What are your impressions of the berlin spinoff new characters?
Thx for asking & mainly for giving me the chance to rant, I have a lot to say about this topic.
Sit back, this is gonna be a long ride.
I'll be honest, first impression was "lol, they're joking"
Second, I was quite annoyed.
Third, I am genuinely angry.
And I'm not even talking about Berlermo here, of course it's a bold move ignoring Martín in the spinoff, because, you know, timeline???
And don't get me started with Sergio, because I'm almost sure it will be a tough challenge to pretend that Andrés is an only child...
And while Pedro Alonso is a great actor and I'm 100% sure he'll fulfill his role at best, they're basically asking us to ignore that he's a man in his 50s playing a character in his 30s. Just because.
Also, they keep telling that "they want the show to have its own identity"; but that makes no sense, neither promotionally nor narratively. A spin-off works as soon as it has a link with the main show, there's plenty of examples around, eg. Better Call Saul. None of us would've watched without the promise that one day it would've crossed Breaking Bad's path. And I really don't get this urgency to move away from the original show: Berlin is a character from LCDP. Ignoring that LCDP ever happened will:
1) Keep away casual viewers
2) Disappoint shippers, fans and the whole fandom.
But, aside from that, let's get back to the real matter here: the new characters look like cartoons.
And I don't mean good cartoons, like those we used to watch as kids. I'm talking about, meaningless, silly, stereotypical, poorly made cartoons.
Now, I may not be Alex Pina, bit that sounds a little bit off from the mood here?! When the hell did Andrés become a comic figure being friend with a bunch of other caricatures?
If they wanted to make something with "feel-good" vibes, they could've pick any other LCDP character (Nairobi laundering money, Denver illegally fighting, Bogotà inseminating random women all around the world), literally anyone...
But no. They've chosen the terminally ill misogynistic dude dying by suicide in a tunnel.
Don't know what you think, but that doesn't sound very "comical" to me.
Berlin is a dramatic character. And although he has his good dose of irony, humor, sarcasm, paradoxes, he doesn't fit in an anime-style cartoonish kids show, because it flattens him as a character.
So, I don't what they're trying to do here, but it would be like taking Alicia's story with German's cancer and turning it into a rom-com, only without German, who's now replaced by a random dude who never had cancer in first place.
Not even telenovela style. Just cartoon.
Last but not least, and I'm pretty sure this is something that most of us noticed, they tried to give Andrés a whole new gang... Which is basically a bad copy of the original one.
There's a Denver, there's a Rio, there's a Tokyo, there's even a weird version of female Martin and, best of all, a "lifetime friend" dressing up like a fake Professor.
How are we supposed not to compare these action figures to the characters we know and love? The worst part is that they all look like Rafael, mere blueprints of characters, never mentioned before and, most likely, human plot devices subservient to a retcon.
And to attract what kind of an audience, exactly? I've never seen an Andrés fan who was not fond of Berlermo. Not. A. Single. One.
But during last days, I've seen a lot of people being very disappointed by how OOC their favourite character is going.
The only chance for the spin-off to be renewed and become something good, maybe even overcoming the original, was giving to Berlin's character some kind of depth.
Exploring his relationship with his brother, his years with Martin, what his family background is, why his homosexuality denial, why did he became a sexual predator, and maybe leaving some space for characters who maybe have still something to say, like Marsella & Bogota.
They've chosen not to. They've preferred to take a good, deep, captivating character and make a parody out of him.
I know it's too early to say. I know that they said "we can't announce members from the old gang cause it would be spoiler". I know that probably it's a little better than it seems.
But even if Martin shows up, what kind of show is this gonna be?
Don't know what to think, but the premises aren't that good.
So here's my 2(000) cents about this.
