New Flemish drama puts Brussels in the spotlight

Thirtysomething drama makes the city look glamorous

Flemish commercial TV station VTM is celebrating its 20th anniversary year in style, by going from strength to strength in the ratings. Last year they launched the concept of the TV-novel with Sara, followed into this year by LouisLouise, the story of a man who wakes up as a woman and the adjustments he has to make. There’s another one of those coming along shortly once the present run is done. There’s also a new series of Mijn Restaurant which is pulling in more than 800,000 viewers for its twice-weekly episodes.

And now along comes Jes, a new series set – unusually for home-grown Flemish drama – in Brussels, in the world of thirtysomething singles. It’s billed as a comedy drama and, judging from the first episode, which went out last Wednesday but can still be watched for free on VTM’s iWatch site, it’s a deft balancing act between the two.

Jes (Lotte Heijtenis) lives with her overbearing boyfriend Gert. He gets a job in Shanghai, and the couple get as far as the airport before Jes decides she doesn’t want to go and, we’re led to understand, especially doesn’t want to go with Gert. This introduces one of the main themes of the story that follows: how today’s thirtysomethings still aren’t sure where they want to end up, or how they want to get there.

Jes is taken up by her old friends – and one new one – and they’re as diverse a crowd as any Star Trek landing party. There’s Luc (Koen De Graeve), a cynical slob who still carries a torch for Jes; her older sister Michelle (Kadėr Gürbüz), whose marriage has gone cold even as she’s grown hotter; her gay friend John (Johan Heldenbergh), a taxi driver and serial cruiser; and her new friend Sofia (Pascale Platel), a stranger in town with whom Jes clicks immediately.

The milieu of these people is a familiar one on TV, since it’s about the same age as most TV programme-makers. Jes has been mentioned in the same breath as Friends, which is not accurate: it’s not a laugh-fest of a comedy. It has more in common with something like Cold Feet. Brussels is treated as one of the stars: the city looks familiar and exotic at the same time, and some of the night-shots have it looking almost glamorous.

• The new iWatch website offers TV on demand, not all of it in Dutch. For a couple of euros paid with credit card, home-banking or even SMS, you can watch one episode from a wide range of VTM series, including original versions (in English) of House, Lie to Me and Bones. The VTM news is free, as is the first episode of Jes, which went out last week. Today’s episode will cost €2, as will subsequent episodes. The site has a few teething troubles that need to be sorted out: sometimes the server is overloaded and refuses to respond. And the full-screen option just doesn’t work on my computer running Firefox.

Jes, VTM, Wednesdays at 21.40

www.iwatch.be

Alan Hope

(March 31, 2009)