Date of airing: December 1, 2016 (DR1)
Written by: Klaus Rasmussen
Directed by: Lars Kaalund
”You just make yourself crazy, and then they don't want you anyway. There's nothing but trouble when you fall in love with someone.”
This show is me learning about Scandinavian advent calendar shows for the first time, and I realized that those are a splendid idea to make TV shows. They are a one-and-done deal, but with 24 half-hour episodes, they are longer than some streaming television dramas that are canceled before you even learn that those shows existed in the first place. Plus, they seem to have a little bit of Christmas or fairytale in it, which I'm not going to say 'No' to, not to mention the fact that those shows are generally for a young adult audience. A teen drama about young love and a difficult life, set right before the holidays during which those emotions come up the strongest? Sign me up!
However, such advent calendar shows might not be for Western audiences. This was the first episode, and it didn't even tell you a single thing about the main story. Everything these 23 minutes delivered was a stage play directed by Rikke and starring her daughter Sara, who may or may not be in love with pretty boy Janus, who already has a bombshell-looking high school girlfriend. Then there is Sara's twin sister Anna, who may or may not have caught the theater bug as well and could turn into competition for Sara, as long as she is getting over her stage fright. I would say that is enough for 23 minutes, but when it comes to exposition, character, and plot establishment, this episode didn't do a whole lot. And now I'm wondering if that is part of how the narrative of advent calendar shows are built (since they air daily, they can wait with plot developments, because viewers won't have to wait for weeks for a plot to come to the point), or if this episode happened to be slowly developed because the writers didn't know how to properly begin the show.
But damn, if this episode was good in making sure that it definitely is a young-adult drama. The story of Sara and Janus's kiss on stage seemed quite major for the young woman, although how the kiss came to be was quite creepy: It was directed by Sara's mother. For the stage play. But now I get to watch a teen show about a girl falling in love with a boy who seems to have a bitchy girlfriend already. Drama, baby!
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| For the episode-one big kiss, the spotlight makes sure it's bigger than expected. |
