Where did the comrades from CTV make a mistake?
After the success of Smysl pro tumor, Czech Television was not going to rest on its laurels and leave Sunday viewers to commercial competition, and therefore immediately rushed with another new eight-part miniseries. This will be explained, comrades! the trailers beckoned for an original idea, light entertainment with a mix of sci-fi elements and the increasingly popular nostalgic environment of the 80s. After the first episode, however, it seems that this, on paper, ambitious cocktail did not quite manage to mix well.
The new series is signed by the director duo Matěj Chlupáček and Michal Samir. The two have already joined forces and proved their qualities in the similarly retro-tuned series Iveta, which was well received by viewers on the Voyo platform and will see its third series this year. Chlupáček successfully tested his skills behind the film camera as well, with the recent film Úsvit, which is now nominated for 13 Czech lions (!) and will definitely take several of them home this Saturday.
It is therefore not surprising that Czech Television caught these young talented gentlemen in time to secure a viewership of over a million viewers with their new venture. However, this milestone has so far remained, albeit narrowly, unconquered.
Why does ČT always cover only communism and StB?
The series from the fictional Institute of Paranormal Phenomena didn’t arouse too much enthusiasm or curiosity among viewers with its first episode. They most often complain about the not very well managed mix of disparate genres, the fluctuating quality of humor, unused parodic moments and the very slow pace of the criminal plot.
At the same time, the setting in the 1980s should not be accidental. At this time, there really should have been a so-called Psychoenergetic laboratory investigating paranormal phenomena, which served as inspiration for the serial one. This here falls under the State Security, which means that Czech Television is returning to tried and tested formulas several times: detective stories, retro and communists.
But it’s starting to get rather embarrassing that the creators of the past years can’t extract the political regime and focus primarily on the original theme. In other words, not everything from the period before 1990 has to be immediately associated with communism, especially when it is supposed to be fiction, where fantasy knows no bounds. The series would only benefit from the absence of StB.
The retro stylization also brings to mind, for example, the recent Volga (also closely associated with communism), but this time it mixes real scenery with a sci-fi jacket, slightly reminiscent of Marvel’s Loki, and stylish lighting.
Unfortunately, it is the lighting and the camera that often seem overpaid, even counterproductive. This was shown, for example, in the final scene of the first episode called “Ostro obslavné UFO”, when Jan Cina and Jiří Macháček are standing in the middle of a field at night, but it is not at all possible to see their faces, which hurts the legs of their acting performances and the unraveling of the detective plot.
Similarly, there is also a fluctuating level of visual effects, which confirm the financial limits of domestic television productions and it is better to avoid them in advance or reach for practical ones when the creators want to refer to Arabella or The Visitors, among other things.
Episodic narration (with titles parodying well-known domestic hits from the past, such as: My doll is on fire, What a soldier, Sir, you are a widow!) has at least a chance to move with quality and bring more interesting cases than the first one .
Questionnaire
Will you give your “comrades” another chance next Sunday?
Yes, I like the series so far.
Yes, because I hope the quality will improve.
I haven’t seen and I won’t see.
A total of 996 readers voted.
Initial viewership portends a painful fall
However, this may be for naught if viewership continues to decline. A total of 935,000 viewers watched the first episode on Sunday night. Although the result may appear solid at first glance, for Czech Television it is a big drop compared to the final of Smysl pro tumor with 1.2 million, while another 1.8 million came in with delayed viewing on the iVysznály website. In total, the last episode reached up to 3 million viewers, which is a record statistic for a long time.
Given that viewers are expressing their disillusionment with the poor quality not only on ČSFD (currently 47%), but also in the comments on social networks, where most of them are dissatisfied, a miraculous improvement from previous experiences is less likely, and 930 thousand will probably drop even lower, as is the case with Monday’s flop with Klos – Back in the sleeping bag.
This time, however, TV Prima may be lucky, as Seven Steps to Power was only 30,000 viewers short of becoming Sunday’s number one, which may happen this week. On the contrary, Nova continues to suffer with the declining viewership of the below-average serial crime comedy Police Hvar with 600,000, to whose level “Comrades” can easily fall after a few episodes.
2024-03-07 21:53:15
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