Although Spain has a plethora of its own homegrown shows, a good deal of them are imports from the U.S. and....Germany. I had the pleasure of watching a German show on the day I was sick; I shut it off after ten minutes. Watching sitcoms or dramas from the U.S. is one of the most amusing things ever. Because there's a slight delay in any material arriving from the U.S. they broadcast a lot of shows here in Spain that were cancelled several years ago in the U.S., after having lasted only two or three seasons. Shows like Life and The Pretender are currently airing here, eventhough they were not very succesful in the U.S. and subsequently lasted only a few seasons. What's even more interesting is that unlike in the U.S. where a show like C.S.I: Miami will only air once a week, here it will be shown every weekday at a set time. Thus, series end much sooner here....which is probably why they're importing the dregs of shows like Life and Ghost Whisperer. Much of what I watch is dictated by my host mom, who has a very specific idea of what is and what is not a "tonteria." Shows like Gran Hermano (Big Brother) and Angeles y Demonios (a drama which I'm DYING to watch) don't make the cut. Luckily, she enjoys watching Criminal Minds (Mentes criminales) just like I do...only dubbed in Spanish. It's interesting to listen to the voices Spanish--some shows do a really great job at matching the English speaking actors' voices with the Spanish speakers....and others do not. Criminal Minds' choice of voice actors is actually pretty good; Friends' on the other hand is AWFUL.
The greatest find of my JYA experience, though, is most definitely the gem of a Spanish gameshow called Pasapalabra. Every weekday after class, I live for Pasapalabra; it doesn't matter that I lack a vocabulary expansive enough to even begin to answer the questions, it's just exciting to watch and root for a contestant. The show pits two contestants against one another for a sum of money, at first the two are placed on teams of 3 (including themselves and two "actors" who are not competing for any money themselves) where they play 3 rounds of small, quick games. During these games they accumulate points--the games vary but generally consist of a mix of vocabulary questions and general knowledge questions. When they finish these rounds, the points they have accumulated correlate with a certain number of seconds, which is the amount of time they will have for the final round. In this round the host, Christian, gives a clue for each letter of the alphabet, after each clue the contestant must guess the corresponding word, if they know it and are correct they move onto the next word and so on and so forth. However, if they don't know the word, they say, "pasapalabra" and the other contestant begins their own round with their own set of clues and answers. The two go back and forth until each runs out of time or completes the entire alphabet, or messes up so royally that they have no choice but to end their turn. The last few weeks have been extremely exciting being that one contestant, Carlos, has been on a winning streak...at this point he is competing for 798,000 euros (approx. $1,037,400). Hopefully he keeps on winning! He's like Spain's Ken Jennings!
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| The host of Pasapalabra/Love of My Life: Christian Galvez Montero |
Until next time!
