“Only what is forgotten dies. Save me will be eternal”. With these words began the latest program of a magazine that, whether we like it or not, is not only the greatest exponent of a way of making television, but also the history of Spanish audiovisuals. It’s been fourteen years of screams, love, heartbreak, fiction based on real events, fictional realities, polygraphs, trash TV and, at the same time, the daily creation of an endless, fascinating universe that, in its latest broadcast, has been more of a farewell between friends who have become his own life. In the end, the most interesting thing about ‘Save me’ was always love.
Hashtag then Mari Carmen
The end of ‘Save me’ has not been as epic as it could have been…But it’s not what I needed either. Building the final McGuffin (the bonfire, the anthem) was just an excuse to bring in the various contributors and reporters over the years and give a closure that has felt inevitably lame By missing Jorge Javier Vázquez, the presenter that we like more or less has changed the history of Mediaset forever (and who is not in the mental condition to return).
We have all seen something of what was once the star program of Mediaset, even through memes (That fabulous moment in which an argument becomes the dance of the Chuminero). I would go further: although I have never eaten four or five hours of the program until today, I know how to recognize when there is good television. And in small drops, ‘Save me’ was perfect. That face to face between Chelo García Cortés and Bárbara Rey with their “night of love”? Many writers would like to have written that incredible scene.
However: watching an entire program of ‘Save me’ paying attention is for the brave and the most coffee. And its end was not going to be less, as a kind of summary of what it has meant to fill too many television hours day by day: promises that came to nothing, supposed empty plot twists, moments worthy of an amateur realization and inside jokes. Because if you’ve made it to the 3639 show and haven’t missed a single episode, You’ve spent 606 whole days with these people in your living room: they’re officially your friends. And you have every right to cry when a friend leaves. Just missing.
The wrapper of the absurd
Filling four hours with goodbyes is very difficult, so ‘Save me’ has decided to turn it into a party. It comes out regular: it’s the first funeral-party we’ve ever seen on television, with more tears than laughs and an attitude of “for what’s left in the convent” frankly refreshing at times. This is why Belén Esteban and company have announced in Mediaset that they are going to Netflix without worrying about what they can say from above, they have thrown poisoned darts at the program that replaces them and have saved some for Paz Padillawhich has only been named for mockery.
However, the fillers have been pretty pitiful. Between towns called Pantoja and tweeters who make memes and who went like ‘Mask Singer’, Pipi Estrada waited outside a hospital for the first baby “after the Save Me Era” to be born. When two have been born, they have forgotten to reconnect with him. It’s okay: we all knew from the beginning that it was the mere excuse for to be able to fill a little bit before going to see how a bonfire burned in which they promised to burn all the furniture and in the end it was some pallets, a couple of ribbons and Belén Esteban’s pajamas.
At this stage, it is useless to make ourselves worthy like ‘I know what you did’ and criticize a program that has created and destroyed celebrities at will with an impressive technical quality (five hours of live streaming that never lowered the intensity!), based on its proximity to the audience and that, after seeing his replacement, we may start to miss him very soon. do you know that about “The good known is better than the bad yet to be known”? Well, the case ‘Save me’ comes to underline this saying and put it in our faces. Don’t you want gossip? Great, surely you love Ana Rosa Quintana in the morning and in the afternoon.
Goodbye my friends
It is easy to live locked up in our ivory tower and watch from a supposed cultural elite to those who have enjoyed ‘Save me’ every day of the week for years, even when the format began to limp. And yet it’s hard not to appreciate the artistry with which the show He tightened the strings, created stories, held together a universe that often resisted it., showed exits, entrances, illnesses, loves and heartbreaks: for the first time, the collaborators were also the protagonists. For the first time, fiction was being created with reality.
It’s been a long time since ‘Save me’ ceased to be a simple pink commentary program and It became its own format that, inevitably, has worn out after fourteen years, especially after a pandemic that changed and expanded the audiovisual tastes of millions of Spaniards. ‘Save me’ did not talk about what other people did: He talked about what they themselves did, about the dozens of past and present collaborators. You may like it more or less, but it was more like watching a series than ‘Here’s a tomato’, for example.
Everything comes to an end. And ‘Save me’ has done it with three points, the announcement of his new reality show on Netflixmany tears, the recognition of the technical team, the promise of a rebellion and a hooliganism that has never ended (allied by the responsibility of settling the matter) and, above all, the constant and crushing reminder that this is going to continuewherever and however.
Many of us believed that this moment would be synonymous with a new life for Mediaset. That after ‘Save me’ hundreds of original projects were hiding that could not see the light of day because of the shouting and gossip. That Telecinco was going to benefit, in the long term, from not having them on the payroll. And yet, when it has finally arrived, we have to intone the mea culpa. There is no other option than to miss one of the latest linear television programs that turn the medium into something more than a repository of cloned political debates, soap operas of wholesale weight and projects that could shine with their own light, but to which they lack the budget (and investment) to do so. ‘Save Me’ is the last of its kind. And I wish it didn’t have to go extinct. At least not like this.
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