September Sunday Corner With Lee Liberman: HBO’s PERRY MASON

Raymond Burr’s burly, dignified Perry Mason, (on TV: 1957-66, 80-90’s), is a far cry from Matthew Rhys’ (The Americans) down-‘n-out, hang-dog version, set in 1930 noirish LA (that ‘has disgraced itself as a Gomorrah where truth is bought and sold like the head of...a-rutabaga’--per E.B. Jonathan, Perry’s mentor). This was written as a prequel to the Mason of courtroom lawyer Erle Stanley Gardner’s over 80 Perry Mason novels penned 1933 on. Oddly it offers a thankless distortion, a morose and self-defeating private investigator Perry. Other changes worked. Instead of a case per episode, the entire series is about a baby’s kidnap and murder (plus some delicious side-shows).The dirty cops and officials that look the other way are pitted against a 99%’er, the baby’s mother, charged with the murder. Below, little Charlie Dodson’s eyes are sewn open to persuade his parents that their baby is fine before they let go their suitcase of $100k.

This new Mason reminded me for a second of Lt. Columbo, police detective, who trademarked a rumpled coat, run-down roadster, and the phrase ‘just one more thing’ off and on from 1968-2003 (now on Peacock and Amazon Prime), pestering his suspect (a narcissistic biz mogul, movie star, etc.), a 1%-er, living in what my mother would call a Bronx Renaissance or Hollywood Baroque style penthouse/mansion — with annoying questions until the frumpy detective could pounce — no police-forcing needed. Wily Columbo (below) with that smart brain was more in keeping with the old Perry Mason. 

No — the 2020 version of pre-courtroom maestro Mason lacks Columbo’s kindliness and in fact can’t get out of his own way, needs therapy for his PTSD. Haunted by the trenches of WWI, he’s losing his family dairy farm, now a shabby house and two scrawny cows surrounded by a small airfield. He shops for neckties at the city morgue (like Columbo, his own is stained with tomato — or is it mustard?), where the coroner says he’s got a stabbing victim with a three-piece suit if that would suit. 

Although fans of Raymond Burr's Mason are taunted by this new back-story, other pointed departures from the old show work better. Hamilton Berger, his former courtroom opposition, is now a (gay) colleague/advisor to Perry as he argues his first case; Berger insists that criminals never confess on the stand—oh no —confessions were signature moments in the old tv series. Paul Drake (Chris Chalk) is not a PI but a young black policeman, a good person, trying to do an honest job while being manipulated by crooked white cops who have seniority he can’t aspire to: an excellent 2020 update. (Below, the past -- William Hopper, left -- and present Paul Drake). 

In a further inversion of the gay facts, actor Raymond Burr was in the closet, while 2020 Mason’s secretary, Della Street, (Juliet Rylance, daughter of Mark), is a gay woman whose girlfriend is around and about. And class-act Della is a quietly determined example of a woman forging ahead in a man’s world — marvelous. 

Altogether this mystery series is fun, its satire and irony stirring the pot of 2020’s inequality mess. Check out Perry’s PI sidekick Strickland (Shea Whigham), master of worthy asides (below). 

Sister Alice (Tatiana Maslany) charms as the guiding angel of the Radiant Assembly of God even if you hate the holy roller thing. She and her devoted, abusive mother, Birdy (Lili Taylor), earnestly stage their own flamboyant sideshows while board members rob church coffers. (Below Sister Alice, left, with the period’s real radio evangelist, Aimee Semple McPherson.) 

Perry’s mentor, EB Jonathan, John Lithgow, is irresistable no matter what he does (below). And Stephen Root is the perfect, sneering, leering district attorney.  

But I remain stumped at the anti-heroic Perry drawn for this reboot. Creators thumbed their noses at (now old-to-very old) TV Mason fans, rather than building a character that plausibly merges new and old. True it’s is a harder problem to solve — requiring less egoism, less exploitation of a durable icon and its fans.

Perry is already on the road to civility by the time he begins to lawyer the case late in the series, but the enterprise is off-key because of this unlikely origin story for sharp-witted Mason.

