Otis’s relationship with sex has been warped thanks to his overpowering mother (Picture: Netflix)

From the first moment we heard about Sex Education, we were convinced that we were going to fall in love with it.

Gillian Anderson leading a UK-based cast as a sex therapist while her teenage son Otis (Asa Butterfield) tries to navigate the high school world after being sexually stunted by his mother’s oversharing sounded hilarious.

However, unfortunately what we got and what we expected wasn’t the same thing. Forgive the pun, but it starts with a bang, but then flops.

It’s a shame, because the cast was great – particularly Emma Mackey, who plays the wrong-side-of-the-tracks Maeve, who recruits Otis to use his parents expertise as a money-spinning sex counsellor for the student body.


Maeve’s complicated story takes bigger precedent over the show than Otis’s does (Picture: Netflix)

In fact, she was easily the most developed and interesting character of the whole cast, which is saying something considering that one of them is a drag queen in training, and another is meant to be the lead character.



Gillian Anderson’s Jean is unbearably suffocating and uses her openness about sexuality as code for having absolutely no filter – which is particularly hard on Otis who has become completely horrified by the concept of sex as a result of her constant scrutiny, and despite being the sound of reason for teenage sexual angst to his school friends can’t even successfully masturbate without freaking out.

Asa Butterfield is charming as Otis, but he is dragged around his town and has very little voice for himself. This is something that is developed over time but you can’t help but be grated by it just a little.

Otis’s bizarre version of a sex clinic proves to be quite the money spinner (Picture: Netflix)

The series’ first episode is possibly the best episode, and sets up a great tone that unfortunately does not follow through throughout the rest of the other seven hours that follow. It has potential there, it’s just not fully come-of-age yet.

The creative team also made a series of interesting choices surrounding this show, and they didn’t always pay off. For example, everyone without exception appears to be stuck in some 70s/80s time warp (it wasn’t until I saw someone use a phone that I realised this was meant to be modern day Britain.)

From the music and the costumes down to the decor of each house, it just seemed odd, and I wasn’t quite sure what they were going for with it. If it was set as a retro drama then fine, but it wasn’t. A lot of storylines also stop dead and are never mentioned again, or happen so late in the show it’s too late to care.

Also, the kids are all 17 and yet are still at high school, and one that doesn’t have any kind of school uniform. It kind of feels like it was meant to be set in the sticks of America, or possibly rural New York or Connecticut, and even though it was transplanted to an unnamed town in England, they did little to update the script.

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There are positives to the show though – for example there are real moments within the story that allows room for discussion, like how teens relate to the pressures of having sex, and how relationships with their parents shape them into adults.



Without giving away any spoilers, there are two moments in particular that become particularly hard to stomach as we watch them – but they’re important moments and common, and I back their presence in a series such as this one.

Also, due to the show’s nature, it allows room for discussion on a series of topics surrounding sex naturally – and on more than one occasion, the show defines the lines of consent in a clear and concise way, which is good to see.

It’s alright – but unfortunately it’s not worth making too much an effort to binge watch.

Sex Education is available on Netflix from 11 January.

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