Netflix Just Dropped A New Trailer For 'Sex Education' That You Need To See
While Netflix may be an American company, there are times when it feels like it has just as much UK content as it does from the U.S. (Or maybe that's my algorithm.) The latest cross-pond team-up the streaming service has taken on is with Eleven Film, a Channel 4-backed production house. Channel 4 is also the network who brings Netflix new episodes of Great British Baking Show and originally-produced Black Mirror. The first series from this partnership arrives next week, and from the looks of the Sex Education trailer, it's going to be a major hit.
One reason the series looks like it might be your next obsessive binge: It stars Gillian Anderson as a sex therapist who has absolutely zero boundaries about anything, including asking her virginal son about his lack of sex life. Her son, Otis, played by Asa Butterfield, is as repressed as his mother is a free spirit. He's also heading into high school, where the hormones are running wild. Thankfully, with the help of his friend Jackson and his crush Maeve, Otis finds his footing, and his passion for life and relationships, when he's encouraged to follow in his mother's footsteps.
Check out the adorable trailer:
Here's the official synopsis:
Meet Otis Milburn – an inexperienced, socially awkward high school student who lives with his mother, a sex therapist. Surrounded by manuals, videos and tediously open conversations about sex, Otis is a reluctant expert on the subject. When his home life is revealed at school, Otis realizes that he can use his specialist knowledge to gain status. He teams up with Maeve, a whip-smart bad-girl, and together they set up an underground sex therapy clinic to deal with their fellow students’ weird and wonderful problems. Through his analysis of teenage sexuality, Otis realises he may need some therapy of his own.
In addition to Butterfield and Anderson, the series also co-stars Kedar Williams-Stirling as Jackson, Emma Mackey as Maeve, plus James Purefoy, Ncuti Gatway, and Connor Swindells.
Showrunner Laurie Nunn, who is the creative force behind the project, said she wants both sides of the pond to embrace the new series. In a statement to E!, she said:
The show is a funny, heart-warming and utterly cringe-worthy look at teenage sex, love and identity. It's a contemporary British love-letter to the American high-school TV shows that so many of us grew up loving. It takes the familiar tropes of the genre and pushes them into new and current territory, telling a nostalgic coming of age tale from a different perspective.
She also hopes it will spark a push for sex education in schools, which is still sorely lacking in many places.
What started as an interesting hook for a comedy show about teenagers, quickly progressed into an opportunity to deal with often unspoken and difficult issues concerning early sexual experiences, the painful reality of puberty and the urgent need for inclusive sex education.
Sex Education premieres on Netflix on Friday, Jan. 11, 2019.
