The Science fiction It was never a genre that dealt too much with the Spanish television series. In recent years, yes, we have had more attempts with ‘The Ministry of Time’ as the most outstanding title, but that makes us forget about other highly esteemed proposals such as ‘The Neighbor’ or ‘I’m Alive’.
Now we have another one that is very worthwhile with ‘Blackout’, where instead of aiming for a more costumbrista element, a more realistic approach has been chosen, shining more there than any previous Spanish series. In fact, its only real problem is that despite being based on a podcast released in 2018, it is impossible not to remember ‘The Collapse’ while watching ‘Blackout’. And the Movistar+ series loses out to French fiction.
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No interest blackouts
Divided into 5 standalone episodes, ‘Blackout’ offers a varied vision of what it means to face a catastrophe without us being really prepared for something like that. Neither because of the resources within our reach, where our tendency to waste everything soon comes to light, nor because of our own way of dealing with it.
Without wanting to detract from the rest, I think that the first episode of ‘Blackout’ is the best of the entire series, as it offers a brilliant and tension-filled approach to how the authorities deal with a possible collapse of our society. Its virtues are endless, from how the script of Elizabeth Pena to the tremendous staging work of Rodrigo Sorogoyen to get fully into the room where something could really be done to do something about what is coming.
Then the load of tension decreases in the rest of the chapters, being perhaps the second where ‘Blackout’ is less satisfactory, with the particularity that it is also the one that most brings to mind one of the most incontestable chapters of ‘The Collapse’. It’s not badly resolved and poses stimulating moral dilemmas, but it ends up lacking a bit of punch, probably because it’s also the one who would have been better served by a tighter duration. That way it loses drama when it is precisely the episode that most openly bets on it.
Furthermore, it is also then that there is a tendency for each chapter has a more or less clear moral. It is not that they go over the line and underline it through unnecessary dialogues, but the intentions behind each one of them go a little far, from the most critical towards the possibility of playing with a concept similar to that of “we’ll come out better” that so much was commented during the hardest moments of the pandemic and how false it has ended up being.
That said, one of the main strengths of ‘Blackout’ is its immersive power, counting on a great technical deployment for us to create that decomposing society and also the different personalities of its protagonists. This is helped by a good selection of a cast dedicated to their characters, especially highlighting the fourth episode at this point, since the dynamic that arises between Jesus Carroza and Naira Lleo It is decisive to elevate the base material, where the doubt arises as to what extent it is foreseeable or we are simply clear that something like this is inevitable.
In addition, ‘Blackout’ doesn’t have any problems either. skilfully jump from one genre to another while never forgetting your enclave within this dystopian world. That is perhaps where it is most noticeable that behind each episode there is a different director, each one contributing a unique vision. Then there will be viewers who connect more with one approach than with another, but when it shines, it does so with great intensity and when it is not so inspired, it continues to more than compensate for its viewing.
In short
The end result of ‘Blackout’ is far from perfect, but the baggage is at least remarkable, to the point of even wanting there to be an additional episode to explore other possible problems. However, it is always better to fall short and leave wanting more than to go over the line and arrive exhausted at the end.