Dear White People is still stellar in Season 2

Vanity Fair

The second season of the Netflix college comedy gives creator Justin Simien and his cast the chance to claim an original story, apart from the movie, while expanding the world of Winchester University, says Sonia Saraiya. "Cloistered in the ivory tower—and suffocated by it—the show’s leads are exceptional, isolated, and bursting with passion, which pours out from them in implausibly effortless quippy banter, so ridiculous it’s Sorkin-esque," she says. "But Dear White People’s characters are so charming, so endearing, that it’s a joy to sit back and watch them dazzle each other. The show itself is dazzling, too, with razor-sharp editing, gorgeous lighting and production design, and a self-conscious camera that gazes at the cast with barely suppressed love. In a late-season episode, Simien films nearly an entire argument in just a single take, with a directing bravura that rivals our most prestigious dramas."

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• "It’s the goal of the show to always find room for the nuances and room to tell more complicated truths," says Simien