Dates with people who have just been left by the couple, who have a great age difference or who suppose a nostalgic reunion after years without seeing each other are some of the stories that will be told in Cites Barcelona, the new installment of the series that this Monday the 12th returns to TV3, with an exclusive premiere of the first two episodes, and on Tuesday the 13th it will arrive complete, with six episodes, on the Amazon Prime Video platform.
Based on the British series Dates, Cites was one of the great successes of TV3 with two seasons broadcast in 2015 and 2016. Prime Video added it to its catalog and, given its acceptance, proposed a continuation to Pau Freixas, creator, director and one of the writers of the fiction. After reaching an agreement with TV3 and Filmax, this project was born which "on the one hand is heir to TV3's Cites and on the other a new series for Prime Video; hence the name Citas Barcelona, which marks a sense of continuity and at the same time same time a certain evolution', explains Freixas.
Eight years after closing the first stage of the series, the big difference in the new stories "is that before, dating through internet apps was an almost taboo subject that was tried to be hidden, and instead now who is looking for a couple or sexual stories uses it a lot to the point that most of them already have a routine and in five minutes they know how it will go for them", comments Freixas, who confesses that he also wanted a lot "both as a creator and as a spectator to recover a feel good like this coming from a pandemic and having a war in Ukraine.”
In Cites the city of Barcelona was one more protagonist. In the new episodes she continues to be and perhaps in an even more postal way that Freixas attributes to the use of drones and his aerial shots. “Cites Barcelona shows a more beautiful city but also more polyhedral”, he affirms.
“There is a common light but each date has its personality because there are as many cities as there are people and within the idealization of love and the city, because the series is still a romantic comedy with nuances, we thought it was nice to set the stories from places as classic as the Casa Almirall bar in Raval to spaces as luxurious as the W hotel”, he continues.
Cites Barcelona plays with the expectations created by the spectator-voyeur "to later make twists in the script not caused by major events but because as you get to know the characters you reinterpret what you are seeing", says the creator of Polseres vermelles, I know who You are, Benvinguts to the family and Everyone lies. He gives as an example the story where Carmen Machi and Gonzalo de Castro give life to two characters who thought they would never date again and when they do, they soon discover that they are looking for very different things.
The new series also offers other attractions beyond the stories, such as bringing together Machi and Castro, companions for years in the popular 7 lives. "Despite playing two characters that have nothing to do with those, we take advantage of the chemistry that still exists between them," Freixas points out. Another point of nostalgia is the reunion of Eva Santolaria and Antonio Hortelano, who formed the mythical couple of Quimi and Valle in Compañeros.
“We wanted to make a nostalgic story about two characters who had kissed when they were young and who years later meet again and talk about what would have happened if they had stayed together,” he details. That the story was performed by these two actors had an added sentimental value for a part of the audience.
Clàudia, the character played by Santolaria, is one of the few to be recovered from the original Cites. The others are Paula and Sofía, played by Laia Costa and Nausicaa Bonnín. “These two characters had our hearts stolen from us and we thought it would be nice to recover them eight years later to see that now other people dream, like us too. In addition, it was a link of this new series with the first two seasons and it made us enjoy it a lot, ”she concludes.
