Humanity’s greatest Achievement: The Dutch ruin everything.

Ugh.

So here we are continuing our journey across the continent that gave us steam engines, the common cold and Eurovision and we find ourselves in my least favourite of all the glorious former empire-makers of the world’s bitter and twisted shells; Holland (The Netherlands, Whatevs. Pick a lane, bitches).

Yes, for a nation famed for its tall citizens, lack of ability to differentiate between throat clearing and an actual language, windmills, wooden shoes, tulips, pot and anti Islamic revelry it oddly enough has about as much creative presence in the world of soap as Amy Winehouse does in coming up with excuses for being back on the crack (Sheila needs to go and become friends with Lindsay ‘I dropped a drink on my leg’ Lohan for a lesson how to maintain a lie despite all evidence being to the contrary.)

Anywaaaaaaay.

Honestly I’m not sure what we were expecting for a country that prides itself on being built on the edge of land they managed to piece together after they bunged up the water ways with used spliff’s and bits of old clog but there you go.

The Dutch’s exact thoughts on soap are this; campy, American inspired shlock with the usual European ‘wild abandon’ attitude towards swearing and whatnot but with far less sex than their Eastern neighbours (boo) but still a tad more advanced and less tryhard in terms of their teen soaps than the Spanish (wee-ho(?)).

Thus Dutch soaps come in two forms: Teeny bopper shite with moral messages and roll-your-eyes at the Brady Brunch do The Hague moments and the more grown up version with the usual bad plots that wouldn’t let them be screened somewhere they respect soaps (The UK) and over the top campy ‘my brother’s back from the dead and now she’s my sister, also she had a baby what got switched at birth with the son of a gangster who is paralysed’ type shite.

Anyway. Let’s get down to business.

Goede Tijden Slechte Tijden:

Y’all remember how I said the Eurozone was big on Australian soaps? Yeah well I weren’t lying. This is the Dutch remake of the soap. It’s nothing like the German remake which went to down the path of ‘grim, hyper realism with IZZUES’ and rather intense acting and humour, intelligence and other such things. This is campy backlighting with zero character development or realism to help you through the rough patches.

It’s set in some place called Meerijk which is your usual soap clichéd hole. i.e. Barmen know your name, there’s a local shop where people know your name (only local corner shops-supermarkets are unknown in soaps and won’t be invented for several more decades), everyone knows your damn name in these places.

It’s also, according to its Wikipedia (I am all about research), the longest running soap in Dutch-land and has been going all the way back the Jurassic age: 1990. Which begs the question of what the fuck the Dutchies were watching before this marvel of modern television dawned on them? Probably an all night paedophilia channel (oh wait, that’s Belgium) or endless game shows involving women in bikinis and zany catchphrases (oh wait that’s Italy. What the fuck is wrong with this continent?). Anyway.

Why I’d buy it a pair of dancing clogs: One word: Lucinda. It’s a little known fact (for reasons soon to become apparent) that the American soap As the World Turns is quite well-known in Holland. In fact it’s one of the few countries that it is shown outside Obamarama land. And thus for some reason they have the amazing Liz Hubbard who plays Lucinda the grand dame of Oakdale, a bajillionaire be-yotch that could kill a slag with a glare at fifty paces and calls everyone darling like she’s a cut price Illinois version of Patsy or something, occasionally guest starring. She plays an aunt of the matriarch of the main family. Or maybe she’s the mother. Or grandmother. I don’t know I was watching a Dutch soap opera how much attention do you expect me to pay?

Anyway sister ho goes round cutting bitches and saying all her lines in English (they don’t even have to subtitle her. People are too scared not to understand) and making this shit they dredged up from the bottom of the sea (I mean prime Dutch farm land) halfway watchable.

Why we should blow up the dykes: Did you not read the rest of the rant? Well if not here’s another reason. Have you ever heard Dutch people having a conversation? Do you know what Dutch for ‘I love you’ is? – No it’s not ‘I’m drunk, let’s shag’ like it is in modern English- its ‘Phlegm, gob, spit, throat clear, sinus clearing nasal spray’. Dutch is the most unattractive language on the planet. If Spanish is like having your ear licked then Dutch is like seeing the waitress spit in your drink before being forced to drink it. Seriously clearing your throat should not be a syllable in any language.

Seriously: sort that shit out. It’s rank.

Why I’d get it drunk and go play on a windmill with it: I wouldn’t. I just wouldn’t.  And to quote Destiny’s child ‘you need to chill out with this mess.’ One way of doing so? Cancel this shit quick – before it ruins soap operas good name.

