In Spain, the golden age of television came very late. It was hard for our creatives to realize that scripts could no longer be written and shot as simply as years before. Nor offer us assemblies without complexity. And it doesn’t seem crazy to insist that, until the premiere of The Money Heist, a modern series was not produced in the country. But, without a doubt, the case of There is no one living here It is different.
If we want to think about sitcoms, the American model prevails, with usual sets, few exterior scenes and its traditional canned laughs. to it Seinfeld either friends. In Spain it was reproduced, above all, in the very successful Seven lifes and his spin off, Aida. But yes the collejas of Soledad Huete are quite poorly preserved, those of number 21 of Madrid’s Calle Desengaño they stay fresh like the first day. And no canned laughter.
There are those who will point out that we cannot forget that the dramatic Crematorium. But it is not a work with the current plenitude. And the translation of the cinematographic perspective to television fictions took place from Twin Peaks Y The X-Filestwo decades earlier. Nevertheless, There is no one living here it is a personal contribution.
The great success of There is no one living here before and now
This series, created by brothers Alberto and Laura Caballero with Iñaki Ariztimuño, narrates the life of a troubled community of neighbors In the centre of Madrid. to it 13, Rue du Barnacle, the cartoon by Francisco Ibáñez. And it was a colossal triumph for specialized critics and Spanish viewers, who turned it into the most watched national production during the first decade of the 21st century. For very good reasons, without discussion.
The average screen share of its ninety episodes was almost 34% during the broadcast of its first five seasons on Antena 3. And, since October 2021, often sneaks into the top ten of Netflix. Although it is also in the catalog of Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max and Atresplayer. Viewers who watched each episode in the analog world now revisit it on streaming. And the new generations that have discovered it there also make its renewed fame possible.
According to the barometer prepared by the Audiovisual Communication Studies Office, a consulting firm integrated into the Globomedia Group, on all the platforms, There is no one living here has been the sixth series with the most views in the first quarter of 2022. About 22% of Spaniards who consume video on demand, in approximately six out of every ten households, have chosen it to spend their time.
the endless enjoyment
One of the reasons why we never get tired of going back to the entanglements of this community of neighbors is found in what Paolo Vasile, CEO of Mediaset, calls “the karaoke effect”. One perfectly remembers the details of the plot and even the dialogues of the episodes. And, because of this and how pleasant the experience is for him, he repeats and tricks them over and over again without feeling bored.
The same thing happens to us with the good times of The Simpson. And with the aforementioned friends. Also with The Big Bang Theory and the eccentric ideas of Sheldon Cooper. To those viewers who like us, of course. And so we can see them from the beginning to the end on multiple occasionsor single chapters, and never get fed up.
It’s not just the karaoke effect
However, there is something basic in them that pushes us to this insistent behavior. A fundamental aspect that differentiates them, for example, from Pharmacy open either Seven lifes. And it is that the wit of his humor does not age. same as in the one that is comingtwin sister but a little more uncontrolled than There is no one living hereuntil he began to notice a certain exhaustion of the formula and a drop in his rhythm.
The messes and misadventures of the choral work of the Caballero Brothers, who drink in the comic energy of their staging of the best that Billy Wilder, Luis García Berlanga or the Spanish dramaturgical tradition gave us, belong to the undying laughter of the seventh art. Y its main characters and its actorsrelated to those of the satires of the generation of José Luis López Vázquez, are revealed very recognizable and iconic. As much as to remain on our screens even if the years go by.
After the exaggerations of their particular personality, the witty dialogues that come out of their mouths and the crazy situations in which they intervene, we would easily believe that the exhausting neighbors of There is no one living here They exist as real people. And in the building next door. We cannot consider them, in any way, faked fictional beings because they are alive. and that entails the value of what the world reflects. A virtue before the golden age of television.