About We are almost there! much has already been written – also in this place. That the program is the textbook example of the success formula of Omroep Max. That there is nothing more exciting than watching caravans parked, or trudging seniors on a gravel path. That a hard-boiled egg is always preferred over a soft-boiled one.
On Tuesday evening, the eleventh season started with an episode that did exactly the same in everything as the ten series before. This time 24 couples travel through the Spanish interior for a month. After ten seasons, you’d think the format would be a bit rusty, but in this universe, that’s never the case. In the sheer slowness, everything was pleasantly familiar again: from the bathrobe parade at dawn to the couple from Best who listen to the same Dutch-language radio station every morning (‘we love it’).
Presenter Martine van Os told Monday evening at On 1 that the makers are nervous every year whether people are going to like it. These are empty worries, because the program has trained us so well in appreciating slowness that the format can in fact never disappoint again. The end result is always satisfying, because the makers have trained us to watch television in a different, patient way.
On paper, the travel program has nothing to do with the swan song of a grim Netflix crime series about a shady lawyer who has gone astray. Better Call Saul started in 2015 as a series to be watched with suspicion, as it was a spin-off of one of the most acclaimed series of all time (Breaking Bad). That kind of television often ends in a creative vale of tears, because the makers fall back on the well-known and don’t dare to let us watch in a different way.
Still chose Saul a very different course from the start than the ‘mother series’ (which was much more of a pressure cooker). The makers showed us an extremely complex and patient character study over six seasons. That slowness scared off many viewers, because where was the action?! It’s a sign that we as viewers are increasingly trained to gobble up ‘content’ as quickly as possible, even if the end result is ultimately extremely unsatisfactory because the creators use all their powers and stories inside. no time have used up.
The very last episode aired on Tuesday, and that episode was no less than a monument in television history. The final act was an emotional sledgehammer, especially since we learned to love these characters very quietly over the course of six seasons. The action came later, the patient process was always sacred.
Shady lawyers and itinerant seniors couldn’t be more different in theory, but they both achieve absolute perfection in their own specific universe. And all because they just dare to rely on the viewer’s patience.