Plus belle la vie

I am hooked on Plus Belle La Vie on TV5 Monde - Europe. The story lines are the staples of the soap universe, to be sure, but there is something appealing about the cast (all attractive enough to appear in an Australian soap!) and the setting (the city of Marseilles looks absolutely lovely) that makes it more attractive than the grim misery of EastEnders. I would say it is more akin to Emmerdale in feel - the humour, the melodrama, the age range of characters...

I want escapism from a soap and Plus Belle La Vie delivers every time. As entertainment it does its job very well. And my French is improving with every episode!

I don't usually give a 1/10 because films or TV series tend to at least have something of worth, be it action sequences or something, and I'm a merciful person so most of the time I resort to a 2 or 3 for really bad things. "Plus Belle la Vie" (or "Poubelle la Vie" as I like to call it), is the most grotesque, politically correct, cheesy, obnoxious and of course, unrealistic waste-of-my-life TV series I've ever seen. I have seen a few episodes in their entirety, all against my will. When I accidentally fall on an episode, I quickly change channel because I don't want to give this vile trash any more viewership than it deserves.

I remember an episode about some right-wing racist businessman who was the bad guy (who am I kidding, most of the bad guys in this show are right-wing racists - but not the realistic kind, the kind that can only be fantasized by "bourgeois-bohème" writers). In the end of the episode, it was revealed that this right-wing racist businessman was actually... Satan. Yeah, you read that right. That's fine in a De Niro or Pacino thriller movie, not in a awkwardly colorful and politically correct French TV show.

Also, the actors are bad as can be, playing cardboard characters, acting in boring plots, which are often about political or social subjects, the TV show always happy to make tolerance and upper-class hippie naivety be the correct thing to do against the bad meanies! That doesn't mean that you'll like it if you're left-wing. I know of many anarchists and communists who detest this series for those reasons. I will never in my life understand the appeal for "Poubelle la Vie".

I just found out I cannot see PBLV in advance. I will miss my 25 mn no brainer soap

I've been watching on TV Cinq Monde and I find it entertaining. Seriously, I don't understand the criticism. Why would anybody get his (or her) knickers in a twist over this harmless bit of TV? It's not intended to be realistic or profound. It's just a soap opera -- the French equivalent of, for instance, EastEnders. There are definite parallels to EE -- several families, different backgrounds, organized around a square with a local hangout where everybody fetches up sooner or later -- the pub in EE, Roland's bar in PBLV. Sure, there is more melodrama than there would be in any real urban setting -- again just like EastEnders.

It's entertaining, the actors are almost all appealing. Ça sert à passer une demi-heure. What else do you want? If it's high drama that you're hankering for, don't watch PBLV, go to the Comédie française and catch some Racine.

This is a French answer to UK's Eastenders and Emmerdale. Pleasant and easy to watch.