A couple of actors are really good in their roles in just the right balance between caricature and naturalism. Namely Rodrigo Tomas. Others, like Afonso Pimentel, are over-the-top and right down unbelievable, playing characters that behave as randomly as being catholic in one scene and muslim in the next. But the worst part is that some of the options taken by the directors are simply in poor taste: the cringe voice-over by Pepe Rapazote, the extended disco scenes, the exhausting drone shots, the fact that no-one so poor would look as fit and groomed as Jose Condessa or Helena Caldeira, the fact that almost nobody in the cast has the unmistakable accent of that particular island. In fact they mostly speak in a very metropolitan central-Portuguese accent. Moreover, the difference in quality between the episodes directed by Augusto Fraga and the ones directed by Patricia Sequeira is ENORMOUS, with her episodes very often lacking in ideas, structure (her cutting is absolutely random whereas Fraga's is almost cinematic), or rhythm. It doesn't help that she also gets the least eventful episodes, but still, what she chooses the do with them seems devoid of purpose and often borderlines the telenovela.
