'Merlí', the bittersweet TV3 success that ended up absorbed by Movistar+

Barcelona(As every summer, ARA dedicates a series of Sunday Media articles to reviewing television history. This year, we are rescuing some of the most notable channel changes that historical fictions experienced.)

An unorthodox philosophy professor determined to make his students truly learn, beyond passing exams. This was the premise of Merlí, one of the most successful series ever launched by TV3, which was based, in large part, on the combination of a seasoned actor like Francesc Orella in a state of grace – with a character that fit him like a glove – and a cast of young talents like Carlos Cuevas or Elisabet Casanovas. Its success, however, was the seed that ultimately led to its move to a platform with a larger budget, such as Movistar+.

The 40 original episodes were broadcast between 2015 and 2018, and a measure of its success is its ability to be exported: Atresmedia dubbed it into Spanish and broadcast it on La Sexta, while Netflix bought it for the international market and offered it to its subscribers in South America and the United States. Italy and France had their own adaptations. The popularity of the titular character was so great that an Argentinian football fan, Horacio Domínguez, explained that he was often stopped in the street in his country and asked if he was the actor from Merlí.

The series was planned for only the three seasons that TV3 offered and concluded with a closed ending. But that achieved following stimulated the creator Héctor Lozano to continue imagining more plots for that universe. The result would end up being Merlí: sapere aude, a sequel that would shift the focus to the character of Pol Rubio, played by Cuevas. Who had been Merlí's favorite student in the original series, now arrived at university, with the aim of studying philosophy and becoming a professor, like his mentor.

Movistar+ launched its takeover bid for the new series, knowing it had the winning hand of the budget and the most assured international projection, as the platform has a presence in Latin America. TV3 invested in it, but as a minority partner. And this, of course, entailed sacrifices. The first, not being able to premiere the series initially. Movistar+ put Merlí: sapere aude on its service on December 5, 2020. Initially, it reserved a full year of exclusivity, but agreed to shorten this window a bit so that TV3 could offer it to the Catalan market as the highlight of the season's start, on September 14, 2020.

Despite this delay, the ratings were correct: the first season achieved a 14.8% share and the second 12.1%. These were figures notably below the 18.4% average achieved by the 40 episodes of the first series, but sufficient to lead most nights.

The second toll was more painful: by producing it with Movistar as the majority partner, it became a bilingual fiction despite selling it as "the first series in Catalan" on the platform. The introduction of Latin American actors, intended to also satisfy the international market, represented another departure from the own imaginary that Merlí had achieved. Furthermore, the sequel arrived on TV3's schedule when the embers of the controversy for having aired Drama, a TVE series that also mixed the two languages, were still alive. The then Minister of Culture, Mariàngela Vilallonga, openly criticized it. The then director of TV3, Vicent Sanchis, defended that it be broadcast as it had been produced, without dubbing more dialogues into Catalan, taking into account that the creators had opted for this mix.

Despite this unease, the Corporation has continued to advocate for co-production with other platforms, as this allows it to significantly increase the number of available titles and, furthermore, for these fictions to enjoy a more ample budget. The paradigmatic case is Cites, which since it ended under the umbrella of Amazon Prime has also introduced plots in Spanish. TV3 contributed 30% of the budget, but, in this case and to avoid protests, the channel opted to dub into Catalan the characters who spoke in Spanish, with the option to watch it in dual with the mix of the two languages, for those who wanted the original version, as it was filmed, without the dissociation that was generated by seeing actresses like Aina Clotet or Carme Fortuny dubbing themselves into Catalan, but without the movement of the lips matching the words heard.

Merlí was one of the catalysts for this change of policy and adaptation to the new paradigm of being a small fish in an ocean of deep-pocketed platforms.