   

It’s not a bad story, it’s just a different character’s story. Rhys, a lovely Welsh actor, makes you care about the dour, blank-eyed, slovenly fellow who shouts at people, but he belongs in a series not called Perry Mason. On the plus side, it’s a splendid, artistic production, with similarities to the graphic Boardwalk Empire of HBO rather than the Perry Mason template for Law & Order and many current legal procedurals. Here is on offer every inch of 1930’s LA topsy-turvied by the depression and the evolution of silent film into talking pictures. 

Below is the ‘Angel’s Flight’ cable car ride where the crooks display the Dodson baby through the windows. (Angel’s Flight also appeared in a 1966 episode of the old Perry Mason.)

LA is a star here, a glowy, steamy mecca — 30’s crowds of fedora-topped gentlemen cascading down courthouse steps, boxy grumbling autos, ecstatic swooning parishioners, dusty roads, mountains, and a mournful trumpet — fitting replacement for a jangly series theme. What both Perry’s have in common is a desire to see more justice in the world, to do the right thing, i.e.: where bad cops are punished by the legal system rather than knocked off by each other. The series, overall a fine ride, especially the tension-filled second half, has been renewed. Next time, please, integrate more confident Perry into the whole to put hang-dog Perry in the rear-view mirror.

Our May Sunday Corner With Lee Liberman -- THE ASSASSINATION OF GIANNI VERSACE: American Crime Story

This 9-part FX series (which follows the celebrity of The People vs OJ Simpson of 2/2016) has considerable depth despite initially not comparing favorably with the starry OJ saga, the first in the American Crime Story series produced by Brad Simpson and executive produced by Ryan Murphy, both of whom helmed Glee. It ended up winning an Emmy for best limited series, beating Picasso, Patrick Melrose, and Godless (my favorite) among others. Now on Netflix (the OJ story is too), the Versace case probes issues that merit attention: the role of ‘nurture’ in causing mental illness and the comparatively secretive (except in major cities) gay world of the 1990’s.

Versace, at the height of his fame, was murdered on July 15, 1997, age 50, at the door of his palatial South Beach, FL, villa by Andrew Cunanan, then 27 (Darren Criss, below), who killed himself 8 days later to prevent being taken by police.

The malignant narcissism of this young killer screams for notice in 2019, his mental disorder being flagrant in the person of Donald Trump, whose own version of compulsive lying, self-aggrandizing, and denial of reality is as toxic and and likely more murderous (if not one-on-one with a gun) than Cunanan’s. (Below, Darren Criss, l, Andrew Cunanan high school photo, r.)

The series title deceives in that The Assassination of Gianni Versace is not a biopic of the designer; it is Andrew Cunanan’s story ending in five murders during a several-month killing spree. Screenwriter Tom Rob Smith (London Spy) used journalist Maureen Orth’s 1999 book, Vulgar Favors, about Cunanan, as a source. Smith, however, used the life and career of Versace to contrast the youth of the two men, providing the viewer with a thought-provoking scenario that works harder than just the seedy tale of a narcissistic desperado. The screen story makes the implicit case here for ‘nurture’ or ‘environment’ as a main ingredient in the failure of one life versus the success of another.

Here were Versace (Edgar Ramirez, immediately above) and Cunanan (behind him), two gay men with wildly different trajectories, both having had to accommodate before homosexuality gained the degree of equality and acceptance that exists today. Versace was helped through youthful bullying by his dress-maker mother who affirmed his talents, supported, and taught him the value of hard work. As an adult we meet him in a committed relationship, and although HIV positive from the random-sex the partners engaged in with others, Versace was nevertheless imbued with the joy of his own creative process and enormous success. (Below, left, Ricky Martin, playing Antonio D’Amico, shown at right, Versace’s partner for 11 years).

