Best of the decade: What were the top 10 female-fronted sci-fi shows of the 2010s?
By Shaun Stacy
Sense8 (Netflix), 2015-2018
Sense8 was one of the very first Netflix original series, and it was ambitious from the start. A creation of The Matrix trilogy’s Wachowski siblings, the series followed a diverse group of eight individuals scattered across the world who suddenly find themselves psychically connected. Called sensates, they are able to access each other’s knowledge and skills, along with being able to feel what the others are feeling.
The group has to come together to help each other survive when they find out that a nefarious organization is hunting down their kind, either killing them or turning them into zombified assassins. The series is shot on location, so the lush cinematography is just one of the many beautiful parts of the show.
Themes of love, acceptance and chosen family run throughout the veins of Sense8, welcoming viewers into the group’s “cluster” and allowing them to become part of their family along the way. The universal appeal of the show is what held fans together as they campaigned for a suitable finale after the show was unceremoniously canceled at the end of its second-season cliffhanger.
Sense8 has one of the most diverse casts we’ve seen on television. It’s multi-cultural and features multiple gay and transgender characters. American Nomi Marks (played by Jamie Clayton) is a trans hacktivist and sensate whose relationship with non-sensate girlfriend, Amanita Caplan (Freema Agyeman), is one of the central love stories of the show. The rest of the female cast stand out as some of the most powerful members of the cluster; Korean business woman Sun Bak (Doona Bae) is the team’s strongest fighter, Mumbaikar pharmacist Kala Dandekar (Tina Desai) is the brains of the group, and Icelandic DJ Riley Blue (Tuppence Middleton) is the heart of the cluster.