Spangas:

This show is set in a high school somewhere in the Dutch plain states. It’s a weird nickname derived from the proper name of the school they attend. I’m sure it makes sense to them.

Holy hell. It’s like Degrassi: The Amsterdam years. Except less cool. However this soap that seems to be aimed at the 12-16 age group does get points for something- which it needs because it’s shit otherwise- is that it’s our first soap in continental Europe that has ethnics! Woo!

I know Alles Was Zaehlt and a couple other German soaps have Turkish characters. But seriously: potential EU member states do not count. Spangas, has not one but TWO black characters (who are unrelated and in different age groups as well! Quelle shock!).

However, this show is shloppy shit and also deserves to be whipped, beaten and locked in dungeon (but not gagged. They can’t have all the fun stuff) as it really is like an after school special from the 1970s someone decided to rejuvenate and turn into an ongoing serial.

Y’know that shitty cartoon from the 90s Arthur? It was on TV when I was young. It was set at an American elementary school and followed Arthur and his bunch of ho’s and bros as they dealt with their usual issues of suburban kids (binge drinking, heroin addiction, international terrorism, going on the game to pay for the mother’s abortions-the irony-and homework) except they were all animals. Arthur was an aardvark, his best mate/handjob partner Baxter, was a rabbit. I forget what everyone else was because I hated/loved this show. I preferred Hey Arnold. Hell they day they make a live action version of Hey Arnold set in some Brooklyn public high school with drive-bys and crack heads I. AM. THERE.

Moving on-Arthur was the most obviously moral show I have ever watched. Y’know that great little trend of the most obvious hokey shows having a coded subversive message? Yeah. Arthur didn’t. In fact in one episode (the tipping point) Arthur smacks his bitch of a sister DW around the head. Not even a proper backhand across the room just a polite punch to the face. Anyway, you’d think from the rest of the episode that something of importance had happened-every other character treated Arthur like he’d admitting to pouring booze down the sink and couldn’t believe he’d do such a thing.

Maybe it was because my own brother used to rain down beatings on me like there was no tomorrow and I had some sort of Stockholm Syndrome thing going on, but I laughed hysterically at the thought of someone getting a smack from their sibling as being anything more than the trifling, insignificant shit issue it was. The fact that they dared made all our parents out to be neglectful and unloving just because they wouldn’t stop this (unlike Arthur’s faggy dad and lesbian mom) and made us clean up our blood stains was shit. And for that I hate all TV shows which broadcast the perfect families and show children as having to care about dull shit.

This, as you may have guessed from that sudden and unexpected pouring of bitterness, is kind of what this shit show does. There are politically active students who in one recent plotline decided to storm a chicken coop because the hens didn’t have nice conditions. First of this entire plot sucked because not one teenager should ever have such little access to drugs, porn and booze that they have to resort to this for fun, but secondly, and more importantly I don’t think any teenager ever would. Thirdly, one of the student’s classmates parent’s owned the chicken farm. Yeah so that’s cool and not at all a bitchy, vindictive thing to do. Also, they shave their heads and do other ‘righteous’ stuff. Oh, fuck off and go get pregnant or shoot something.

So yeah. Once you’ve waded through all that read this: This show is insulting and talks down to its audience despite it think it’s being current to teen’s issues. I mean Really? (There are some topical issues discussed but it’s mostly very clean and sanitised problems which come up)

Why I’d present it a bouquet of tulips: black characters are not exactly ten a penny in European TV. So kudos for that. Also there’s a Muslim character who wears a headscarf. OMGZ.

Why I’d run their goddamn bicycles off the road with a hummer: Ugh. Dutch men’s hair? Can we talk about this for a second? What is with that ugly type of blonde hair they all have? It’s very thick and wiry and quite curly. But it always seems to make them look like they have a strange receding hairline, even when they don’t. Maybe it’s the strange mullet-esque style it gets worn in, I don’t know. But I saw a Dutch guy on the tube the other week with this hairstyle and it reminded me one of the main characters on this show (chicken coop boy to be exact) who wears his hair like this. German and Scandinavian men are guilty of this as well but the Dutch are most prevalent. It’s ugly and it’s unsettling.

Why I’d buy it a shot: Oh, no they’re underage and besides alcohol can cause cancer, make you pregnant and lead to a lifetime of selling your arse on the street to pay for your next hit if you even so much as look at it. Motherfuckers.

There are at least two other Dutch soaps I know of. One has been cancelled so I won’t even bother, but the other-well, does it look like I enjoy Dutch TV? Do you think I’m going to go and seek it out? Hell no.

I need a lie down and stiff drink.

Next up: we finish up Europe with a whirlwind tour.