Stateless Season 1 Review – a human account of immigration failures

By Daniel Hart
Published: July 7, 2020 (Last updated: January 25, 2024)
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Stateless Netflix series review
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Summary

Stateless provides a human account of the failures of a system that rips families apart and takes away the freedoms and rights of people.

Netflix series Stateless Season 1 was released on the platform on July 7, 2020.

Access the episode recaps


Netflix really raises the awareness of the wrongdoings of immigration policies around the world with short films and documentary series’. Its activism in this area is truly appreciated, especially when the awareness needs heightening — there’s always a sense that because people don’t see what happens, that they believe it doesn’t happen.

Stateless is a fictional drama based on real events and while there’s a heavy focus on America’s ICE and the UK’s end to free movement due to Brexit, this Netflix limited series focuses on Australia, renowned for their points-based system but on the other hand subject to bad press due to their cruel policies on asylum seekers and refugees.

We often are faced with the clinical approach to immigration but Stateless provides a human account to the failures of a system that rips families apart and takes away the freedoms and rights of people. Its emotional angle is refreshing, giving hope that it may give less-inclined viewers an education to what really happens in corners of our world. This happens — the events that you see in this Netflix series are happening daily.

And with a human account brings human failure — Stateless presents how following such routine, blanket processes provide pressure to those holding up the system. Blanket approaches to every single person that enters the country result in years of wrongful imprisonment and negligible deaths. Stateless surfaces the pandemic that has existed way longer than a virus.

The acting itself in Stateless is often on the surface, attempting to hone the point, but it doesn’t take away the genuine writing effort. It could have benefitted from a wider scope, but the creators evidently chose to narrow in as much as possible to benefit from the emotional angle.

Again: This is real. Stateless is important.

Netflix, TV Reviews
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