August is not a thrilling month when it comes to series premieres, but the few fictions that land on the platforms have a clear objective: to entertain without making us think too much. The calendar includes some new releases but also the return of already known titles.

Breaking into the industry is one of the biggest challenges for film or audiovisual communication students from various training centers and universities in the country. Opportunities are not many, and you need to be prepared to seize them on the fly. This summer, however, 38 students have experienced what it means to debut with a professional project by shooting Episodic, a new anthology series powered by the Barcelona City Council and Betevé, the municipal public television, and produced by Serielizados. The young people have participated in all phases of the creative process, from script development, direction, production, cinematography, music, art, or editing, among other technical and creative departments.

The United States commemorates the 250th anniversary of its independence while observing its democratic foundations in crisis. Platforms also celebrate this with some productions that revisit the nation's history with the subtle intention of reclaiming the values that are being undermined. On HBO Max, Barack and Michelle Obama have produced a series of comedic sketches together with Larry David. The actor, besides being the main protagonist, is also co-creator, co-writer, and producer alongside Jeff Schaffer, his collaborator on Curb your enthusiasm. The series Life, Larry and the pursuit of unhappiness: An almost history of America can be read allegorically. The title parodies the formula of the Declaration of Independence: “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.Larry David introduces his curmudgeonly and killjoy character into emblematic moments of United States history. The production is cinematic and features cameos from a large cast of celebrities such as Jimmy Kimmel, Kaley Cuoco, Jon Hamm, Sarah Silverman, or Rob Reiner, to whom a posthumous dedication is made. Life, Larry and the pursuit of unhappiness pays homage to history with a sense of humor while always seeking a biting contemporary reading. Not all sketches are successful, some are too long, but it has wit. Obama makes the initial presentation recalling the petty characters who have tried to prevent the progress of the United States, in an allusion to the protagonist, but it is inevitable to also think of Trump, who will become the absent and unmentionable protagonist. The past calls to him as a bad future that is inconceivable to exist. The sketch in which George Washington decides to set a limit of two terms for future presidents of the United States to guarantee the democratic health of the nation becomes visionary considering Trump's challenge this week in which he assures that he wants to run for a third term.One of the best sketches is the one that recreates the Rosa Parks episode on the bus. Traveling next to Larry David will blow up all the epicness of the woman who refused to give up her seat to a white man and became the symbol of the civil rights struggle. The whole series summarizes an alternative history of the United States where, for example, Bob Woodward will end up begging deep throat not to call him anymore to inform him about the Watergate case, we will discover the particular sense of decency of Senator McCarthy in his fall or the uncomfortable first airplane flight of the Wright brothers. Also the overwhelming pride of the mother of Jonas Salk, the discoverer of the polio vaccine. The television exercise is fun, and it turns out to be a bit paradoxical. While Donald Trump is destroying the values of the nation's founding spirit, the Obamas are rewriting its history with humor. Perhaps it's the saying that it's better to laugh than to cry.

The week ahead, with Jordi Garrigós

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I will finish McCartney: the hunt for the lost bass, about the mysterious disappearance and recovery of Paul McCartney's first bass, a Höfner 500/1 bought in Hamburg in 1961 for only 30 pounds. This marvel sounded on the original recordings of Love me do, she loves you and the early Beatles classics. A road movie musical about the greatest pop group of all time.

