The end of the SBS 6 soap Chateau Meiland seems serious in sight. Preparations for a final book have already started. “It will be released when the program has come to an end.”
Martien Meiland has been hinting for a long time now at a possible end of Chateau Meiland, although daughter Maxime Meiland is still a bit opposed. She has bought a house that is quite above her means and paying off the mortgage is much more difficult, if not impossible, without a lucrative TV contract with Talpa.
Meiland closing book
Yet stopping Chateau Meiland now seems closer than ever. Family biographer Jan Dijkgraaf reveals that he is already working on a fourth Meiland book, which will appear immediately after the end of the TV program. “As soon as the series ends. Of course I know when that might be, but I’m not going to say anything about that,” he says in the podcast Nasty Boys.
Co-host Bas Paternotte: “Oh, the whole series?”
John: “Yes.”
Bas: “Not the season, but the… And who writes that fourth book?”
John: “Yes. Jan Dijkgraaf and Timon Moll.”
Parking spot
Timon Moll is the editor-in-chief and director of Chateau Meiland. “It’s a behind-the-scenes book of the whole series and Timon Moll who’s been around for 16 years. 17 years even around. He also directed Ik Vertrek and is directing this series. So I do it together with Timon Moll”, says Jan.
He continues: “By the way, Timon Moll was the first ever gay on TV in a soap opera. He was in the Way To Tomorrow as an actor.”
Bas jokes: “But did that Moll meet Meiland again in a parking lot?”
John: “No. haha. That doesn’t tell the story, let me put it that way.”
Last season?
The final book is coming sooner than we think, Jan suggests. “So we once agreed: at the end of the series we will bring a book about what happened there behind the scenes. Well, that now gets some extra content,” he says, referring to the current quarrel with former house friend Caroline van Eeden.
Bas: “Now does that mean that we are now looking at the last season of the Meilandjes?”
Jan: “No, I don’t know at all.”
Bas: “This is more of a gentlemen’s agreement, that when the series is over, another one…”
‘We are already working on it’
Yes, says Jan. But he says work is already underway. “Soon after that, a book will be released with a retrospective of the series, so we are even working on it slowly. But there will come a time when we have to accelerate and start ticking very quickly.”
That idea was ‘stolen’ from Michel van Egmond, who wrote a book about VI, says Jan. “So we are just going to do the same at Chateau Meiland. And then, when it’s finally over, John de Mol can finally start on his next project.”