Village drama in Weiteveen, Drenthe. After years of dispute over hidden defects in a home, a 50-year-old man shot and killed a couple in January. The criminal trial started on Wednesday. The suspect admitted guilt, expressed remorse and said, crying, that he had acted on impulse. However, the Public Prosecution Service said it was a pre-planned murder. What is remarkable about the case is that after the act the man posted a Facebook video in which he defended himself in an upset manner. He received many expressions of support for this.
All news bulletins and talk shows paid attention to the trial on Wednesday. It did not do much more than retell the day of the trial and speculate about the man's credibility. But there is no other way that someone somewhere in Hilversum is thinking: there is a series in this.
Strangely enough, not many rural series are made for Dutch TV. Doctor Deen, Doctor Tinus, The black tulip I can list off the top of my head. And longer ago The washing water and Diary of a sheepdog. The fact that there is a need for it is evident from the high viewing figures Sisters (NPO1). With 1.7 million viewers, the series is a big hit for Omroep Max, even bigger than the family series Eyeballs that aired earlier at this time. Also a boost for streaming service NPO Plus, with a million streams in the first week.
Well-made genre piece
Three young women who do not know each other meet at the notary who tells them that they are half-sisters, children of the same father (Huub Stapel). Unfortunately, he just drowned in the manure pit, his daughters inherit his sheep farm. The series follows how the three very different women deal with this sudden turn in their lives, how they initially don't want to know anything about each other but still come together. Furthermore, the posthumous revelation reveals a whole series of village secrets. Sisterhood is not the only unsuspected family bond that is exposed. Meanwhile, the village's wealthy fodder family preys on the family farm.
It looks like a regional novel and it is. A pastoral: the romanticized countryside as a refuge for city dwellers alienated from nature. Because how wonderful it must be to work on the sheep farm with always enough time to drive to the village for a drink and a meaningful conversation. Unfortunately, no one speaks dialect and the place of action is not fixed, as in regional novels. Sisters is a warm series, a well-made genre piece, strongly played, without many surprises, but that is not always necessary. The pace is very slow. (Tip for the impatient city dweller: look online at one and a half or double speed.)
The plot is central. There is a new revelation in almost every scene. But fortunately there is also some room to explore the characters a bit. Rolinde (Joy Delima) is the only daughter who knew her father, she lived with him and wants to continue his farm. The revelation causes her father to fall from his pedestal. Faya (Melody Klaver) is the city career woman: single, flashy, dressed in pink, blue, orange. She has to give the drama some air by, for example, on an impulse saving a bull calf from slaughter, naming the animal Gucci and taking off with it.
The most interesting sister is Nienke (Fockeline Ouwerkerk), a mother from Amersfoort who sees her family life completely turned upside down. The biggest cliffhanger concerns her origins. Because although at the end everyone is sitting happily together around the garden table, enough secrets remain for a second season.
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