in a different way. Bullying is basically how Otis becomes his high school's unofficial sex therapist for hire. Otis meets the high school bad girl, Maeve. She's the one that gets him his unofficial sex therapist job and problem situations. Luckily for Otis he's got a best friend. For some reason, I only remember him by his terrible nickname, Tromboner. All of the characters have pretty interesting storylines.

Sex Education isn't afraid to go into any sort of sexual relationship situation. There's all sorts of sexual mishaps that Otis needs to find solutions to.

In a way, I can see how this series is similarly structured to a typical Japanese anime series. The main character has a weird ability and somehow in every episode the main character's abilities are utilized to help out random people in the series' microcosm world. As a result of each resolution that the main character (Otis) makes all of the characters involved develop a new relationship with one another. Each proceeding episode is a little different because of the experiences each of the characters experienced in preceding episodes.

It's really a cute concept and it works well. Everything makes sense because high school hierarchy really is ultimately based on sexuality. I'm actually surprised this concept didn't come up earlier. Luckily the writers wrote each of the stories in a tasteful and respectful manner.

All of the actors did great jobs. The majority of the actors seem to be newcomers with the exception of the main character and his mother. Despite this, all of the actors were likable and fun to watch. Even the so called villain characters were great. The series gives the audience a look inside everyone's motivations and they for the most part understandable and relatable.

I think there's only one character that got a little under my nerves around the end of the series. The story was written and planned out so well up until the end. A certain character just came in as a wild card and stirred up trouble out of nowhere. I thought that character was put in there a little lazily, but it's probably the only problem I had with the series. Maybe they placed this character in there to jumpstart a new plot point for a second season. Hopefully, they correct the issue if they bring in a second season.

If you're looking for a fun series to kill some time I would suggest Sex Education. The problem around the end doesn't really ruin the series. It just puts a little damper on what would otherwise have been an excellent first season. I give this series an eight out of ten. Netflix, please come out with a new season for this series. I'll forgive the character you brought in at the end if you can make me sympathetic to them in the second season.