7 vidas

Hey, I know by far that Spain produces the best comedy series ever, perhaps even better than any American. I can't say the same of other kind of series, but we are GREAT at comedies. For example: "Aquí no hay quien viva", "Los Serrano", "Aída", "7 Vidas", "Médico de Familia", "Todos los hombres sois iguales", etc, etc, etc... Yeah, we might not be the best making movies, or making mystery series, but we are good with the comedy series. 7 Vidas? A very good example. And, it's not like Friends at all. It's just some kind of humor that makes it singular. The main theme it's not very much. There is a guy who had an accident and was in coma for 18 years. Then his sister, his best friend, his best friend's mother and his cousin try to get him into the world again. The most important thing of 7 Vidas are it's jokes and it's stupid stories, the singularity of the characters that make you laugh. The actors are so good, too. Javier Camera is a genius, Amparo Baró does it pretty well and Anabel Alonso (I gotta say, my favourite) is a great comedian. If you haven't see it yet, you have to see it.

Very similar to FRIENDS, where Paz Vega acts like Jennifer Aniston, Blanca Portillo like Courteney Cox, Toni Cantó like David Schwimmer, Javier Cámara like Matthew Perry. There is also Amparo Baró, who is a mix between Phoebe's nonsenses and Joey's arguing with Chandler. Funny, but the cast is not as great as in FRIENDS.

It has been almost five years since "7 vidas" started running on Telecinco. Yeah, it's true that this series has suffered lots of casting and storyline changes, but this only have confirmed that this is a great show, 'cause it´s getting more and more popular, and has attracted many famous people as guest stars. The scripts are very original, truly hilarious; and the actors do a great work, specially Amparo Baró as Sole and Anabel Alonso as Diana. It's got to be mentioned its particular kind of humor, combining perfectly local spanish humour and universal jokes.

The show clearly started as a vile 'Friends' copy, whoever denies this should pay more attention, some plots and scenes weren't changed at all. But the 'Friends's stage only lasted a couple of years, the post-coma plot disappeared and the series became a standard comedic show. Once there it became repetitive and bland. The kind of humour in this show was formulaic and predictable, just awful. A short conversation always preceded the punchline read by an angry character to the 'dumb' one followed by the canned laughter. Later, they included political jokes, giving a 'political' dimension to some characters, this was, in my view, a mistake.

The cast significantly changed throughout the years, and not for the better. I deeply respect Javier Camera and Amparo Baró's performances but I can't say the same about the rest of the cast. People like Eva Santolaria, Guillermo Toledo or Santi Millán should be kept miles away from a camera.

The success of the show can only be explained with the lack of competition and the abyssal level of Spanish TV.

Maybe, "7 vidas" seems "Friends" at the beginning; but, actually, it isn't. "7 vidas" is one of the better TV series that have been made in Spain (also, in Europe) in all the times' TV history. Shining, delightful, and with a screenplay simply marvelous, the actors' and actress' job do the rest. Highly recommendable, a certain demonstration that here, in Spain, we can do "hi-fi TV" with all the guarantees...