TL;DR – It a show where sex is very much front and centre, however, it is actually the relationships that actually shine through.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Review –

Sex, it is in the name of the show, and if there is any confusion the episode opens with a very explicit view of two people engaged in it. Pretty much there is no misunderstanding in the first five minutes as to what you are going to get with this show. However, as things went on, the one thing that struck me was how caring it all was.

So to set the scene, it is some point in time (I’ll get to that in a bit) and we open on Otis (Asa Butterfield) who is trying to make it look like he masturbated. That is because he is having issues in that department but he does not want to speak about it with his mother Jean (Gillian Anderson) even though, or more likely, because of the fact that she is a sex therapist. He along with Eric (Ncuti Gatwa) his best friend are starting the sixth form, which is the final two years of high school. This is where your life is being defined and hormones are miss-firing everywhere, and oh there is that bully Adam (Connor Swindells) who is making Eric’s life a living hell. Which makes it all the much worse when Adam is teamed up with Otis for a class project, and Adam discovers Otis’ mother’s office.

This is actually quite an odd show in many respects. You first see that in the fact that it seems to be all over the place when it comes to the time frame. From the clothes the parents look like they are right out of the 1950s, the kids look like they are outs of the 1980s, Gillian Anderson looks like she could wear anything and it would be amazing, yet they all have mobiles and visit PornHub. This gives the show an odd eclectic feel, that I thought would be jarring but actually fits the narrative really well. You also see this in the juxtaposition of some quite explicated sex scenes and nudity, but also in a real caring attitude.

All of this is helped along by some really exquisite acting. Gillian Anderson is a delight in every frame of the show she is in, as Jean the confident and caring sex theorist and mother. She is frank and yet kind, carefree and yet serious, and it is all a joy to watch. Asa Butterfield is almost the counterpoint with Otis, he is not confident, he does not quite know how to express himself, however, when the time came to it he rose to the occasion with heart. There is also a really good supporting cast that I am really interested to see them develop throughout the series.

In the end, do we recommend Episode 1 of Sex Education? Yes and No. Look if you are someone who has an issue with depictions of sex and nudity, then 100% this is not the show for you, or possibly it is. However, I found it fascinating, and something that I do want to see more off.              

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

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Trailer – Click Here to View (all trailers have heavy spoilers)
Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Sex Education
Directed by – Ben Taylor
Written by – Laurie Nunn
Created by – Laurie Nunn
Starring – Asa Butterfield, Gillian Anderson, Ncuti Gatwa, Emma Mackey, Connor Swindells, Kedar Williams-Stirling, Alistair Petrie, Mimi Keene, Aimee Lou Wood, Chaneil Kular & Simone Ashley.