Sense8 - 'Limbic Resonance'

Cast shot!
Back row: Sun Bak (Bae Doona), Will Gorski (Brian J Smith), Riley Blue (Tuppence Middleton), Kala Dandekar (Tina Desai); Front row: Capheus (Ami Ameen), Nomi Marks (Jamie Clayton), Wolfgang Bogdanow (Max Riemelt) and Lito Rodriguez (Miguel Angel Silvestre).

In a derelict building, a woman who is not pregnant is giving birth, watched over by two men who are not there. To keep from being taken prisoner, she kills herself, her suicide witnessed in the dreams of eight complete strangers.

'Limbic Resonance' is a slow and rambling sort of pilot, focused on introducing us to the characters and oddly untroubled with the ins and outs of its high concept. We haven't even heard the word 'sensate' yet (although the trailer assures me this will be an in-universe term.) Perhaps this is because it is the brainchild of the Wachowskis and J Michael Straczynsky and they feel they can take a pass on received pilot protocol, or maybe it is another advantage of Netflix instant release schedule. Season 1 is all there from the get go, so a throat-grabbing pilot is less important than what the creators feel is the relevant set-up.

So, what we get is a random walk through the lives of eight people: Capheus drives a minibus in Nairobi and cares for his sick mother; Sun Bak is a successful Korean businesswoman who is treated like the tea girl; Nomi Marks is a pride political blogger; Kala Dandekar, a moderately pious Hindu who is having second thoughts about her marriage; Riley Blue, a London DJ with a criminal boyfriend and secrets; Wolfgang Bogdanow, a Berlin locksmith and safecracker from a criminal family; Lito Rodriguez, a Mexican actor with secrets; and Will Gorski, a Chicago cop.

That's a lot of people even if they were only involved in one plot, but they each have their own bit even before they start experiencing each other's lives. Capheus is in competition with a rival minibus company (his minibus, Van Damn, suffering from the relative popularity of Bat Van,) while Sun is struggling to be taken seriously compared to her playboy brother. Nomi's struggle is for acceptance into an LGBT community that sees a transwoman as a male interloper*, while Kala sees the death of her independence in her marriage. Riley's boyfriend uses her as a lure to try to rip off a drug dealer, Wolfgang is determined to beat the safe his father never could and put one over on the more ambitious criminals in his family, Lito has some sort of creative block and Will is troubled by the way the system is giving up on the ghettos.

And then all eight see 'Angel' committing suicide in their dreams, and begin to experience auditory and visual hallucinations which are in fact the perceptions of other members of the disjointed group. What does it all mean? Who is the man hunting them? As yet, we do not know, but it's an intriguing enough group to want to come back and find out.

* This seems to be the character and plot attracting the most buzz, and I can see why. It's currently the most compelling - perhaps because it's the least done - even though I struggle a little to get past her partner Amanita's accent (it's probably a good enough American accent, but I'm so used to Freema Agyeman being 'London' that it's weird; like Kenneth Branagh in Dead Again**, and equally with a character who doesn't really need to be American.)
** Oddly, I never had this problem with House, despite years of watching Hugh Laurie play variations of his native posh British.