Bearing in mind the abrupt stop to the making of new series early 2020 gave rise to, TV channels in certain countries decided they would buy in whole chunks of soaps from elsewhere and see if they might attract a following in that way.
On the audience side, if you're a soap-lover, you are still going to ask how enthralling a show can be in voice-overed version (even as you realise that - in this case - you will be learning a bit of Italian as you go along).
The answer - pretty enthralling, and of course with a cross-cultural twist. For, however hard you may try to avoid that, you will be learning subtle things that separate or unite you with Italian culture with each minute of each episode - and that is something important enough to not dismiss out of hand.
Luckily in a way, there are just 3 seasons and 44 episodes here, so the whole product is doable within a season and it plays well on this basis. It was made between 2012 and 2015 and - irony or ironies - centres around Milan and Bergamo (the same Bergamo that would become the epicentre of Italy's COVID epidemic in 2020). This cannot help but raise the stakes as you watch a fairly pleasing semi-Mediterranean landscape that also features lakes and old town centres and just "Italy" (though certainly its north, as opposed to the Mezzogiorno).
On the other hand, if you're looking for markets and ruins and cypress trees and pizza, or shimmering/baking heat, you won't quite get that, as this is a wealthy (if close) family, with air-conditioned business interests and scandals and somewhat murky moments, as well as the inevitable splits and flirtations, appropriate or not. It's slickish, business-centred (especially around the Rengoni furniture factory), lightly sexy at moments, with Italian volatility also on display; and there are several extremely good-looking cast members (mainly female).
As in a true, traditional Italian family, a great deal of the power remains with the matriarch and patriarch of the Rengonis, i.e. father/grandfather and mother/grandmother Ernesto (Gianni Cavina) and Eleonora (Stefania Sandrelli). These roles offer a great deal, are well-played, and - in art as in life - hold the whole thing together. But truth be told there is not a worthless or out-of-place character anywhere in this series, and nor are there any inconsequential or stupid plotlines. Hence it's worth following, and all the more so because of the many shenanigans but ultimate strength and rehabilitation of oldest son Edoardo (Alessandro Gassman), who also does a pretty good job. Given that his siblings are the religiously-inhibited and well-meaning lawyer Laura, manager of riding rehabilitation centre Raoul, a simply-luscious and rather unpredictably flirtatious Nicoletta, and the youthful and also easily messing-up Stefano; and given that several of these have families of their own, there are plenty of possibilities for interactions, not least around the family dinner-table of a large mansion in which most or all are able to live together. That in itself seems rather Italian (or like Southfork in Dallas, let's say), and that's certainly exotic to a Brit such as myself.
And really quite a lot of fun.
On the audience side, if you're a soap-lover, you are still going to ask how enthralling a show can be in voice-overed version (even as you realise that - in this case - you will be learning a bit of Italian as you go along).
The answer - pretty enthralling, and of course with a cross-cultural twist. For, however hard you may try to avoid that, you will be learning subtle things that separate or unite you with Italian culture with each minute of each episode - and that is something important enough to not dismiss out of hand.
Luckily in a way, there are just 3 seasons and 44 episodes here, so the whole product is doable within a season and it plays well on this basis. It was made between 2012 and 2015 and - irony or ironies - centres around Milan and Bergamo (the same Bergamo that would become the epicentre of Italy's COVID epidemic in 2020). This cannot help but raise the stakes as you watch a fairly pleasing semi-Mediterranean landscape that also features lakes and old town centres and just "Italy" (though certainly its north, as opposed to the Mezzogiorno).
On the other hand, if you're looking for markets and ruins and cypress trees and pizza, or shimmering/baking heat, you won't quite get that, as this is a wealthy (if close) family, with air-conditioned business interests and scandals and somewhat murky moments, as well as the inevitable splits and flirtations, appropriate or not. It's slickish, business-centred (especially around the Rengoni furniture factory), lightly sexy at moments, with Italian volatility also on display; and there are several extremely good-looking cast members (mainly female).
As in a true, traditional Italian family, a great deal of the power remains with the matriarch and patriarch of the Rengonis, i.e. father/grandfather and mother/grandmother Ernesto (Gianni Cavina) and Eleonora (Stefania Sandrelli). These roles offer a great deal, are well-played, and - in art as in life - hold the whole thing together. But truth be told there is not a worthless or out-of-place character anywhere in this series, and nor are there any inconsequential or stupid plotlines. Hence it's worth following, and all the more so because of the many shenanigans but ultimate strength and rehabilitation of oldest son Edoardo (Alessandro Gassman), who also does a pretty good job. Given that his siblings are the religiously-inhibited and well-meaning lawyer Laura, manager of riding rehabilitation centre Raoul, a simply-luscious and rather unpredictably flirtatious Nicoletta, and the youthful and also easily messing-up Stefano; and given that several of these have families of their own, there are plenty of possibilities for interactions, not least around the family dinner-table of a large mansion in which most or all are able to live together. That in itself seems rather Italian (or like Southfork in Dallas, let's say), and that's certainly exotic to a Brit such as myself.
And really quite a lot of fun.