In contrast, Andrew, with a genius IQ, the most promising of his siblings, was adulated and spoiled beyond common sense by his parents; they filled him with outlandish dreams of his own perfection until he became unable to tolerate rejection or failure — he was an exhibitionist and prolific liar by his teens (below, Cunanan, r., Criss, l). In the last year of his life he began to lose it — the world was not adoring him, the man he loved was afraid of him, and others saw through his lies. “Andrew was beaten by things other people overcame” said Smith —“it became a very interesting counterpoint” portrayed on screen with contrasting views of their childhoods.

Born to an unhappily married Filipino father (Jon Jon Briones) and pious Italian-American mother (Joanna Adler), it was Andrew, the youngest of four, awarded the master-bedroom of the family home in San Diego, sent to an exclusive private high school, and indulged with a sports car.

His father, Modesto, was a fabulist, seeing in Andrew the genius he attributed to himself, the child who would bring him glory. He succeeded as a stock-broker until he failed, having robbed clients and avoided arrest by fleeing to Manila, abandoning wife and children and leaving them destitute. Andrew’s disastrous visit to Modesto must have been a turning point in dealing with life-as-it-is. Seeing his father’s degraded circumstance in Manila (below) in contrast to the pretense of success in the states, worsened Andrew’s downward spiral in an already peripatetic life; he grew needier, more manipulative, and directionless. Obsessed with fame, he supported himself as a prostitute/drug dealer in which he courted older gay men who bought him the appearance of wealth he craved, the success Modesto falsely role-modeled.

If there are diagnoses for Modesto or his wife’s mental status in some doctor’s file, they do not figure in this telling; Andrew’s parents are shown having raised a pampered prince, unfit for life’s vagaries. And as he reckoned with the contradiction between his sense of entitlement and the cards life was dealing, he began to murder.

First was his friend, Jeffrey Trail (Finn Wittrock), a former U.S. naval officer, who was in recovery from the difficulties of being a gay officer in the service, the episode offering a deeply embarrassing look at don’t-ask-don’t-tell exigencies in the navy. Andrew’s former lover, architect David Madson, was next (below, Cody Fern). Madson was then achieving success as an architect and rejecting Andrew, but still easily manipulated by him. Madson was free to run but imprisoned in a no-escape Stockholm syndrome.

Then 72-year-old Lee Miglin (Mike Farrell), a Chicago property developer who paid Andrew for sex, was stabbed and throat slit after which Andrew stole his car (below with insert of Miglin). Next to last and most random, he shot a 45-year-old man in New Jersey for his red truck. Andrew then hid in plain sight in Miami for two months, stalking Versace whom he had once met, the most enviable target he had chosen to punish for his own failure; Versace was not just rich and famous but an artist. 

Andrew had eluded arrest thus far because of the relative secrecy of gay life in fly-over country. By the time Jeff Trail and David Madson were found in Minnesota and Miglin in Chicago, Andrew was long gone. Death of the beloved icon in Miami, however, focused the mind of law enforcement and Cunanan was found — dead.

The series begins with Versace’s murder and then unfolds in reverse order until the childhood influences on Versace and Cunanan come into focus as unsurprising ‘aha’s’ near the series conclusion. Criss, a product of Glee and half Filipino like Andrew, has blazed into stardom with this heavy-weight lead role, winning an Emmy and Golden Globe last year. Criss’s Andrew dazzles, charms, and mesmerizes his prey and us, his audience.

A few other actors were memorable: Australian Fern’s deer-in-the headlights affect as Cunanan’s lover-cum-victim, David Madson, stays with you, and Judith Light’s portrayal of Lee Miglin’s wife, for which she received an Emmy nomination. Marilyn Miglin never knew what hit her, that her marriage was not peaches-and-cream, or that her husband hid a secret sex life that would lead to his being bound with tape and stabbed to death. Marilyn was the oblivious, blond-helmeted business-woman who sweet-talked her own line of ‘pheromone’ perfumes on a TV home shopping network. Ms Light created Barbie doll’s perfect grand-mom in a perfect pink suit until Andrew Cunanan fowled the whole picture perfect.

