Dates with people whose partner has just left them, who have a large age difference or which means 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 returns to TV3 tomorrow, with a double episode, and that Tuesday 13 will arrive in its entirety, with six episodes, on the Amazon Prime Video platform.
Based on the British series Dates, Cites was one of the successes of TV3 with two seasons broadcast in 2015 and 2016. Prime Video incorporated it into its catalog and in view of the reception proposed a continuation to Pau Freixas, creator, director and one of its screenwriters. After reaching an agreement with TV3 and Filmax, this project was born "which on the one hand is the heir to TV3's Cites and on the other is a new series for Prime Video; hence the name Cites Barcelona, which marks a sense of continuity and at the 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 the fact that dating through internet apps used to be an almost taboo subject that was hidden and, instead, now who looking for a partner or sexual stories, he 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", comments Freixas, who confesses that he also really enjoyed it, "as a creator and as viewer, to recover a feel good like this coming from a pandemic and with a war in Ukraine".
In Cites the city of Barcelona was another protagonist. In the new episodes it continues to be so and perhaps in an even more postcard way that Freixas attributes to the use of drones and his aerial plans. "Cites Barcelona shows a prettier but also more multifaceted city," he says. "There is a common light but each appointment has its own personality. Because there are as many cities as people and, within the idealization of love and the city, because the series is still a romantic comedy with nuances; it seemed nice to us to set the stories in places as classic as the Casa Almirall del Raval bar or as luxurious spaces as the W hotel”.
Cites Barcelona plays with the expectations created by the viewer "in order to then make plot twists, not caused by major events, but because as you get to know the characters you reinterpret what you're seeing", says the creator also of Polseres vermelles. Take as an example the story in which Carmen Machi and Gonzalo de Castro bring to life two characters who thought they would never date again and who, when they do, discover that they are looking for very different things.
The new series also has some attractions beyond the stories, such as reuniting Machi and Castro, longtime companions in 7 vidas. "Despite making two characters that have nothing to do with them, we take advantage of the chemistry that still exists between the two", says Freixas. Another point of nostalgia is the reunion of Eva Santolaria and Antonio Hortelano, who formed the legendary couple of Quimi and Valle in Compañeros. "We wanted to make a nostalgic story of two characters who had kissed as young people and who meet years later and talk about what would have happened if they had continued together." That the story was interpreted by these two actors had an added sentimental value for part of the audience.
Clàudia, the character of Santolaria, is one of the few who recover from the original Cites. The others are Paula and Sofia, who play Laia Costa and Nausicaa Bonnín. “These two characters stole our hearts and we thought it would be nice to bring them back eight years later to see that they are now other people, just like us. In addition, it was a link between this new series and the first two seasons and we enjoyed it a lot", he concludes.
