Watched via Netflix

Ahem. The TV series that finally made me signed up to Netflix. Resistance is (always) futile.

*with vain attempt of not to hum along to 'Bella Ciao'*

Think one know all that is to the series? Think again.

The documentary that look into how 'La Casa de Papel' originally started out low budget and nearly had a short-lived life on Spanish television...until the arrival of Netflix changed everything.

As someone who was actually named after the current queen's famous late daughter-in-law, there is always something about shows which are royal-related that always draw me in.

(Though spoilers, the 1982 royal wedding between Charles and Lady Diana was the actual reason, as according to my father.)

I was actually only a 7-year-old when this first arrived at our local TV in 1994, one of the very first American TV series that I know of. Subconsciously I have judged every American production that I know of against this ever since.

But Netflix made me finally discover why this has always been worthy of the hype, when I even used had to study the popularity of the series back at university when I did my degree in mass communications.

Says something eh?

Kind of a latecomer to this, only when Netflix has the international rights to the BBC series.

But when even the former football (or soccer to some of you) coach of Arsenal in Unai Emery (who is actually Spanish himself) used to admit during his time at the club that he also watched this, that was for some reason enough to eventually get me on the bandwagon.

By the order of...the Peaky Blinders.

From what started out as Netflix's first foray into Spanish-language programming in Spain, to a historical drama series which originally started out as a group of women with different backgrounds getting to work at Spain's national telephone company as operators in the 1920s and the various challenges each of them face, to how events outside of the company will come to make them look at the world beyond where they work.

Or maybe it is me back when watching this on Netflix, the opening theme song is enough to make me look forward to each episode. But before the eventual happy ever after, there are plenty of obstacles along the way.

The spin-off to Velvet where a few years after the original series ended, the world of Velvet went from the main base in Madrid to Barcelona. But getting it together is not without its hitches, along with old and new faces and a younger generation working at the store. It also exposes the family problems of the wealthy Catalan financier investing into the Barcelona branch, and the unlikely link his wife has to one of the staff at Velvet.

What was happening in Spain at the turn of the previous century, it is also being intertwined with the lives of those living and working at the hotel. But it all started out with someone was looking for his sister working there...until she disappeared without much of a trace.

That was when the mysteries of the hotel began to unravel itself, even if there are also the surprises and lighter moments when even the famed magician Harry Houdini and the young Agatha Christie (when she was still known as Clarissa Miller and a guest to one of the hotel's long-term occupants, and how investigating cases at the hotel with local detectives leading to inspiration for her novel which sounded close to her eventual first novel, 'The Mysterious Affair at Styles') also showed up at different times in the series.

But secrets constantly lurked at every corner, even close to the top of the hotel hierarchy. It is certainly to keep one on the toes to the end.

If time travel is your thing, then hop onboard! But if romance is not up your street, then it is hard to follow this which originally came from the Outlander series of books from Diana Gabaldon, and the TV adaptation to the series has not ended as it stands (May 2020).

Not to be confused with the original Netflix series 'Orange Is The New Black' which was originally being compared to before it was aired on Spanish television, even if that was originally the inspiration for this.

While the original Netflix series is more of a comedy, this is more of a thriller. Though like the original, it also started out as a young accounting assistant being sent to jail for accounting fraud.

As someone who did 20th century history in secondary school (or high school to an extent for some), the last of the Romanov dynasty in Russia (which this is also based on) was what opened the chapter in my history textbook, and so there was actually a lot riding for me as I was watching it, because I did already know what happened in the end to the immediate members of the royal family.

But I also learned a few more things while watching this, of whatever remained of the Romanovs who did escaped.

From the dramatisation of the OJ Simpson trial, to the events leading up to the assassination of Gianni Versace, the real-life cases that used to grip the United States when it broke, and introducing to a new generation of what used to take place.

But that is not all, due to the potential of a new topic for a new series. Until then, watch this space.

Despite whatever one may say about Diego Maradona the football (or soccer) coach as compared to his playing days, his time in the Mexican second division (before now back in Argentina) was also fascinating to follow too.

The Cathedral of the Sea is a real cathedral which still stands today, but the television adaptation of the novel of the same title which inspired it is not in terms of the story of one of those who helped building it.

But it is also an insight into medieval Spain, especially in Catalonia. And how the world was such a different place as compared to now.

Has to be said, the very first comedy series that I watched...which is entirely in Catalan. At least there are the English subtitles to help me get by.

Like 'Bevinguts a la familia' (or 'Welcome to the Family'), this is also in Catalan, with the occasional English. The English dialogue will be able to put into context in the later part of the series.

A documentary film which is unlike any other, especially for a generation of English football fans who remember his time at the England dugout especially during the 1990 World Cup in Italy.

His Barcelona days is also an honourable mention, during a time when even these days an English or British coach abroad is rare.

But what led to only a selected few countries/nations winning the ultimate prize in football (soccer)? Taking into context this was aired in 2018, the national teams featured might had changed for the better (or not) during the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

As in Italy infamously not at that tournament, England had a surprise run all the way to semis which echoed their 1990 World Cup campaign, France winning it again for the second time in their history, Germany as the holders at the time infamously exited at the group stages.

But the stories featured is also like a history class each time, and every country/nation is unique in what made them stand out.

The history of the French national football team, up till 2016 when this was aired.

Is France a footballing nation or not like its immediate neighbours elsewhere, and what united the country when it hosted and won the 1998 World Cup on home soil, and what drove it apart in the intervening years. The history of the French national team that has actually also more often that not been the story of immigration to France from the players that has represented the side over the years, from Raymond Kopa (Poland) to Michel Patini (Italy), Alain Giresse (part-Spanish through his mother), to the class of 1998 in Zinedine Zidane (Algeria), Thierry Henry (French Caribbean), Marcel Desaillly, Lilian Thuram, Patrick Vieira (Africa), and the list does not end there.

The history of the national side which is also being played out in the political backdrop of the day, due to what France as a country has since come to experience beyond the football pitch. For those interested in looking beyond the footballing history of the French national team, it is one to watch of how it fits into the wider French society and psyche as a whole.

Or otherwise known as 'Call Me Francis' on Netflix, it is Pope Francis before he was the pope, witnessing the Argentine military dictatorship to his later years in becoming the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, and how he was supposed to be heading for retirement until he was summoned to the Vatican after the resignation of his eventual predecessor.

It is also the story of the first-ever pope with a Jesuit background as well.