The 10 Best Television Shows Of Summer 2015

1) Sense8

Netflix has had enough winners on its side since House of Cards to close up shop for a few years and still go out on top. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case this summer, when the “network” partnered with the Wachowskis siblings (The Matrix) to bring the world Sense8: the trippiest, ballsiest middle-finger to traditional television in years. The show follows the “birth” of a new cluster of sensates, individuals scattered across the globe who gain the ability to telepathically visit one another’s lives. Done in some of the most brilliant and awe-worthy editing put to the small screen, Sense8 creates a visual language and style that essentially wipes away everything you thought TV could, and should, do. It helps that the material behind the technical marvel is one of the headiest mind-trips in years and will constantly make you ask “What’s going on?” in more ways than one.

But, what’s the real reason for its firm stance at the top of this list? The fact that everything I’ve detailed about the show above isn’t even the most important part. It’s the exceptionally drawn characters of Sun, Kala, Nomi, Will, Capheus, Lito, Wolfgang, and Riley (Tuppence Middleton, who will break your heart) and the deft hands of the writers that never pander to any race, sexuality, or religion, that keeps the show on a dizzying high-note for all of its run.

The Wachowskis, along with co-creator J. Michael Straczynski, use the sci-fi backbone as an excuse to get all of its diverse characters into the same room, resulting in some true need-to-fan-myself chemistry, and from which the most burned-into-your-brain scenes of this summer grow out of naturally (4 Non Blondes karaoke! The birthing sequence! The polysexual, continents-spanning telepathic orgy!)

The show is also a sort of devious jigsaw puzzle, giving viewers snippets of plots and storylines and letting them try and figure out how all the pieces fit on their own, luring them into a false sense of accomplishment before flipping the table with each new tantalizing tease of the show’s succinct yet dense mythology. Full of horror and romance and enough kickboxing to make the real Van Damme proud, not to mention one of the nuttiest finales in recent memory, Sense8 will leave anyone watching breathless and near-heartbroken by its end, and send them right back to the beginning for round two.