The premise for Sex Education was so bizarre, I had to give it a CANCELLATION prediction. The basic premise is that a student who is the son of a sex therapist starts offering sex advice to students for money. He’s kind of repressed himself, never been able to masturbate even, so the idea of him being the “expert” seems ludicrous — until the local jock has performance anxiety and Otis talks him through it. A “bad girl” in the school sees what he can do, is impressed, and figures out it can be a money-maker. Hence, the premise — sex therapy for students. All based on his knowledge gleaned from his mom’s weirdness and openness with sex.

My initial expectation is that this would be some weird sitcom idea, and while dealing with sex, it would probably have euphemisms for a lot of stuff. Nope, it’s Netflix, there’s nudity (mostly female), sex scenes, and while there are some comedic moments of the light RomCom variety, the show is relatively a quirky meta-drama where the first hour seems almost like a 1980s John Hughes movie with sex. The first “client” is a jock with a big penis, son of the school’s headmaster, and he is unable to climax. Girlfriends talk, he tries Viagra, Otis talks him through it, he can perform, and WHAM, BAM, THANK YOU OTIS, a business idea is born. The initial scenes were incredibly awkward as you don’t know who ANYONE is, including the couple struggling at the beginning (the jock tries to fake his climax), or who the guy is that shows up for breakfast after shagging Otis’ mom the night before (she’s into variety, with no attachment afterwards).

The two main characters are awesome. Otis is played by Asa Butterfield, and I couldn’t place him at all. He’s from Enders Game, but that wasn’t it. I was picturing him younger, maybe? However, I was NOT picturing him 10 years younger playing Mordred on Merlin though. Wow. Regardless, he is great. Plays the “young nerd who likes the girl” and you know eventually she’ll be the secret of his own sexual success. Which is great because Emma Mackey plays the girl, Maeve, awesomely. In only her second acting credit, she knocks it out of the park. She also seems way older than Otis, i.e. more mature, but physically only 1 year older. She is eminently watchable as the bad girl, used to being a social pariah around campus.

Now for the weird part. I watched the mom in about 3 scenes, and I couldn’t place her at all. Nada. Zilch. I had nothing. Sure, she’s got white hair, an accent, and a weird look and aura to her, but it was GILLIAN ANDERSON? Scully from the X-Files. I couldn’t believe it when I was checking out IMDB. She’s good in the show, sufficiently weird.

And it works. A little awkward for the first 10-15 minutes or so, but once the scenes get to school, it gets into a better groove. Enough so that I will revise my estimate to RENEWED. It has some potential. I don’t know if it is likely to hit hard like “Sex with Sue”, but let’s see where it goes.

Proven Innocent was described as a woman wrongly convicted, serves time, released, goes to law school, and now runs an Innocence Project-style office to help others like her that were wrongly convicted. Based on that description, and the other shows who have tread the same water before, I predicted CANCELLATION.

Lots of people in the TV industry keep trying to crack this nut — proving someone innocent. What most of them fail to realise is that normal lawyer shows only do one of two things: either they prove a person not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt (with strong hinting they may be innocent) OR they prove someone else did it (the infamous SODDI defence — some other dude did it!). None of them try to prove innocence without those other two hooks, because it is almost impossible to prove a negative. Almost all innocence projects rely on one of two streams — the evidence against the person was too weak to sustain a conviction, particularly as key bits were problematic; or the person has an alibi in the form of a witness or DNA. Simply finding someone lied in the original case is not enough to prove innocence, it just gives grounds for a potential retrial. It may be enough for the prosecutor to NOT retry the case, and the person goes free, but they are rarely found “innocent”, not exactly. Usually because courts determine guilty or not guilty, not innocence.

Even DNA may not prove complete innocence. Take for instance cases involving a rape / murder. The cases are almost always linked as one case — a rape AND murder. And DNA might clear a person of the rape i.e. it wasn’t their DNA found inside the victim, so they are innocent of that. But it says NOTHING about a murder. Particularly if the person was shot, and there was no DNA transfer. So, the courts end up in a bind. A previous court (judge and/or jury) convicted somebody of two crimes, but the DNA only clears them of the one. Yet, it would strain the credulity of the cases for there to be two perpetrators — the person who committed the rape is also almost guaranteed to have committed the murder in that type of case. It is why Innocence Projects face such uphill challenges. Knock one domino down, the rest may stay standing even if they probably shouldn’t.

