Being Belgian I can honestly tell you I'm not prejudiced. In fact I've never really liked a Belgian production. Not even the over-hyped and overrated Belgian movie 'bullhead' which was nominated for an Oscar of best foreign film. But finally we've got a TV-show that's very well written, intriguing, intellectually stimulating, very well paced and as a result of all that never, ever boring.
Writer and director Bart de Pauw delivered a masterpiece. He can be as proud as his last name. Pauw is the dutch word for peacock. Bart showed talent at a very young age writing for an 80's youth series: 'meester, hij begint weer.' meaning Hey teacher, he started it (again). And with the stuff he wrote which they didn't use for the show, he created another show in his early twenties, called: buiten de zone (outside the zone/area). It was a massive success. Then followed some great shows like schalkse ruiters and men on the edge of... , but in recent years he made some flops as well. And it was pretty quiet around his character in the last couple of years. But he's back with a vengeance. First with a very well written movie script 'loft', and now with IMO the best Belgian TV-series of all time which can compete with about any foreign series out there. And I've seen them all, to give you a quick few names of very good TV-series IMO: dexter, house Md, breaking bad, the sopranos,... and for comedy: fawlty towers, blackadder, seinfeld, curb your enthusiasm, the office UK,...
The only thing stopping this from being an international hit, is that the story is about a typical Flemish tradition: playing quizzes in small, local parish halls. I don't even know if they do that in other countries but here it's quite popular. It's about a quiz team called: table seven who meet by accident in a pub where a quiz is going on. Because there is no place left in the pub, they have to sit next to each other and after a while the young protagonist, named nick, starts filling in forms because he hears his neighbors answering the questions. One knows everything about music, his name is Lennon, he's an orphan and they named him Lennon because he was born the day that lennon was shot and killed. Another customer at the bar who sits opposite Nick seems to know almost everything, he's there to fill in some taxes for his nephew, who owns the bar. But in between filling in the tax paperwork he mumbles every answer. So Nick starts writing down the answers and that's the start of a wonderful journey about friendship, loyalty, devotion and so much more. This really is a must watch series!!!!
Writer and director Bart de Pauw delivered a masterpiece. He can be as proud as his last name. Pauw is the dutch word for peacock. Bart showed talent at a very young age writing for an 80's youth series: 'meester, hij begint weer.' meaning Hey teacher, he started it (again). And with the stuff he wrote which they didn't use for the show, he created another show in his early twenties, called: buiten de zone (outside the zone/area). It was a massive success. Then followed some great shows like schalkse ruiters and men on the edge of... , but in recent years he made some flops as well. And it was pretty quiet around his character in the last couple of years. But he's back with a vengeance. First with a very well written movie script 'loft', and now with IMO the best Belgian TV-series of all time which can compete with about any foreign series out there. And I've seen them all, to give you a quick few names of very good TV-series IMO: dexter, house Md, breaking bad, the sopranos,... and for comedy: fawlty towers, blackadder, seinfeld, curb your enthusiasm, the office UK,...
The only thing stopping this from being an international hit, is that the story is about a typical Flemish tradition: playing quizzes in small, local parish halls. I don't even know if they do that in other countries but here it's quite popular. It's about a quiz team called: table seven who meet by accident in a pub where a quiz is going on. Because there is no place left in the pub, they have to sit next to each other and after a while the young protagonist, named nick, starts filling in forms because he hears his neighbors answering the questions. One knows everything about music, his name is Lennon, he's an orphan and they named him Lennon because he was born the day that lennon was shot and killed. Another customer at the bar who sits opposite Nick seems to know almost everything, he's there to fill in some taxes for his nephew, who owns the bar. But in between filling in the tax paperwork he mumbles every answer. So Nick starts writing down the answers and that's the start of a wonderful journey about friendship, loyalty, devotion and so much more. This really is a must watch series!!!!
