Compared with the depression of the original theater line, the British and American dramas that entered the spring file also ushered in the first wave of peak seasons of this year.
Recently, we have also recommended a lot of potential new dramas for everyone, and what I want to do today is a strong old drama that has just returned.
That was the seventh season of the British drama Secret Affair 9, which premiered on BBC television on 20 April.
It is worth mentioning that this drama was also exclusively broadcast on Station B on April 21, Beijing time.
Coupled with a wave of BBC quality documentaries "Green Planet" and "Mediterranean" that just launched this year, how many surprises does Bilibili Infinity Mining Company have that I don't know?!
Speaking of "Secret Matter No. 9", as one of the BBC's longest-lived ace series, it has been broadcast for nearly seven years, and its reputation has rarely maintained a super high standard.
The first season had a 9.0 point start on Douban, and in the fourth season, it reached a high score of 9.4.
Even the slightly less popular fifth season did not fall below the 8-point mark.
For episodes that have more than 10,000 or even more than 100,000 people participating in the rating every season, this result is already very strong.
On Rotten Tomatoes overseas, the average freshness of the six seasons of the series remained at 100%, and the popcorn index representing the audience evaluation was also 97%.
The British NME magazine once commented that "Secret Affair No. 9" has gradually developed into "the most intelligent, moving, challenging, creative and interesting 'comedy' series in the field of contemporary television dramas", and there is no one - which shows that the media and the audience affirm it.
Indeed, compared with the "Sherlock" series of "a generation of disappearances" and the "Black Mirror" series that has long fallen off the altar, the "Secret Affair No. 9" that maintains stable output and high-quality reputation is absolutely "not a loss of shares".
Abandoning the big production and high concept of the first two, "Secret Story 9" has always been small and refined:
The series follows the model of a poetry selection, with only 6 episodes per season, each season is only half an hour long, telling six very different and unrelated short stories.
Most of them are single-scene indoor group plays, like a wonderful stage play, completely relying on fascinating dramatic tension, interlocking details and exquisite and delicate performances, laying a foundation in the highly competitive and rapid iteration of the British and American drama circle.
The inexhaustible creativity and the always unexpected anti-routine are the two trump cards of Secret Story 9.
This is of course thanks to the two creators, who are also the show's resident stars – Steve Pemberton and Reece Sher smith.
The duo, which fans love to call "Fat and Two Volumes", have collaborated on another high-scoring work "Gentleman's League" as early as 1999, and later partnered with the classic British drama "Crazy City".
In 2014, the two reunited and together created the evergreen drama "Secret Affair No. 9".
And this shot, that's eight years. After surviving the "seven-year itch", the return of the seventh season of "Secret Affair 9" means that the creative inspiration of the two ghosts is far from exhausted, and Reese Shelsmith also said that if "Secret Story 9" can be filmed in the ninth season, he "will die without regrets". It seems that the two still have a lot of inventory!
Coming to the seventh season, the series still has a lot of surprises prepared.
For example, in terms of visual presentation, it will be combined with the form of animation for the first time, and split screen screens will also be used, and the premiere episode of this season has also left the room, becoming the first single episode of the whole film to be filmed outdoors.
Another re-idea comes from the cast.
Fans who know "Secret Story 9" know that every season of cass will refresh a wave. Watching a drama in the past was like counting the stars, and you can always find all kinds of familiar faces in British dramas.
Guest guests of this season include "Lucius Malfoy" Jason Isaac, Daisy Hagda, who starred in "Uncle Scrap" and "The Breeder," and two old friends of the writers, Mark Gatis.
The appearance of "McGonagall" can be said to be reasonable and unexpected, as a member of the screenwriters of "League of Gentlemen", he and Steve Pemberton and Rees Sher smith are also old friends.
Later, the two sides fought on a separate line, with McGoard and Steven Moffat working on Sherlock and Dracula, which opened Secret 9.
Steve and Reese have said that they have been avoiding working with old partners in order to give the work more freshness to the audience.
However, this rule was broken for the first time in the third season, and in the episode "The Bill", they invited their old partner Jason Watkins from the "Crazy City" period. The three actors each gave a movie-level performance, and this episode is also one of the most popular classic episodes in the "Secret Story 9" series.
This time, the two partners made an exception again, and the addition of McGoth and the combination of the three can also be regarded as calming down a wave of "difficult peace".
Of course, in addition to the form of expression and cast, the most exciting and core of "Secret Affair 9" is the story of the episode itself.