On team Versace, Penélope Cruz does a compassionate, loving Donatella (below, top r). Some Spanish language undertones to the Italian-accented English of the Versace entourage were perceptible — never mind, one still followed with interest the glamorous but day-to-day ordinaries of the family business and relationships. But no hedging the obvious — this was multi-talented Darren Criss’s show, fulfilling every fantasy of success that his character dreamed of. He carries the entire star-filled tragedy like a dazzling quarterback. He is one to watch.

The above post was written by 

 our monthly correspondent, Lee Liberman

Sunday Corner With Lee Liberman: GUNPOWDER — In 1605, Kit Harington’s ancestor plots bombing of Parliament in real world thrones game

"The air in this house 

is rancid with popery"

All eyes forward tonight and for weeks to come on Game of Thrones' Jon Snow, but the man who animates him, Kit Harington — given name, Christopher Catesby Harington — is a cousin on both his mother’s and his father’s side of one Robert Catesby, instigator of the famous Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Catesby’s father had been jailed by Queen Elizabeth I (d 1603) for his Catholic loyalties and the son became a religious warrior when persecution continued under Protestant King James I. The plotters aimed to incinerate Parliament with James present, hoping to set off a revolution against Protestantism that had grown lethally repressive to Catholics since Henry VIII broke with Rome.

Harington stars in the 3-episode series (2017) that he helped create and co-executive produce for HBO; it is worth the watch to experience the belligerent period up close and to wonder at our own history of religion gone amok. Unfortunately not much empathy for its characters is written into the script to offset the barbarity. Rather one relates as though to a graphic novel of villains and victims (below, archival sketch of key plot rebels).

Nobleman Catesby, a widower with a young son, is sharing in a private mass at the manor estate of relatives when a troop of the king’s enforcers bang at the entrance; two priests are swiftly hidden and artifacts secreted away; no evidence of Catholic observance is apparent. But, says the king’s man, Sir William Wade: ‘the air in this house is rancid with popery.’ An extensive search turns up a young Jesuit; he is arrested along with the estate’s owner, Catesby’s relative, and shortly murdered in front of our eyes — the young Jesuit hung, drawn, and quartered, the woman crushed to death by weights (below). Catesby’s rage and indignation matured into the failed plot; many years of civil disorder followed.

A tightly loyal group of Catholics, prompted by Catesby, answered back with violence of their own. He masterminded a scheme to blow up Parliament on opening day when King James and his son would be in the hall. An outsider was added to the conspirators, an expert in explosives — one Guy Fawkes. It is Fawkes who was found standing guard over barrels of gunpowder secreted in the cellars below Parliament and hauled away for torture, followed by Catesby and the others being hunted down (shot or hung). Fawkes, caught with the goods, became most associated with the plot; it’s now feted every Nov 5 as Bonfire or Guy Fawkes Night — partying that is far removed from the origin of those murderous Catholic persecutions. The contrast between the modern yearly celebrations and the ugliness of the real story led some shocked viewers of this series to complain, even vomit at the depicted violence.

But the story is an early example of modern home-grown terrorism, in this case intertwining with fabled centuries of Catholic abuse. Some have claimed that anti-catholic propaganda helped create Protestant England — fueled by newspapers, memoirs, bibles, books, et al, then circulating in the new age of the printing press. It seems new technology and waves of progress are followed by magnified outbreaks of rage — religious hysteria and persecution followed the printing press that is matched today by the internet propelling terrorism and worldwide right-wing populism. Too much change makes people crazy! Below is an archival depiction of an early celebration of Guy Fawkes Night.

In any event, anti-catholicism was not the doing of God in Henry VIII’s time or since— it was kings and queens waging politics. To protect the monarch, to prevent rebellion, discriminatory laws were passed. Oaths had to be sworn, Anglican church attendance expected. Catholic mass was banned and forced into secrecy. “As Catholics,” Catesby intones: “we are hunted, imprisoned, fined, banished, tortured, and hanged.” The deprivation of religious freedom led to civil disorder at home, of which the Gunpowder Plot made a thunderous noise in public consciousness despite there being no actual bang of gunpowder in that November of 1605.

