Morangos com Açúcar

That is all true. I agree that the series is most of the times too sugary and simple and yes, there is not too much place for real acting. You have to remember, however, that the show is being created for teenagers and not for refined connoisseurs of the ambitious cinema. The concept is to have a catchy pastime that will brighten up people's lives. It shows colourful and fine lives of young people striking with idealization but also does not avoid teaching what is right and wrong to do. Emotions, of course, play the leading role and the spectator is given a feeling of amusement, though empty, still enjoyable. In my opinion the idea of Morangos Com Acucar is a really successful one because it gives a fresh setting to classical soap operas that became trite long ago. The "factory" of actors and musicians also does not have to be reprehensible. After all not everyone gets the first role in a blockbuster and here many beginners are at least given a chance. I am not a teenager but I enjoyed watching the series and I am sure, not only being influenced by the popularity of the show in Portugal, that many people do as well.

I used to watch this show back when I was quite younger, I was eleven years old when it started and when it finished I was already twenty years old, but in any case, the only season I remember watching pretty much from its entirety until its end was the third season, the one with Tiago and Matilde, the Popstars and all that, and, realistically speaking, it's the only one that it's really worth watching from the beginning to the end. Sure it may be highly formulaic, some of the acting from some of its actors might not be the best and some of the stories there, the best one for me was the Tordocai virus which was so influential that it actually caused a mass hysteria moment in some schools in Portugal, might be highly bizarre but you can't help but enjoy that specific season of the show. Other than that one the show in general is highly formulaic, the main stories in general are quite basic and, for the most part, this show hasn't managed to age that much well.

In general, I give this show a 3/10 because the third season was good enough to raise the show's quality but other than that specific season the show never really showed much signs of evolution and it has been quite a stale show since then, I mean, seasons one, two and seven also had their moments but still quite far from the peak of this show which was and will always be season three.

As for the new show, I've seen some of the trailers for it and I definitely have zero interest in watching it, I think it might work when it comes to the first episode but after that it's going to be a massive flop because it's trying too hard to appeal to both "new" and "old" viewers and it's going to be a complete mess, in my very honest opinion.

There is little talent nowadays on the Portuguese TV industry, I believe, and this show is another proof of it, from the news shows that last 2 hours to soap operas and soap operas in a row to this kind of teenager soap operas you can't really watch public television in Portugal and hope to not drop some IQ points in the process. Once now and then there are some movies and documentaries and that's about it as far as quality goes around here. This show in an attempt to imitate Brazilian teen soap operas that were popular a little before the show started, the acting is terrible, the plot is terrible, or random, it would be watchable if the actors, conscious of how bad the show is, turned it a little more satiric and fun, but alas, no - they genuinely try to make it as terrible as it is. I watched the first season, sporadically, it was launched on Summer vacation and by that time I was stuck with nothing to do but read and watch TV, needless to say I finished some giant books before being forced to poison myself with those strawberries. After I don't know how many seasons it hasn't changed much, they try to approach a new general topic such as abortion or homosexuality or racism now and then but overall the show puts up a very poor attempt. I do believe there is some talent in this industry, it's not employed by SIC or TVI though, that's for sure

"Morangos Com Açucar" only functions with cliché lines and cliché situations. Season after season, the storyline remains the same only with new actors, replacing the previous ones with identical characters.

The basic plot suits the basic actors and the even more basic audience.

Every ten minutes, some political/social message is said without having a direct relation to the situation. Two characters may be having a discussion and out of thin air, the subject of recycling is brought up. Once there was a dialog between a main character and an extra, solely for the purpose of indicating to the young audience that smoking is harmful to our health.

The editing is beyond any doubts, the worst I've seen. Part of the problem is the fact that certain scenes were written and shot without the writer and director applying something called "logic". I've seen a boat chase in which they've actually shot the scene alternating between a static and a moving boat.

Another poor thing which is a result of a poor script and editing, is the fact that characters speak in a specific order, without overlaying the others:

A - "Did you know that he stole the money?"

B - "Really?"

C - "Is that so?"

D - "This is bad..."

E - "Are you serious?"

F - "That can't be..."

And every time a character speaks, there's a close up paired with an annoying post production sound. How annoying...

In four seasons, there is only one good thing I've seen in this show: at some point we could relate to the female antagonists and protagonists.

Morangos com Açucar was a Portuguese series for teenagers and childreen that gave from Monday to Friday in the evenings on TVI. This series followed a group of teenagers and their love, school, or parenting problems. In each season there was always the season of school grade that passed during the school year and the summer vacation series, which gave during the summer.

This series marked my childhood and adolescence, I saw from season 2 to 8, that is, from my 8 to 15 and always thought it was fantastic and best series ever. Now almost 10 years after it was over, as I watched the replays that go on at Panda Biggs (it's now the 6th summer season), my opinion couldn't be more different and completely contrary to what it was when I was little.

The series is very cringe and most of the young actors didn't know how to perform, it all seemed very forced and unnatural (although here I even give them a discount because it was the first experience of many in the performance and some of them later succeeded in the world of representation). Everyone was very melodramatic and thought she was the owner of the breed, especially with her parents, because they are all poor things and they have the worst parents. At that time I thought it was an injustice for parents not to let them out or something, now I feel like giving a couple of pops to the annoying kids, who deep down are too much spoiled.

This series marked a generation, that is true, but it was certainly made for the younger layers because now as an adult I see how the series was not good, not even at close range.