Âge sensible

This was a very good series, which is currently being shown on the French Channel TV5 in Europe. It's basically a soap opera, set inside a kind of co-ed college dorm, and we are allowed to follow the trials and tribs of one of about half a dozen of the students each week: IMHO Fatia is the absolute babe of the group. She is a young Moroccan girl, who really wants to be a writer, but is under pressure from her father to became a teacher, a much safer bet on the job market he seems to think (I disagree with that, but...) Also there is Elodi, a free spirited girl who is in a relationship with another of the regular characters. TV5 is a channel partially set up to promote the French language and way of life, and is useful to watch if like me you are studying French. But the characters in the series speak a little to fast for me to keep up with them, a tad too realistic, or maybe I should improve my French...I dunno...The series is still good, and it's a shame they only made a single season. Anyway.

Aurevoir, bon chance.. Abientot.

I loved this series when it was shown in 2002. Now I'm a college student, I realize how realistic it was about the student life in France. If you had already seen a french campus, you know that most of the "CROUS" dorms are pretty old and ugly (the new ones are impersonal and "cages à lapins"). Besides the set, the dialogues are great because they are not a caricature of young people conversation. Of course, the characters are a little bit "clichés" : Elodie is the feminist, Julie is the naive spoiled girl and Fatia is the studious one. Martial is the greasy hair artist who has many girlfriends whereas Bertrand is neat and nerdy because he is a Maths student... The most interested character is Pierre, the disabled guy in a wheel-chair who does not support the compassion of others for his condition and does everything to be abhorred. And finally, Pierre's brother, Thomas, who feels guilty for everything he can do and not his brother.

The good point with "Age sensible" is that it does not try to imitate the American series like other french crappy series I know. For example, we have an extremely bad french version of CSI, it is so ridiculous that it could be a parody ! I really like American and English TV series but we are not able to made such shows in France, so we must simply make what we are good at : realistic series, historical series... If you are interested in seeing french TV series some are really good : ("Age sensible"), "Engrenages", "Clara Sheller", "Petits meurtres en famille", "Vénus et Apollon"

In fact, "Age sensible" was broad-casted at 5 pm which is the perfect hour for children in primary school but not for a grown-up audience. That could explains why the ratings weren't so good in site of the good reviews. Age sensible has only one season but it gathers 50 episodes (only 28 were shown in 2002 but the channels "TV5" and now "France 4" have broad-casted the other episodes lately).

"Age Sensible" is about life in a student residence. Girls, boys, 17 or 22 year old, they're sharing their everyday life: of course love, friendship, hate, but also their own demons. They're just like us, feel sometimes insecure. After some first episodes a bit too teaching, the series finds a pace and pictures its characters in a very realistic way. The broadcasting had started September 2002 on a French public channel, France 2, which didn't even try to defend it and gave up broadcasting in October. A great mistake as we could at least see a French series with real good actors, a good script and a direction very interesting. Hope it will soon be broadcasted again!