Sexily (season two)

In season one it wasn’t obvious that we had a classic sit com, but season two makes it much more obvious. That might be a deliberate change.

Season one had three women at college under pressure to deliver a final year project and they came up with an app to help women have better sex, did a load of research and got something that worked. The comedy came from the situation of these women doing research into sexual behaviour at university - a bit like Sex Education they didn’t make fun of anyone for how they expressed desire but if you imagine setting up a safe space for people to have sex and then asking questions about it, there’s lots of room for comedy around that, which they use.

In season two, they’ve moved on a bit, the Sexify App is ready to be launched, then all their bills come due and their power gets cut off… an apparent angel rescues them, but demands double the user base - so the drive for Sexiguy, a male version of the app begins. (The angel is not all she appears to be, which leads to a lot more drama, plus some comedy, than you might expect in a typical sitcom, more on that overall topic later.)

This gives us enough common ground that it’s clearly season two, but enough places where it’s different, where it’s moved on that the material feels fresh. This isn’t a comedy retreading old, familiar jokes, it’s a comedy working in the same area with new, interesting, things to say. There’s a rule somewhere, in writing sit-coms, that says you need at least four characters that don’t belong together but are forced together somehow, and from the interactions between them you get comedy. If you look at Red Dwarf you have the survivors on the ship, and Lister, Cat, Rimmer and Holly then Kryten give you that classic four characters that don’t belong together but can’t escape each other. The Good Life takes the Goods and the Leadbetters, neighbours in suburbia, and the inevitable differences between husbands and wives, then Tom Good chucks in his respectable job and he and Barbara start a life of self-sufficiency - planting crops, raising chickens and pigs and so on. Jerry and Margo continue their lives but also maintain their friendship with their neighbours. Sexify has the three young women, but they’re from massively different backgrounds. Natalie is studious and hardworking to a fault. She puts work before relationships and everything. She’s also the coder and researcher of the group. She’s sexual but it’s almost never her first priority. Paulina is a traditional Polish woman, married to her childhood sweetheart, from a small village. In season one she’s finding out that there’s more to life than she knew back home, taking part in the survey changes a lot about how she sees herself and in season two she’s divorced, she’s experimenting with sex with women and more. Both Paulina and Natalia are relatively poor, even by Polish standards, Natalia especially so. Monika is from money, she’s never really wanted for anything and she’s absolutely a hedonist. However, she’s got a strong set of principles and she’s assertive, which makes her the leader of their group. This gives us three characters who are quite different but forced together. Our fourth character in this sitcom is sex. There’s how sex relates to the main characters and their lives. There’s how it interacts with their working lives. There’s what they learn about it, men, and each other; about the business world and the lives and personalities of the people around them through that lens (in all its facets, not necessarily intercourse given the nature of the show)

Are there profound insights? Actually, sometimes, yes. This is very much a show set in Poland, and while the U.K. is different some of the humour in their situation made me think what would happen to them if they were here. Some of the other parts felt like easy laughs which, given this is a comedy, felt ok. Silly, cheap gags at the right time still make you laugh after all.

Because this is a series, we have a story arc too, it’s not just a series of stand-up skits or, continuing the sitcom theme, moving readily from one comedic situation to the next. For those of you that have seen The Good Life you have a comedy moment in Tom and Barbara's kitchen, then they go into the garden and you have another one, then you transition to Margo and Jerry's living room for another. Rinse and repeat. (I’m not ripping the show, I enjoyed it, just discussing the structure.) Sexify tells a story too. There are still are a lot of story scenes that serve to link comedy scenes together, in the same way the Goods walking from the kitchen to the garden links those comedy moments together, but they actually tell stories too. There is an on-going story about how Paulina is so obsessed with her work that she doesn’t put enough time and effort into her relationship. While one part of that, actually a few, have comedy moments, there are several where she’s in tears of anguish and despair and my heart absolutely went out to her. Really the stuff of comedy!

I could wax lyrical here about how sex affects the life of most of us despite our mood, what’s happening in our lives and so on, certainly when we’re young. (Apologies to anyone who is Ace/Aro I’m not trying to ignore your experience here, but the for most of us I think that’s true.) I don’t think that’s the reason, I think they’re telling a story that includes a lot of comedy rather than it being a comedy that has a bit of story. But I do think it has some interesting comments about how we use sex in different ways at different times during our lives.

I really enjoyed this season, possibly more than last season. It the clear inheritor to season one, and feels like it’s gained confidence from its success. But it remained really fun and I hope it comes back for season three. (It’s not clear if it will at the moment, if wasn’t left on a cliff-hanger, but it reached a point where it’s kind of wrapped up what it did but the final scene is Natalia opening a file called “New Project”.

Bechdel Test: Pass. The main characters are all women, they all talk to each other, and while sometimes that’s about men, it’s mostly about coding, business and the like. Multiple scenes in each episode pass.

Ko Test: Fail. In common with a lot of Eastern European TV, it’s very white. While it’s not 100%, there are WOC, not in every episode.

Russo Test: Pass. I think Paulina is probably a 1 or 2 on the Kinsey Scale. Mostly, heterosexual but homosexual as and when opportunity or interest arises. She’s certainly not a straight woman. There are other people who pass more clearly but not in every episode.