So after that digression, enter a show that says they are going to prove the innocence each week of someone, and get them out of jail. That is a pretty hefty toll for the writers — they first have to create a scenario where there was enough evidence to put someone in jail with means, motive and opportunity (just for a nice simple frame), and then slowly disprove COMPLETELY every element.

And in the very first episode, they cheat. They put their finger on the scale and make it that the reason the person was convicted while innocent is that there is a corrupt prosecutor, the same one that put the lead character in jail previously.

The show is, how should I put this? Ridiculous.

Let’s start with the lead character. Madeline Scott served ten years, from a fairly young age. Got a degree while in jail. Went to law school. She’s been through some stuff. And they show her at the beginning tough as nails, trying to get a DNA sample from someone who is evil and brutal, and with a few choice words, he commits suicide in front of her. She then collects the DNA sample she needs, and leaves the scene, “Not an emergency” she says to the 911 operator. Except after that, she’s basically a cream puff with one-liners. It is ALSO a minimum of 17 years later, and she is just starting to investigate the case she went to jail over, to find the real killer. Like it was a low-level to do list item and she suddenly has some free time to devote to it. Uh huh, cuz that seems convincing. And she’s starting to learn things right out of the gate from an old friend, and then her drug addict brother who was convicted with her. 17 years later and he tells her that he actually slept with the girl that got killed. Dun dun dun. A clue. Never came up previously though. And, he’s basically SUICIDAL on the phone, and she ignores his words and actions. WTF? Rachelle Lefevre plays the character, and while she has lots of history on her CV, I don’t know her. And I’m okay with that.

Her partner in the office, and the lawyer who helped her get out of jail, is a familiar face. Hank from Grimm, aka Russell Hornsby as Ezekial. I liked Hank on Grimm, but don’t have much use for him here. He comes off more sanctimonious, like he’s trying to be a preacher in places?

And the bad guy? The prosecutor, Gore Bellows, is played by Frasier (aka Kelsey Grammer). Kelsey’s fine, but he plays him as somewhat befuddled, the downhome easy-going guy just protecting the system from murderers who went free. Totally unbelievable on either level (folksy or evil), and not worth being an antagonist to give the show juice.

Now, let’s look at the first case. Well, two actually. The first goes free right away. The second is more challenging to find evidence, but it completely falls apart. Leaving people to wonder, WTF? It doesn’t take much to find the problems, eevn if it is (or seems to be) their only case. But on a related note, they are in a big giant office, lots of space, retro condo chic. Hardly the starving Innocent Project vibe. And there are 4 people — media/podcaster, the two lawyers, and an investigator who goes undercover on short notice. Whatever, anyway, they go to court, and the accused had been convicted (note CONVICTED, not on trial and easy to release) of murdering her kid in a fire. There’s a taped confession where she is clearly, and I mean CLEARLY, high on something, turns out it was carbon monoxide poisoning. Which messes with the means or opportunity. And someone falsified a statement against her that gave them motive. And they find out there was a bunch of fires at the same time years before from faulty Christmas lights. All of which gives an alternate explanation of the crime, and should justify a new trial. Instead, the judge declares her INNOCENT and releases her. Really? REALLY?

None of it is compelling, because I don’t get to see ANYONE who feels like they are in jeopardy who needs saving. I didn’t see enough of the clients to bond, I don’t get to SEE their case, only told about it (i.e., they show Madeline’s case through flashback, but they only tell us about the current cases). Which leaves only Madeline to care about, and she comes off more childish and petty than righteous crusader.

Hard pass. And I’ll stick with my prediction of CANCELLATION.

I was prepared to hate The Umbrella Academy. Something about superhero siblings, blah blah blah. Not all of the superhero attempts are hits, and a bunch of the “expanded universe” ones of late have sucked (I’m looking at you Doom Patrol!). So my expectations weren’t high, although the idea of an “academy” so to speak intrigued me. Like a couple of animated ones where it was about heroes and sidekicks.

