It's A Sin | TV Show Review

 

I don't remember exactly when this came out, but I know that a lot of people binged it in one go because all the episodes were streaming on the Channel 4 streaming service in the UK. I ended up watching one a day for a week, and as glad as I am that I watched it that way, I was completely wrecked by the end of the week!

The show follows a group of friends, most of them gay men, living in London through the 1980s, and the effect that the HIV/AIDS crisis had on their lives.

I knew this show was going to be a tough watch, but no amount of mental preparation was enough!

The main friendship group includes Ritchie Tozer (Olly Alexander), Roscoe Babatunde (Omari Douglas), Jill Baxter (Lydia West), Colin Morris-Jones (Calum Scott Howells) and Ash Mukherjee (Nathaniel Curtis). 

These were all incredible characters. They were so well-written, incredibly developed, and amazingly realistic. We felt like we were going through this journey with them because they were so easy to connect to. Not only were they real, but they were so endearing and likeable. You rooted for them before knowing that they needed rooting for.

But what was even more incredible than the characters was the story itself. No matter how much you know about the HIV/AIDS crisis, seeing it happen on a screen in front of you, and affecting characters that you care about, is so powerful and intense.

Because, this isn't a story that's completely doom and gloom, which is why it works so well. There is so much fun and humour and light in this story and these characters, and that is why the down moments hit the audience so hard. It is beautiful in both the good and bad moments contained within it.

I loved the fact that this show felt so relatable. You don't need to have anything in common with these characters to be able to sympathise and empathise, and you don't need to have suffered their losses in order to feel the weight of the loss.

Everything about this show, from the writing, the cinematography, the locations, the direction, is so authentic, which again, just makes everything that happened so powerful.

Overall, this is not only an amazing show, but also an important one. I've seen films about the AIDS crisis before, and they've never been anything short of powerful and informative, but this show takes everything to another level. I would encourage everyone to watch this show. Binge it, watch it once a day, once a week, whatever - just watch it.

4.5/5