‘Sex Education’ Trailer: Gillian Anderson Is a Sex Therapist in Netflix Comedy

At this over-saturation point of Peak TV, maybe it’s time television eased up on the biting social criticism and proceeded with its original purpose: Fantasy fulfillment. To a certain kind of discerning viewer, “The X Files” star Gillian Anderson playing a hip sex therapist mother is fantasy fulfillment we didn’t even know we had. Thanks to Netflix’s newest teen comedy, “Sex Education,” now we can all rest easy knowing there’s a version of Scully out there who doesn’t nat an eyelash when asking a grown man about his “earliest memory of [his] scrotum.”

Donning a stylish Miranda Priestly white bob and her native British accent, Anderson is unflappably cool in the new trailer for “Sex Education,” which opens with her character asking her son Otis (Asa Butterfield) why he’s pretending to masturbate. Following in his mother’s footsteps, Otis unwittingly becomes his school’s de facto sex therapist, much to his own chagrin. Urged along by his best friend Jackson (Kedar Williams-Stirling), Otis offers a non-judgmental ear to his sexually curious peers, although he himself shows little interest in the activity.

Butterfield is best known for his 2011 starring role in Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-winning “Hugo.” Anderson last appeared in a reboot of “The X Files,” as well as in the Kate McKinnon/Mila Kunis buddy comedy “The Spy Who Dumped Me.” “Sex Education” stars a stable of relatively unknown British teen actors, much like popular UK teen show “Skins,” which launched the careers of Nicholas Hoult and Dev Patel. With its sex-positive subject matter and fresh-faced cast, “Sex Education” could fill a similar place in the young adult TV landscape.

Check out the trailer for “Sex Education,” which premieres on Netflix on January 11.