Glória

This is a well set, well cast show with a semi believable plot. The characters are all well played. Someone has gone to great effort to get the clothing and the cars right. It's not quite so accurate on the technical details. Sabotaging the transmitter by opening a door and defeating an interlock is not possible. The interlock can be defeated but the transmitter will have gone off the moment the door opens. Then be restarted. Such offs generally trigger alarms. Frequency hopping is a little more complicated and was generally achieved by running several frequencies simultaneously. As long as you have more transmissions than the Russians have Jammers the signal will get through. I am keen to know which site was used for the exterior shots. The Gloria site has been dismantled. Technical details aside it's a good story and shows people as they are especially in a somewhat remote site.

Glória is the first show I ever "binged watched". The characters are so beautifully constructed and explored, each one revealing a necessary layer and direction to the story.

The entire plot is a succession of events that make you want to go back just to have that "ahhh" moment again. In the end it leaves you feeling that you could, no, should watch it again.

An amazing first to Portugal, can't wait for more.

Gloria is a slow burning espionage tv show which takes place in Portugal during the 1960's. By then it was still ruled by a fascist dictatorship and was mainly a county with a very outdated culture, a society where amongst the poorer people women had no liberty and even on higher society stratuses we could witness something similar . The story shows much of that culture and time, but it's also a very good espionage story , with crime, suspense, intrigue and some action.

Acting is appropriate, I wouldn't say it's superb , but it doesn't fall below par ... and the story is very engaging, I found myself very curious on knowing what would happen next . Yes, it's a bit on the slower pace but that's perfectly fine for me, a person who loved the slow paced True Detective show.

Gloria deserves some praise because it comes from a country of a very old movie culture which unfortunately was dominated by tedious and ethereal films during some decades . I hope this is the first of many Portuguese tv shows in Netflix because it doesn't fall short in any department when compared with similar shows from other countries .

I've seen my fair share of movies and TV shows and as a Portuguese, I've grown up to have a very biased opinion towards Portuguese content - culturally speaking we are known to produce an insane amount of soap operas but not so much movies or TV shows - and as I grew up I had this completely wrong idea that we simply lacked the quality to do so.

As I started to consume more Portuguese content, it became clear that our main problem is actually budget; we don't lack at all in creativity or fantastic actors, we do lack in funding from the Government in our culture and that of course reflects on the content no matter how good the original idea is.

With that being said, we are seeing a change in trend, and thanks to partnerships and opportunities like this (Netflix actually producing a Portuguese TV show) we can clearly see the proof how much the budget can make a difference.

The story is a fictional one, yet is set on a very real context in history - there are a lot of things I can point as very positive: the cinematography is amazing, the direction and camera work are on point for the spy genre, most actors do an amazing job (the main character I had some troubles at first as it seemed to have some lack of charisma, but he does get better as the story unfolds) and the plot itself is engaging, some predictable twists but other unexpected events as well.

It might not be a brilliant or ground breaking series, but it is original on some aspects, believable, and most of all a truly great achievement for Portugal - I can't stress this enough, I've already seen some not so commercial series and even Portuguese movies fantastically made, but Glória is probably the best national content I've seen that has the most probable global recognition.

In our country we tend to be very critical, but I leave you with some final thoughts that hopefully convince you to watch: no it has absolutely nothing to do with how soap operas are made; yes you are not used to listen to Portuguese on a movie so give it some time it and you'll get through that and finally GIVE IT A SHOT, don't see just 1 or 2 episodes and give it a low rating based on that - kudos to the people involved, we need more content like this coming from Portugal.

I admit that before seeing "Glória" I didn't have great expectations. The relationship with Portuguese cinema has not been easy and it is difficult to point out a title that made me change that relationship. But I've already made a post about these causes and it's not worth repeating now. Hence, when I learned that the first Portuguese series launched by Netflix in co-production with SPI and RTP was going to be produced, I didn't even give it much importance. However, the series debuted and what a satisfaction to have to "handle the paddle" because "Glória" of 2021 is nothing behind so many others that I've seen on Netflix. Including North Americans. Which doesn't imply that it's one of the best either, but it's precisely in the middle. The production and interpretation is at the level of the best that is done nowadays. The recreation of the time is very well done. And despite the recurrent trauma of the Colonial War being present again, the narrative and argument are very well structured. Seriously, I was surprised and finally, of the Portuguese series that I had the opportunity to see, this one created by Pedro Lopes is probably the most successful. A little in the same line of quality as the 2019 movie "A Herdade" he was also directed by Tiago Guedes, as well as this surprising "Glória".