User reviews

The best drama series in Greece ever! This is the story of a young company with a great commitment to each other starting from high school times trying to make do through life trials. Elaborate writing from M.Papaekonomou;the plot is up-to-date, accurate and absolutely believable. The characters are strong and credible, fact that is tutoring all the TV script-writers after... Excellent casting from some of the best young actors in Greece,who most of them do their debut in leading roles on the screen. Their performances are separated by the slightest degree. Eventually, these TV series are an unceasing praise of the everlasting values of Friendship and Love.

Of course it is possible when Mirella Papaeconomou writes the script and supervises production. She manages to create a badly crafted, pseudo-intellectual dialogue, which distances the viewer in an instant because of its sheer unbelievability and shallowness. This is usually paired with a slow, painful tempo. And this package is her "expertise" in almost every series she's involved with. I guess it is obvious by now that I try hard to stay away from anything she's ever done, but this series was inflicted on me again as it is repeated ad nauseam on the channel that has its copyright. So I thought I should remind myself why I wanted to stay away in the first place.

I still remember when it was first released (in '96) everybody was saying how late 80s it looked like and how hard it was trying to appeal to the younger audiences, although so obviously written by someone with a superficial contact with the target group. I think sophomoric fits perfectly here as a description. Papaeconomou was trying so hard to mimic what she thought would tick the younger audience boxes, that she didn't bother to check if it really resonates or not. It was already out of date and even if it weren't it was simply badly written.

OK is there anything good?

In general I would say the actors were good. Some kicked off their careers after this, while for some others, although they were pitched as sex symbols, their career didn't really fly. Now unfortunately, they had to utter extremely cringing lines and over-act, but a job is a job so well done for delivering and keeping a straight (or a melodramatic if needed) face with such material.

Then the premise is good and was refreshing. A group of students and their adventures in life is good material, especially in the context that there was no homemade series about students in the Greek mid-nineties and people were longing for a 90210 equivalent. And here's why I'm so annoyed with the quality of the scenario and script, because this could become a landmark due to originality and topicality for a whole generation.

Hands down, the best part of the series is the soundtrack, composed by the great Dimitris Papadimitriou. Although the title music was the most popular song, the real gem is called "To Skaki" ("Chess"), with lyrics from a poem by Manolis Anagnostakis.

Very big moufa. Even for a prisoner this is a torture.