Princípio, Meio e Fim

The concept is unique, clever and appealing: you get to follow the creative process of 4 well-known portuguese comedians while they try to come up with a short story involving 5 characters having dinner. The comedians have 2 hours to come up with a script (this is condensed into about 30 mins), which you then get to see played out by actors in 15 minutes or so.

The series creator and one of the comedians (Bruno Nogueira) also plays one of the scripted roles, because... well, because it's his show, so he had to be in it, I guess. Nothing wrong with that, just somewhat strange.

A couple of the scripted actors are indeed worth watching, namely Albano Jerónimo and Nuno Lopes.

And that's basically it. I stand by what I said about the concept, but it wears out quickly after a couple of episodes. If this was a theatrical play, different every time it ran, it would be brilliant, and every spectator would want to go back several times to see a different show. As a TV series, I lost interest after the third episode, because they're pretty much always the same .

Principio, Meio e Fim is not an easy one to explain.

But it is definitely special because it tries, very valiantly, to allow writers and creators to share the same level of limelight the actors do on every show.

So here's my best attempt to explain what the show is about, relying also on a free translation from the Portuguese synopsis:

Every week, 5 friends meet up for dinner. What they don't however, is that they are fictional characters and the events of the dinner will be shaped by creativity (or lack therefore) of 4 (comedy) writers.

So we see, on a weekly basis, how writers come up with entertaining scenarios which are (to a degree) confined to a living room and 5 lightly described characters.

The rules are simple - they have 2 hours to write whatever they want, and not a single second more. When the time comes, whatever typo, continuation error or plot hole left must be acted out as is written on the script.

This makes up for a naturally bipolar episode composed of two parts 1) the 4 writers' creative process, as they struggle with the deadline and the coherence of their ideas; and 2) the actors acting out whatever was written in those two hours (which are condensed into c.10mins for the episode) - including every mistake that made it to the page

Both the creative process of writing AND the actors loyalty to what is clearly a far from ideal script (with unnecessary screams, for example) make for a very entertaining watch.

Bruno Nogueira (Último a Sair, Sara) has done a successful show yet again - and this time in particularly innovative fashion.

Brilliant idea for a show!

Each episode have a different story behind based on the plot created initially by different ideas that creators had.

Creators 10/10 Actors 8/10.

I don't like or dislike Bruno Nogueira, sometimes he's funny and makes me laugh, but that's not enough to make him a comediant.

This show is simply not funny, not because it's about things we're not supposed to laugh, but because it doesn't makes us laugh at all. And that's not funny.