Cambio de Classe

Socratic Dialogue about something

We were in the middle of the Spanish desert, the night was drawing in, and we didn’t have any English TV channels. I had taken to watching Cambio De Clase, a Spanish kids’ show, and I had almost mastered the art of guessing what was happening.

Gabe came in to the front room. He said: ‘You don’t have to watch this just because there is nothing else on.’

I looked up at him. ‘It’s quite good, actually.’

‘But you can’t even understand it!’ Gabe was bemused, but I was about to show him that every TV show has potential; if only you give it a chance.

‘Look, I’ll explain the plot; you just have to understand the characters to get into it,’ even though Gabe said that he was alright thanks, I continued, ‘that’s Max and Bertini. They’re the main comedy duo. Bertini is the loser and Max is the stupid one.’ We watched Max trip over to a cacophony of goofy sound effects; something I felt illustrated my point.

‘The sound effects on this show are off the rails. Every other word has some kind of strange noise that goes with it,’ said Gabe. He had sat down now, so I felt that I had permission to get a bit more technical.

‘The single trumpet sound comes on when there’s a dead pan joke. See, just then the sound came on because Max didn’t understand something. The buzzer sound comes on when there’s a change of tone.’

‘Who’s this kid? He seems like the main character.’

‘That’s the ladies’ man; I’m not sure what his name is. This episode is about him, he’s trying to write a song. They all get their own episodes to keep it fresh and explore the characters.’

‘Why are they fast-forwarding this girl?’ asked Gabe. I wasn’t sure; the show had sped up so that we couldn’t properly hear a monologue one of the girls was delivering. The show cut to a white backdrop, where the girl stood, talking, with ‘bla, bla, bla’ in writing around her head as she talked.

We both considered for a moment, and then I said: ‘I think that’s her thing; that she talks too much.’

‘Is that literally it? That’s not very subtle.’

The episode finished up pretty quickly, and Gabe said that he thought it was terrible. I didn’t agree entirely, I found the characters had grown on me.

‘You’re only convincing yourself that you like it because you can’t make the decision not to watch s**t TV,’ was Gabe’s position.

‘But there’s no real difference between the formula of this show and any big sit-com. They’re all entertaining once you buy into the characters and can predict what they’re gonna do. The only reason that Barney is funny in How I Met Your Mother is because when he’s womanizing about and pulling loads of crazy stunts we can just go, “oh Barney! What are you like?”’

‘Well, I don’t watch How I Met Your Mother so I couldn’t comment.’

Reviews

[SweetNutmeg]

I really enjoyed this. I hate TV and this is a wonderful dissection of the medium. Just like kids shows, adult sit-coms consist mainly of hitting people over the head with obvious inanities and painting caricatures, but the adult sit-coms pretend to be more. I wish I could join our character in deciphering this show; it sounds like a lot more fun than your average TV show.

[Nusquam Esse]

I actually liked this a lot! The way it started 'In medias res' with such a quirky subject. Your characters and their dialogue flowed so smooth, it is quite commendable! I don't watch TV at all, but it seems like this is almost satirical on the matter; which may be why I can appreciate it so. Still, from the little I have seen of Hispanic soap this seems spot on, (and what I have heard, it is the same with How I met your Mother; with dem terrible laugh tracks!) Which makes the last line superb!