A cast of familiars play these parts. Tom Cullen of Knightfall and Downton Abbey is Guy Fawkes. And you wouldn’t recognize the man in his broody, feral, scowling silence, as though he had just leaped off the screen of a Black Sails pirate schooner rather than out of Lady Mary’s bed as Tony Gillingham. Harington on the other hand is described by Mike Hale in a NYT review (12/17) in all his Jon Snow glory: ‘beautiful hair, soulful eyes and a one-size-fits-all blank expression that serves him for both mournful gazing and impassioned speeches.’ He works it with grace.

Our villains include the mincing Scotsman King James I, satirized mildly as a bit of a fop by Glaswegian Derek Riddell (below, center, a veteran of Happy Valley, Fantastic Beasts, Shetland); Mark Gatiss, the king’s secretary of state and evil doer, Lord Robert Cecil, his head crooked to denote Cecil’s scoliosis, thought to have been Shakespeare’s model for hump-backed, Machiavellian Richard III, is familiar from Game of Thrones, The Favourite, and Sherlock; Shaun Dooley as Sir William Wade, executor of Cecil’s ugly policies, played in White Queen, Misfits, Jamestown (he is bottom left in the magazine spread pictured at end). Below, Lord Cecil is to King James’ left, and James’ chamberlain, is far right, of whom he was rather fond.

Marvelous actress Liv Tyler is altogether the most sympathetic character in the series as Anne Vaux, cousin to Catesby and carer of his son. She sheltered her (apparent lover) priest, Father Henry Garnet (Peter Mullen), who opposed violence and Catesby’s plot.

It is particularly through Tyler that we come to feel grief about the frenzy over a freedom we take nearly for granted (and are reminded of religious extremists that wage terror elsewhere on the globe in our own century). And it is through the care of Anne Vaux we are imagined to have young Robert Catesby, Jr., sire the line that has produced our current prince, Christopher Catesby Harington — Jon Snow.

The above post was written by our 

monthly correspondent, Lee Liberman.

Our March Sunday Corner With Lee Liberman MAXIMILIAN AND MARIE DE BOURGOGNE: A Game of Power and Love -- Medieval thrones on STARZ

Polheim the wise: 

“The Lord loves the simple-minded — 

that’s why there are so many.” 

The slice of European history revealed in this six-episode series feels distant, our being exposed most to British crowns and wars. Thriller and romance, the story of Maximilian and Marie takes us behind the European curtain to Austria, France, and its rich French relative, the Duchy of Burgundy, during the late Middle Ages. It’s a glimpse in the dark as the sun is about to rise on the Renaissance (spurred by printing press output -- the first “new media” in the west).

The action in those parts was just as dicey as Henry’s chewing up wives across the channel. Produced by German and Austrian networks jointly, the series was written by Martin Ambrosch and directed by Andreas Prochaska; it is handsomely crafted in dark medieval hues with Romeo-and-Juliet star-crossings and relationships that feel surprisingly intimate. (Below: director Andreas Prochaska, shown right, and Jannis Niewöhner as Maximilian.)

Maximilian (1459-1519), later called “the last knight” of the medieval era, is at 18 the brash son of Hapsburg Emperor, King Frederick III of Austria, seat of the region called the ‘Holy Roman Empire’ (which Voltaire wrote was neither holy, Roman, nor an empire). Maximilian is disgusted at his father’s passivity in dealing with enemies; he whiles away his nights with Rosina, his sister’s lady-in-waiting, and hunts by day with Polheim, his friend and chamberlain (the only one who will tell him the truth). This is Maximilian’s coming-of-age story.

