{"id":352487,"date":"2025-12-18T03:47:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T03:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/352487\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T03:47:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T03:47:10","slug":"sense8-is-a-great-companion-sci-fi-tv-show-to-pluribus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/352487\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Sense8’ Is a Great Companion Sci-Fi TV Show to ‘Pluribus’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pluribus,<\/a> Vince Gilligan\u2019s aggressively polite dystopian Apple TV series, has been pretty great. So great that when its season finale finally hits, folks will no doubt start looking for a new show to watch that scratches that same itch. Might we point you in the direction of the Wachowskis\u2019 Netflix series, Sense8<\/a>\u2014a TV series we think pairs well with Pluribus in a sci-fi Barbenheimer kind of way?<\/p>\n

On paper, there\u2019s not much to draw clear points of comparison that would deem these two series, created by different people and with very distinct points of contention, star-crossed twins. It\u2019s kinda like smooshing South America and Africa together and yelling \u201cPangea\u201d randomly, without letting folks in on the first part of that thought process that happened in your head before you spoke aloud.<\/p>\n

But we\u2019d argue that their shared sci-fi themes, which address the human condition and our inherent need to connect, make them pretty great companion pieces. In Sense8, it\u2019s about a fight to celebrate\u00a0difference in a diverse world, while in\u00a0Pluribus, it\u2019s about safeguarding human autonomy amid the pull of a homogenized alien collective framed as a sacrifice for the greater good.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with Pluribus.<\/p>\n

While Gilligan won\u2019t say flat out whether the series is about AI or not<\/a>, having been once bitten and twice shy for guiding Breaking Bad fans to water and beckoning them to drink and massaging their throats, for the sake of argument, let\u2019s say it is (because we think so). Main character Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn) finds herself among the 13 people immune to the hivemind alien invasion of Earth.<\/p>\n

As Carol journeys forward, she grapples with language barriers and confronts crushing solitude as her longing to undo the invasion is met with indifference and resistance from fellow survivors across the globe\u2014many of whom welcome a hivemind that placates to their every whim. God forbid Carol displays strong emotions about the matter, lest she cause the bodysnatched collective to have seizures on a global scale.<\/p>\n

\"Pluribus\u00a9 Apple TV <\/p>\n

So what we\u2019ve got here with Pluribus is instrumentality \u00e0 la Neon Genesis Evangelion, with a heavy dose of danger in Carol, who struggles to express her true feelings and fights to regain the world\u2019s autonomy\u2014also known as good television, unless you\u2019re a content creator who needs instant gratification<\/a>. If you were to take that point of friction Carol is currently going through and flip it on its head, that\u2019s basically the struggle that the sensates fought through in Sense8.<\/p>\n

The Wachowskis\u2019 once-cancelled and\u00a0<\/a>later revived<\/a> 2015 sci-fi series takes that feeling of preserving human difference and runs a parallel track to celebrate it. In contrast to the moment of peril of AI, Sense8 spoke on the prejudice of racism and homophobia and took that on a global scale. In it, eight people born on the same day around the world share a psychic connection, allowing them to break down language barriers, appear alongside one another in a kind of out-of-body projection, and even take over each other\u2019s bodies. All of which is spurred by either party feeling a strong emotional connection that triggers the phenomenon and giving each other consent to body snatch each other.<\/p>\n

The central villain of the series, Whispers, has a similar evil\u00a0plan for the human race as the aliens in\u00a0Pluribus\u00a0do: to evolve the human race. His ends justify the means; his raison d\u2019\u00eatre isn\u2019t hinged on consent, nor is it gussied up with a smile.<\/p>\n

\"Sense8\u00a9 Netflix <\/p>\n

Aside from the above, what makes Pluribus and Sense8 near-perfect companion shows is that their speculative fiction about human connections and the celebration and preservation of our autonomy hinges on the consensual nature of it all, and that, regardless of the setup, the perversion of it is something we all find icky.<\/p>\n

Sense8 and Pluribus form a striking yin-yang dialectic with one another. Sense8 imagines a small-scale, immaculate hive\u2011mind phenomenon that is non\u2011consensual yet rendered beautiful through its resilience under real\u2011world strife. Pluribus pushes the inverse. Sense8 arrived with its finger on the pulse of global discord, offering an intimate vision of shared consciousness as an internet without screens. Pluribus insists on the limits of intimacy of humanized, reimagined AI companions on today\u2019s internet\u2014decked out with its stolen knowledge\u2014reminding us that authentic human connection does not require omniscient access but the humility to ask.<\/p>\n

If you want to see how another celebrated creator handles the sci-fi possibilities of a collective consciousness with as much an intimate focus on the beauty in the messiness of human uniqueness and connection, you might consider watching Sense8 after Pluribus.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pluribus, Vince Gilligan\u2019s aggressively polite dystopian Apple TV series, has been pretty great. So great that when its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[49,48,75,19436,152905,139765,348,19438],"class_list":["post-352487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-pluribus","tag-sense8","tag-the-wachowskis","tag-tv","tag-vince-gilligan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}