El Negocio

This is my absolute favourite show. It thoroughly entertains you with funny and unpredictable scenes, dealing with some sensitive topics with class and wit. It will make you laugh, reflect, cry and why not might turn you on too. I strongly recommend watching O Negócio (if you understand portuguese go for the OV, the voices are such an important part of the acting).

I was about to give up on this series until Ep6 of Season 1 when it FINALLY started getting interesting. If I'd had something better to binge on, I would've given up on a series that slow to build. Don't be mislead by the suggestion here that it contains explicit sex. It doesn't. Yes, there's lots of nudity but only from the waist-up, and it's always pretty much the same scenario. The drama makes it worth sticking with, however. All the girls look good and drama is pepped up also by generous touches of comedic dialogue--if you're not opposed to reading subtitles. I'd give it a 10 only if it was as sexy as Satisfaction from AU Cinemax.

The three chapters shown so far of this series on HBO's Latin American satellite and cable TV signals (I live in Venezuela) are surprisingly good. Tasteful, with a very high degree of quality, production-wise, it has nothing to envy from productions made in the USA, Canada, the EU or Australia. With very young actresses that play their roles with ease, self confidence and even impudence, it is a very fine exponent of that very difficult discipline that is a comedy that makes you smile instead of making you laugh out loud, which is of course a lot easier to achieve. To just make you smile and admire the writer's cleverness and wit you need a very competent team back stage and these Brazilians undoubtedly have scored a remarkable hit in that sense. Let's hope forthcoming instalments keep this high quality level, but in any case it deserves wide viewing.

Checking the rating demographics on the IMDb website I was rather surprised to find that women tend to give the series higher marks than men. What that may imply is unclear but interesting none the less ...

It looks well done and rather classy, despite its theme, and is a more direct and impudent version of 'Sex and The City' (three female friends and their sexual adventures and careers). The show is easy on the eye due to both filming and the actresses, yet some of the characters' reactions look strangely childish (maybe that was supposed to be the comedic part). It has its dramatic overtones, more or less stressed, and besides glamorizing vice and crime, the business part gradually grows in importance along the seasons. Oh the things people do for the money...

The first two seasons are good and the story reaches its soft conclusion at the end of the second season. After that the story drags on for too long and branches out to places where the show basically turns into something else and not something better either.

I'd just watch the first two seasons, pretend that the finale of the second season is the finale of the show where everything gets wrapped up and all stories reach happy ending and then stop watching after that because the rest of the show turns into cheap soap opera.

The first two season are funny, creative, sexy and visually nice. I'd definitely recommend those seasons.