Emperor Frederick (above) solves politics and foreign aggression not on his horse but in his throne room orchestrating marriages — he has lined up the 40-year-old Hungarian King (his enemy), to marry his 12-year-old daughter and orders his son, Maximilian, to marry the rich Marie of Burgundy. Marie’s father, Charles the Bold, has enlarged Burgundian territory and wealth through acquisition; it is flourishing — a center of cloth, commerce, and sophistication. Marie is ill-disposed to an Austrian match (They stink and eat raw meat, everyone says….) until her father is felled in battle. His death suddenly exposes her to a French law that subjects Burgundy to French rule if no male body sits on the throne. The French king, Louis XI, is pressing his advantage. With promises and bribes, he makes allies of merchants of Ghent* (Belgium), her capitol, who abusively force Marie to agree to marrying Louis’s under-age son, Charles. Below l, young Charles, with famous French actor, Jean-Hugues Anglade, as King Louis (out of focus).

The sly but aging Louis, in between having crippling strokes, is now using guns-for-hire and his own assassins to get rid of Maximilian, clearing the path to control Burgundy (below, Maximilian evading assassins).

Aggressive machinations play out separately against Maximilian and Marie until they meet in episode 4, (and after). In the meantime they each have begun to internalize the urgency of an alliance — a marriage would be the least disagreeable means-to-ends. He needs her wealth to quash his father’s enemies and she needs him to prevent Burgundy’s absorption by France.

Marie has sent Johanna, her lady-in-waiting, to the Austrian court where Johanna puts Maximilian to the sniff test (does he bathe), is he uncouth, is he literate. Determined now to thwart the French, Maximilian comes up with a scheme to rush the marriage from his sickbed — he is recovering from the plague. He and Polheim barely beat King Louis’s henchmen to Burgundy.

For a subplot, Polheim and Johanna fall in star-crossed love, she already having been married at 14 to a gross old man. (The doomed couple below.)

The action does not supplant lovely bits of intimate conversation — the glue that distinguishes this story from the usual. Maximilian and Marie, for instance, are ruled by their heads in landing themselves in the marriage bed, but they are royal, and negotiating sex with a spouse who is a total stranger has its awkwardness. We listen in.

Niewöhner (a young Brad Pitt type) is Maximilian; the accomplished French actress, Christa Théret, is Marie. Théret is familiar as the cherubic, peaches-and-cream model/muse of painter, Renoir, in the beautiful French biopic Renoir (on Amazon Prime). She is too thin here as Marie and dressed unflatteringly, but luminous as the young duchess. The dialogue is filmed in the actors’ own languages, as in Marie speaks to Maximilian in French and he to her in German, though English subtitles blur this oddness. European viewers may be at ease in this multi-lingual world but we, at least, get the message about the varied ethnicity of the region compared to the homogeneity across the English channel. The graphic below shows the changing dimensions of the Holy Roman Empire from 962 — 1806.

The action shifts among the Austrian, French, and Burgundian courts but there’s an English tie here in the person of Margaret of York, widow and third wife of Marie’s father, Charles the Bold. She is sister to Britain’s Edward IV and Richard III, who (history records) befriends her step-daughter and remains a supportive counselor to the young Duchess. (Below, l, Johanna, Marie, and Margaret of York.)

Note that in ‘The White Princess’ series on STARZ,** Margaret of York is a manipulative power behind the throne at the Burgundian court. Whatever the veracity of either version, this German production is more fun than the English soap.

In any event, the marriage between Maximilian and Marie was short but a genuine love match (archive depiction above). Maximilian married twice after her death, also for political alliance, but we are told he was loveless in later life. He was at war most of it, famous for jousting and influencing armor design.

This ‘last knight’ was also an avid patron of the sciences and arts — he was a bridge from the medieval to the modern world, reveling in past glory, making use of Renaissance munificence. But it was through his children with Marie that Hapsburg influence continued and would survive as the Austria-Hungary Empire until 1918. Queen Elizabeth II is among Maximilian’s descendants. But never mind Hapsburg politics and shifting borders, this romance is an entertaining appetizer to the blockbuster of all games of thrones due to resume in April on HBO.

*Note: A New York Times illustrated travel piece on Ghent, Belgium (3/3/19), looks just like the 15th century version See article here.

**Note on STARZ: Former CEO Chris Albrecht (originator of much of HBO’s early successes and STARZ’s current content) has departed. Speculation is that new owner, Lionsgate, may replace some STARZ content by summer. Now would be the time to catch up.

