“I have no time”. “There are too many series.” “When I’m in front of the TV I don’t know what to put on so I watch the first thing I catch.” No more excuses with this list of seven miniseries to watch during this long weekend: five days in which, in quiet moments, one can be entertained with the best that television has offered in recent months. The Messiah, for example, had to be on this list in the same way that we will soon have to talk again about the creation of Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi as the most stimulating proposal of 2023.
The list of recommendations obeys four criteria. The seven series have been broadcast in this last quarter. They try to offer variety both in terms of genre and stories. They move between good entertainment and the search for unquestionable artistic quality (that is, they are not a waste of time). And, finally, the eight proposals are miniseries so that the occasional viewer can leave the experience closed when it is time to return to the routine.
Elizabeth Zott (Brie Larson) is an outstanding chemist. The problem she has is that, since she is a female scientist in the 1950s, she receives contempt from the system. Her only way to be recognized by her? Becoming the unlikely host of a cooking show with which she wants to empower women, treating each of her recipes as an experiment. The only reason why the adaptation of the best-selling Chemistry Lessons has not been a phenomenon among female audiences is because it premiered on Apple TV instead of Netflix. After all, it is the ideal content for those who miss The Queen’s Gambit.
After surprising with the naturalness of his dialogues in People speaking, Álvaro Carmona delves into conceptual comedy with Déjate ver. Ana (Macarena Sanz) works as artistic director for an anonymous artist when she literally begins to disappear. The advice she gets from the doctor? If she doesn’t want to become invisible like her toe, she must change her life. And, in a hilarious dystopia because of how close it is, Carmona talks about snobbery in art, the way in which social networks dictate our value and mark our social relationships, the absurdity of our existences and art as a tool of expression that allows us to be seen. A treasure.
Russell T. Davies, author of It’s a sin or Years and years, this time delves into a biopic that is as television as it is British: the dismissal of Noele Gordon from the series Crossroads, a primetime soap opera with a dubious reputation for its production values, often having to improvise due to lack of time during the filming of the scenes. But, based on the love for television, daily series and a fantastic portrait of the leading actress, played by Helena Bonham Carter, the anecdote rises to the level of interest beyond the United Kingdom. Nolly only has three episodes.
Finding the balance between comedy and horror without falling into the parody is an almost impossible mission from which Berto Romero, with the help of screenwriters Rafel Barceló and Enric Pardo, succeeds. Nacho Nieto (Berto Romero) is a paranormal journalist who, after a suicide attempt, goes to see his dead mentor, Dr. Estrada (Andreu Buenafuente).
The spectral presence helps him with a case that can get him out of journalistic ostracism: a working-class apartment that is haunted and tortures the widow who lives there (María Botto). Who could have thought that, when talking about spirits, Berto would actually want to talk about journalistic ethics in a present of fake news, sensationalism, partisan politics and the extreme right. This same Thursday ends with the broadcast of its last two chapters.
A body appears in the Whitechapel neighborhood with a gunshot wound to the eye. This is what happens to Detective Sharhara Hasan in 2023, to Sergeant Charles Whiteman in 1941, to Inspector Alfred Hillinghhead in 1890 and even to Detective Iris Maplewood in 2053, only with one difference: the body is alive. How can the same crime occur in four different realities? This is a proposal for those who enjoy genre puzzles, having received comparisons with Dark, although Cadavers has more pulse to give some humanity to the story, even if the turning points are more noticeable than the emotions of the characters.
Enric (Roger Casamajor) and Irene (Macarena García) did not have a normal childhood. They were raised by Montserrat (a character shared by Ana Rujas, Lola Dueñas and Carmen Machi), first she was a reckless mother, then toxic and finally monstrous when she came into contact with a man of mass (Albert Pla) who left them incommunicado. Saying that The Messiah is the series of the year may sound grandiose but it is possibly a statement that falls short of Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi’s experimentation with drama, realism and traumatic experiences that were exorcised through creation.
In 2016, Labor politician Jo Cox was murdered shouting “Britain first!” At that time, Matthew Collins, a neo-Nazi turned activist against racism and xenophobia, was investigating ultranationalist groups. The walk-in narrates the social climate of the moment, the way in which supremacist ideas can permeate ordinary citizens, and the passage that National Action made from hate speech to action. There are five episodes written by Jeff Pope (Philomena) and starring Stephen Graham (The virtues).
