Finals

Finals is a Dutch soap opera about a group of kids that just graduated high school. It is shot with handheld cameras operated by the actors themselves. The scenes are improvised. This in itself could be a blueprint for an excellent, realistic and involving television drama, if it werent for the painfully poor acting, incoherent storyline, non-existent character development and abysmal camerawork.

All the characters are spoiled, rich, suburban type children that, judging from this show, have a very low tolerance for frustration. You see, every time one of them encounters a tiny little problem or obstacle in their otherwise carefree existence the same thing happens: The actor goes into a stupor of overacting insanity. These stupors always follow the same order of emotions and actions. Say someone has run out of toilet paper. Typically the actor will first panic, then start crying. Then they'll start swearing at the person operating the camera. Sometimes they will get violent, swear some more or throw an object around. The next thing they will do is run away or lock themselves in a room, followed by the cameraman, who then gets told to turn the camera off.

Every single episode contains at least two or more of these stupors. Normally the characters are calm, together, tragically hip. But when a tiny little wisp of a cloud appears over the horizon, another freak out ensues. Most of the episodes are filled with endless shouting, swearing, bawling and just outright hysteric behaviour.

The camera gets panned from one side of the room to another, tilted, jerked around and generally abused. Of course the actors are not trained cameramen. But they do not appear to be trained actors either. In fact they dont seem to be any good at any aspect of drama whatsoever, as the plot is an incoherent sequence of events lacking any kind of depth or involvement. While observing the actors humiliate themselves on public television you can not help but feel embarrassed in their place for creating this decrepit piece of dog turd which is of course, highly popular.

When this show was first aired, most viewers didn't know these kids were actors. We were told that a class was handed some cameras and asked to film as much of their daily routine as possible. So to create a good level of amateurism, the camera work looked very sloppy. They constantly filmed each other, even after school, and after moving into a house together. Later they even went on vacation together. The setup went from class project to soap opera/sitcom.

No language censorship, no professional filming and no studios. This created the necessary level of reality that made the show great and I for one am patiently waiting for the whole thing to be released on DVD.

Way to go, BNN!

And Romy....you're still hot!