The above post was written by our 

monthly Sunday correspondent, Lee Liberman

The hot new Netflix series from Spain, entitled ELITE, proves sensational twice over

There are two major meanings of the word "sensational," and both easily fit the new Spanish series streaming now on Netflix. The first refers to something causing great public interest and excitement (synonyms: shocking, scandalous, appalling), the second tackles the quality of that thing: very impressive, gorgeous, stunning, captivating, and so forth. ELITE, which is set in an uber-high-end prep school in Spain in which the students, hormone-fueled to the max, engage in all kinds of sex -- straight, gay, and even threesomes -- proves sensational on both fronts.

The product of a pair of well-known Spanish writers/producers (shown above, respectively right and left), Darío Madrona (Vive cantando) and Carlos Montero (The Time in Between), Elite will be quite enough for some viewers interested in watching a group of gorgeous young actors, clothed and unclothed, getting it on. That we come to know and understand these kids so well and begins to care about them more and more as the series progresses is due to the exceptional writing and the crack performances given by every last cast member.

In conception and execution, Elite proves exactly that. The plot kicks into action as a trio of new students -- a Muslim girl and two boys of clearly working-class status, above (above, left to right: Itzan Escamilla, Mina El Hammani, and Miguel Herrán) -- are introduced into this high school made up of the sons and daughters of Spain's exclusive and entitled one per cent (two of which are shown below: Ester Expósito and Álvaro Rico)  Divisions are immediately drawn -- by the end of the first episode we know that a murder has been committed -- and the following seven episodes are devoted to blurring those divisions.

We soon find that we are seeing some good in the kids we initially despised, while finding fault with those we liked and most rooted for. In short, the characters here are rounded; they grow and they change. Some more than others, and some very little (especially the nasty, rich bitch below, played to near-perfection by Danna Paola), and their movements back and forth as they learn who they are, along with who their friends really are (or aren't) makes the series grow ever richer.

The Spanish, bless 'em, may be the best purveyors of melodrama in the world (followed perhaps by the South Koreans). Grand Hotel is of course the sterling example for our millennium, with so many other series like La casa de papel (known as Money Heist on Netflix) not far behind. Is this creative ability built into the Spanish DNA? One does have to wonder because -- so clever is the plotting, so fine the casting and characterizations, and so spectacular the production design and visuals -- little else compares.

The series is said to have raised eyebrows and hackles in its native Spain, ostensibly for its sexuality. (That's Arón Piper , left, with newcomer Omar Ayuso, above.) But I do wonder if, on a deeper level, it's the cynical "take" on the children of the one per cent, and their powerful, mostly despicable parents holding onto to power by any means necessary, that has riled the powers-that-be even more.

The attitude here is mostly progressive, including even the sex-and-sin portions, which are plentiful. Though we know the murder victim early on (this is nothing like Big Little Lies), the identity of the murderer remains hidden until the finale. (That's Miguel Bernardeau, above right, as the most entitled and pushy of the elite crew.)

Any justice, however, will have to be meted out during Elite's second season. There will surely be one, as the first season has been a major hit, with its popularity only growing as more countries discover its pleasures. Above, right, is Jaime Lorente, who plays the pivotal older brother of one of the new students. Both he and Senor Herrán (standing, below, center, and at bottom, left), are also stars of the Money Heist series. The two are clearly talented and versatile performers, with Herrán quite the little scene-stealer.

Probably the most problemed and difficult of all these characters is our sort-of heroine, Marina, played by María Pedraza, below, whose behavior and decisions will have you rooting for her one minute and wanting to smack her the next. Ms Pedraza was also in Money Heist, playing the pivotal character of Alison Parker. She is so different here as to be very nearly unrecognizable, yet in her own strange way, she holds the series' first season together.

You can stream Elite now, here in the USA and elsewhere via Netflix. Do give it a try. TrustMovies' blood pressure is still raised a bit, thanks to all the provocative goings-on.