Review: Highly Gifted “Do Nerds Dream of Electric Sex?”

The Lehrer boys casually add an Oscar winner and Kesha to the cast of their absurd Snapchat series.

Episode two wastes no time quickly re-establishing Dave (Josh Brener)’s total ineptitude when it comes to romance, which leads to him deciding to try having a ‘sex dream’. This turns out to be a surprisingly lucid process under the tutelage of Schnazi (Nat Faxon); however, the object of Dave’s dream, Tess, turns out to have strong opinions about agency and coercion that quickly kill the mood.

Even for a series with a 3-4 minute runtime, the storytelling felt sparse this week. Dave and Tess’ conversation is an interesting, fresh take on the concept of the sex dream, although, I can’t help feeling that the sequence is intended as an extended piece of cringe humor to make Dave look like an asshole. I don’t disagree with anything Tess says, but it’s difficult for a script to sustain this tone without becoming dull, especially when the episode is so short. I also felt that as much as there were some universal ideas discussed, Tess’ argument would have been more persuasive coming from a character to whom the audience had previously been introduced.

There’s still plenty to enjoy about Highly Gifted though, for instance, the show’s visual style gets its first moment to shine in an establishing shot of Dave on a beach. Meanwhile, Tess and Schnazi have much quirkier and elaborate character designs than Dave, which suits the lively performances both Faxon and Kesha give (it’s particularly noteworthy that the latter succeeded in not feeling like a glorified celebrity cameo).

From the initial introduction to Dave’s dream onwards, the episode is framed by a Matrix parody/homage (references to red pills and extraction abound), which felt slightly too forced and irrelevant for my taste. It’s at least a decade too late to make those jokes without adding anything new, and a more modern reference such as Inception probably would’ve been a better choice even if it seemed obvious. Nevertheless, the homage does lead to an unexpected ending that will almost certainly have no impact on the next episode but impressed me with it is creativity regardless.

We still don’t have much understanding of Highly Gifted’s world two episodes in, but at the very least I’m enjoying being constantly pleasantly surprised by its weirdness.