Instead, the “backstory” takes all of about 5 minutes. Apparently, all on the same day, 43 women gave birth…which wouldn’t be unusual except they had not been pregnant when they woke up, they got pregnant and delivered all in that one day. You see this for one particular young girl who was fine one moment and then giving birth in a pool 10 seconds later. Enter a billionaire who wants to gather up all the babies and put them in an academy, basically by buying them. Seven mothers say yes, and voila, he has an academy. Which he runs as if he’s the world’s worst father, basically ignoring them as they grow up, but making sure they’re trained as heroes — teleportation, fighting, super strength, mind control, etc. He starts with seven kids, but fast-forward to Dad having died, and there are only four to five kids left. Initially, six of the seven had powers, one was just ordinary. Another one died. And another one disappeared by teleporting through time. So four powered kids return home for the “funeral”, plus the ordinary one who wrote a tell-all book about the whole crew. And then the teleporter shows up later.

Let’s meet the crew.

• Ellen Page plays Vanya, the ordinary one, although you see her at the start playing a violin expertly, so “ordinary” might not be the right adjective…this isn’t exactly Juno, but she is rock-solid in her portrayal as the reluctant outsider who doesn’t know how she fits, if at all;
• Tom Hopper plays strongman Luther, who we see initially at some moonbase (okay, it’s a bit weird)…I didn’t recognize him from playing Sir Percival in the Merlin TV series, but he is pretty good here;
• David Castaneda plays master assassin / mercenary Diego, and does a good job of balancing the menace without appearing campy;
• Robert Sheehan plays the nutbar Klaus, an addict with a revolving door in rehab, which is understandable because when he’s even remotely sober, he can talk to the dead;
• Emmy Raver-Lampman as superstar model / actress Allison, who can whisper a rumour to someone and it becomes true…she may be new to the screen, but she’s fun to watch; and,
• Robert Sheehan plays Number 5 (all the kids were just numbers originally, see how Dad was a bad father figure?), the teleporter who has just returned…still in a 13-year-old’s body, but his consciousness is 50+ years now.

Their brother Ben died at some point but you don’t find out how in Episode 1. What you do see is how dysfunctional they all are. Don’t even get me started on their mother (Jordan Claire Robbins) or the ape/chimp manservant (Adam Godley).

But here’s the thing. It works. The characters jive together. There’s even a scene, amidst all the dysfunction, where Luther puts on a song – Tiffany’s “I Think We’re Alone Now” – and the song resonates throughout the house. Each of them, having left the group to be alone, starts dancing to the song. All of them in ways unique to their personality. Vanya dancing in place, very subdued; Luther upright, very large, like a dancing bear; Diego closing the door on the den so nobody can see him busting some serious dance moves, very lithe; Klaus, smoking and drinking, hugging the urn with the ashes of dead old dad, and waltzing around the room; and Allison getting down in her bedroom with a small feather boa, looking every bit the extrovert comfortable in performing.

There are moments in TV and movies that I see as golden scenes. A classic like Almost Famous, where Penny Lane turns around and asks what kind of beer she was traded for with another band…everything you ever wanted to know about how she sees the world is in that one line.

Or even in a show like Republic of Doyle, where he’s in a really complicated relationship with just about any woman he’s been with, he goes to a dinner party with his ex and a new hottie, and after the weirdness expands, he finally kisses the new hottie for the first time as they decide that’s where it’s going. And in the middle of the kiss, her phone rings, and she says she has to take it, it’s her husband. Your mind blows as his mind blows. And it is a perfect example of his character’s life. Everything is always messy.

The dance scene in The Umbrella Academy might rank as one of the best scenes I’ve seen in the last two years. Simple, elegant even, and shows all their characters when they’re not wrapped in their own BS. Just them each being themselves. It’s awesome. It might not mean much if you don’t know the characters, but it has a bit of a Breakfast Club-feel to it if you don’t know the context, and it still works.

Usually when I see something like this and I like it, nobody else even notices. It’s a small scene. But this one went over HUGE, with lots of websites flagging it apparently. So much so, Netflix shared just that piece above. And that scene alone is enough to mean that I’m watching the rest of the series. 

I won’t spoil the ending of the episode, but it sets up the plot for the season. I just have no idea where it would go AFTER this season. I’m on the fence for its future, but the dance scene nudges me into RENEWAL on a whim.