When things go wrong, I have recently started thinking more and more about Olga Zuiderhoek. This is not so much because of her impressive contributions to the Dutch film and television world, but mainly because of her striking career move. On the eve of Sunday, for the young (and older) viewers, Zuiderhoek has been a nameless pseudopsychologist in the wonderful VPRO program for several weeks now. In Freud’s name† The idea of this youth program by Pieter Hulst is simple: a (fictional) student wrestles with a life question that goes just a little deeper than the average adolescent writhing. They walk around with questions like ‘How do I get funny?’, ‘How do I get smarter?’ or ‘How do I become happy?’, and visit their school counselor (Zuiderhoek), who tries to formulate an answer on the basis of (pseudo-)scientific experiments and a dose of human knowledge.
In the sixth episode, Sunday evening revolved around the question of whether humans are inherently good or bad (Zuiderhoek: ‘Hello, that’s heavy stuff† In less than fifteen minutes, Darwin, Newton, the prisoner’s dilemma, marshmallow experiments, the train dilemma and ‘the oath of Hypocrites’ pass by, with which Zuiderhoek tries to answer the student’s question. In between, Zuiderhoek’s quirky expressions alternate at a rapid pace, from deliberate confusion (‘permanent’) and slang (‘popo-coppers’), to the wise statement that ‘not everything in the libi is clearly divided between right and wrong’.
And to think that the other cannon of In Freud’s name unfortunately was on the reserve bench this week. I would therefore strongly advise you to take a look at the previous episodes, especially the scenes in which Zuiderhoek shares the screen with school janitor (and former free-range) Koos. This relatively small supporting role could have been completed effortlessly by any Dutch top actor, but Pierre Bokma, Gijs Scholten van Aschat and Kees Prins cannot ultimately stand in the shadow of Koos’ interpreter: football coach Henk ten Cate. In the second episode, the striking Amsterdammer made his appearance, with a large bunch of keys, a classic long janitor coat, countless winks to his coaching career and, above all, a lot of secret flirtation with Zuiderhoek. Sometimes the most absurd ideas have the most brilliant results, and the question is whether a better duo can be found in the TV landscape than Zuiderhoek and Ten Cate. Keep it up with that spin-off.
And although Koos was busy with other chores this week, a sane person never says no to a portion of life lessons from Olga Zuiderhoek, who seems born for this wise, and at the same time pleasantly bold role. In that dusty office, the top actress behind the desk of wisdom was completely at home. And why should that actually be limited to a youth program? Why not just an hour of Olga Zuiderhoek every week, as a Dutch TV psychologist? It would do both humanity and the inveterate TV viewer quite well.