As this '90s set Spanish series opens teenager Sofia goes out with a group of youngsters; while out she swims in the lake and passes out. She wakes up at home with Eva, her older sister; strangely their parents aren't there. Shortly afterwards the Guardia Civil come looking for their parents... it turns out that they seem to be linked to twenty three bodies being found at a disused mine. Investigations show that the dead were part of a cult that believes that this life is a fiction and had hoped to open a gateway to the real reality, which they call 'The Kingdom'. Surviving members of the cult start to take an interest in Sofia believing she may be able to open the gateway.
I rather enjoyed this series; it started well with a good sense of mystery concerning what happened at the mine. Early on it isn't entirely obvious whether, within the context of the series, the cult's beliefs are real or if they are just dangerously deluded. The fact that the mine contains dangerous gases means that some of the strange things we are shown could be the characters' hallucinations. Some of these scenes are nicely disturbing. The location, a fairly small remote town, is good and the nineties setting is good as it means middle aged characters can be affected by events that occurred at the end of the Franco dictatorship in 1975. The cast do a solid job bringing their characters to life and the special effects are really good. If you are bothered by on screen nudity you might not be a fan of this series as there is rather a lot... I can't think I've seen a TV series with more. Overall I'd recommend this to fans of the genre I hope we get another season.
These comments are based on watching the series in Spanish with English subtitles.
