Hot Skull

Hot Skull is a good Turkish dystopia travelling around contemporary social issues pandemic, state pressure, totalitarianism, resistance, individualism, and search for hope. Presented in a gloomy Istanbul atmosphere portrayed in brown, yellow and green colors, this eight part series tells us the story of Murat Siyavus, a linguist and an intellectual who is immune to the a social-medical pandemic, yet prone to another illness related to (his) bodily reactions. Around social and medical issues, Hot Skull presents a dark future, where the cities are wound round with walls and law enforcement forces. It is a good series since it is a dystopia that is not common in Turkish popular culture and it presents contemporary social-medical issues with good visuals, and credible storytelling. The acting of Osman Sonant, Sevket Coruh, Haluk Bilginer and especially Tilbe Saran are notably good, the rest is unfortunately below average. However, since it is within the boundaries of popular culture (yes Netflix) the series limits itself and almost always stops where it can say something more, and become critical and notable.

It was a very successful production for Türkiye, especially in the science-fiction genre.

The actors and script are pretty good.

We should all make useful comments to pave the way for such quality productions.

The cooperation between Neftlix and Türkiye will become stronger day by day.

It was a successful production about a mass epidemic that started in Turkey and what would happen next.

While I am used to seeing similar original science-fiction works as a work done by different countries, I was very happy that Türkiye signed such an original work.

I would like to humbly invite those who want to watch this series to watch this successful series without giving spoilers.

All my best wishes, Enjoy watching!

The series is adopted from a Turkish novel written by Afsin Kum, published in 2016, which I was not aware of it before watching the series. I finished the first season 15 minutes ago, and really enjoyed watching it. It needs a lot of thinking, sense of humor and open minds. I admired the "abuks" and congratulate the writers.

All the characters, acting and directing are incredible. The story takes place in Istanbul. There is an outbreak going on which spreads by hearing nonsense talking of affected people. The main character the hot skull, is the only immune person who is a linguistic scientist, but has a side affect of the immune response.

Hope to see the second season soon.

I was reminded of Pontypool and various story plots of Charles Stross and Greg Bear regarding mental virus ideas.

It was a nice change of pace from Zombies and the actors all looked "real".

A pleasant edition was no sex instead of love character plotting.

And older people were actually depicted as stars and not simply incompetent bystanders as one finds in most US productions.

I'm always surprised at the respect and wide characterization foreign media allows older adult roles. There is no pandering to the youth market or excessive gore and sexuality.

Either way everyone should watch and create their own opinions instead of following someone else's.

That includes mine.

"Hot Skull" is definitely better than I expected. It's far from perfect of course, but still quite a solid sci-fi from Turkey. I would not mind a bit more "sci" in it, they did not really go much into the explanation of jabbering throughout the series.

I was disappointed in the last episode, though. It felt rushed, and not so much in the story department, so much as in production. It felt as if actors have lost their edge and their performance got worse for no apparent reason. Although, I was watching it with English dub, so maybe it was the dub problem, and not the actors.

Nevertheless, I would not mind seeing a second season.