Ha-Burganim

It's a real weird case of too much of a good thing. This series was one of the sharpest social satire ever made in Israel. It was superbly written, the actors were amazing, note a false note among the entire ensemble. Only problem is, after five or six episodes I realized I couldn't stand any of the characters. Yes they were all perfectly satirizing the Israely upper middle class, they were all flesh and blood cartoons I was very familiar with from simply looking around me. But there wasn't a single one among them I could sympathize with. Each one was a horrible person in a different fashion and I didn't want to know what happens to them any more. It was for me the first time it happened to me. Since then it happened a few more times, when directors were so careful creating the so called emotional detachment between the viewers and the story that I simply got completely no emotional involvement in the plot and lost interest all together. This could be my own personal problem, but that's the way it is, and that's the way I write it.

The setup is for a sitcom-- characters and situations familiar from real life, but exaggerated, and getting into trouble that you can see coming a mile away but they plunge right ahead at. But from schtick to schtick it's a toss-up whether the scene will play out as humor or as drama. Like the earlier series _The Cameri Five_ featuring the same core cast, this one has a postmodern reluctance to commit itself either to lightheartedness or to heavy drama, and even to consistently bring a plot to a resolution.