From the first season to the present, the story of the series has always had a contradictory but charming charm.
On the one hand, it adheres to the traditional and classical form of drama, relies on dense and strong dramatic conflicts to strengthen the plot and emotional tension of the story, and also uses countless foreshadowings and reversals to create successive surprises and surprises.
All the stories of "Secret Affair No. 9" seem to be summed up in a sentence of "never expected", but when you re-look at and recall the previous lines or details, you will find that everything has long been secretly doomed.
For example, "Canned Sardines" carries 12 characters with very different personalities in just 30 minutes, and also outlines a thriller story that is extremely frightening.
Each line of dialogue seems to be small talk, but it contains a huge amount of information like a dragonfly, pointing to the deepest and darkest secrets in each character's heart.
"The Mystery of the Sphinx" tells a story of revenge that is getting more and more crazy and out of control, each character gradually shows the evil side from good to evil, and each twist has long been foreshadowed by a crossword puzzle.
On the other hand, in addition to the traditional drama model inherited from the classical stage play, the series also constantly tries to inject new ideas into the story itself in different narrative forms.
For example, the episode "Quiet Night" depicts a coen brothers-style black humor satire in the form of a three-minute reversal of mime.
The entire episode of "Cold Comfort" is composed of surveillance cameras, which is similar to the general postmodern allegory of "Black Mirror".
The popular episodes "12 Days of Chrissy" and "Moving House", like "Memory Fragments", disrupt the order of time and space, deconstruct the story in a jigsaw puzzle way, so that the whole viewing process is like an immersive interactive game.
In the seventh season of the story, the writers Steve Pemberton and Rees Shelsmith still bring ups and downs to fans from different styles, genres, and content. Interestingly, the story of the new season, in addition to the intriguing details, each episode will contain two stories, one light and one dark.
[The following may contain spoilers, please watch with caution!!! 】
The first episode of Merrily, Merrily is about an old classmate party where three old friends from the same university get together in the wilderness to start a boat party.
What the organizer Lawrence did not expect was that the planned reunion was unexpected, and his friend Darren brought a new girlfriend without prior greeting. Several people were driving a pedal boat halfway to the island in the lake, because the pedals were entangled in the aquatic weeds trapped in the cold center of the lake.
Former friends are strangers to each other because of a long period of disconnection, and successive accidents have also caused them to quarrel, and each other's secrets have also emerged...
In this episode, "Crossing the River" takes on two stories: the nameless river witnesses the resurgence of friendship, and it is like a Styx river connecting the other side of life and death.
When Lawrence left his trapped friend alone and swam to the other end, the "farewell" meaning carried by the party at this time also became a pun.
The story of the second episode, Mr. King, comes to the Countryside of Wales. Mr Curtis from London teaches at a private primary school here. The students seemed to have a crush on Curtis's inaugural Mr. King was obsessed with it and always mentioned the teacher in between the lines.
In the new environment, Mr. Curtis and the students did not get along well. After a series of eccentric experiences, Curtis seems to have discovered the dark secrets of the school, but the situation has long been beyond his control.
An outsider breaks into a mysterious realm with an ancient tradition, the conflict between integration and exclusion, the collision of new and old, wrapped in environmental issues, forming the story line of the second episode, all of which are reminiscent of the horror references in the movies "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "The Innocent".
The dark line under the bright line hides a thrilling story about the elementary school campus.
Of course, the details and metaphors of the first two episodes are far more than this, and more wonderful needs to be found from the series, and I believe that everyone will understand the story in their hearts.
A thousand readers have a thousand Hamlets, and the charm of Secret Story 9 is that each audience can dig out different and unique angles.
What kind of surprises it will bring this time, let's wait and see!
If the seventh season of "Secret Story 9" can't completely fill the gap in daily drama chasing, then while chasing fans, you can also pay attention to several other BBC British dramas that have just been launched on B station.
Among them, including "Newsroom" starring Emily Modimer self-directed, "Cinderella" Lily James, "Mo Niang" Andrew Scott starring in the female theme of the period drama "Chasing Love";
Douban's ghost story version of "Sixsome" with a high score of 9.1 points "Friends of the Ancient House";
And the upcoming suspense detective drama "Patchwork Doll" with a classic detective mode;
Stories of different genres, styles, and content are all worth rubbing your hands and looking forward to!
At the moment of the film famine, only these good dramas can soothe the mood, so that people can open up a small piece of strange and wonderful space in the bustling and disturbed world for people to immerse themselves in.
So what are you waiting for, let's chase the drama together!