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Four years ago, Netflix released a series for teenagers that broke the genre's pre-established codes to explore healthier relationships. In an audiovisual market saturated with melodramas that romanticized risk-taking behaviors, mental disorders, addictions, and traumas, Heartstopper appeared. Influenced by the naive aesthetic borrowed from the comic book on which the plot is originally based, it told us the love story between Charlie and Nick, two students at a British high school. The series provided LGBTQI+ references that a whole host of previous generations had not had access to, with the aim of reflecting a safe environment for all the protagonists. Despite the clichés and the positivism that the series exuded, it did not make the mistake of depicting an idyllic world. It reflected the phobias and hostilities that unfortunately persist in society, but it showed how the creation of emotional bonds can become nuclei of protection that help in advocacy and activism. The protagonists are not outcasts forced into a drama of overcoming and solitary struggle, but a group of teenagers who have a support network of friends, family, and some teachers who help them move forward as any boy and girl of that age needs. Although neither the second nor the third season were better than the first, the series managed to sustain itself more or less according to its initial characteristics. But Heartstopper has died of success due to the Netflix virus, which injects commercial criteria and makes one forget unique qualities and authorship. The platform has finished the series with a final two-hour film. Heartstopper forever is a tedious and senselessly drawn-out drama. What they explain could be fitted into a twenty-minute episode. They have stretched the gum so much that, logically, the children have grown up in four days. The ridiculous situation of having a group of adults pretending to be minors is already happening. A film with no plot or conflict beyond an absurd couple's crisis. Heartstopper had the virtue of avoiding the clichés and misunderstandings typical of romantic comedies, defending the intelligence of characters who knew how to express their feelings well. This has disappeared in favor of drama. Of traumas that appear conveniently to construct conflicts effortlessly. Of a vague malaise that clouds the protagonists when a little suspense is needed. The sexualization of Charlie and Nick has been enhanced, with five half-dark sex scenes distributed with a stopwatch throughout the film. The classic television manual with teenagers taking off their shirts every twenty minutes and using sex as a balm to recover from tears. A tug-of-war that caused a loop of crybabies who don't stop whimpering. A clear example of how to ruin a endearing series and turn it into a bland product to squeeze the udder of Heartstopper's success.

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The beginning of Tip toe, the HBO Max miniseries premiering this Thursday, is the kind of opening that sends a chill down your spine. The camera transports us to a residential neighborhood in Manchester, with its characteristic, identical brick houses. At the entrance of one of these houses, we see a woman screaming. She says something like, "He's a monster." Directly in front of her is a man, whom we understand to be her husband, with an unperturbed expression. Then, the camera moves and a woman appears on the ground, we don't know if alive or dead. There's still a final blow: the camera pans up and we see a man hanging from a street lamp. Then, the series flashes back ten days to explain how this hellish situation came to be.

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The 78th edition of the Emmy Awards, presented by the United States Television Academy, has released its nominations today, and the medical drama The pitt(HBO Max) has once again proven to be the darling of the academics. The series starring Noah Wyle will fight to retain its title of best drama, an award it won last year. Furthermore, a good portion of the cast is nominated in the acting categories. The drama will compete, among others, against Pluribus (AppleTV), which debuts at the awards with its first season. Vince Gilligan's series is not the only notable newcomer to these Emmys: another AppleTV production, La maldición de Widow's Bay, one of the season's word-of-mouth phenomena, has managed to sneak into the comedy categories.

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A few weeks ago, the filming of Life Barcelona, a series that, as its uninspired title suggests, is set in the Catalan capital. It is a production from the Netherlands that follows Julia (Holly Mae Brood), a Dutch designer who is sent to Barcelona by her mother to secretly weaken a rival agency. Once in Barcelona, the girl will fall head over heels for the city's charms and will also experience various love stories. The news of the filming has outraged some Barcelonians, who see the series as another vehicle for gentrification and mass tourism, and a boycott movement has begun on social media. One of the residents who has reacted with astonishment to the announcement is Tommy Blanco, who has launched an Instagram account –@lavidabarcelona– that calls for mobilization to stop a production that they consider contributes to "selling the city".

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It often happens to me – and I take for granted it's a generational thing – that in my circle, the fact that my husband and I don't watch series or movies together is met with surprise. I say it must be generational because only people our age remember when families used to gather to watch TV, all at the same time and on the same channel.

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For decades we have seen women's breasts in series and movies alike. Almost every time there was a sex scene, it was the female performer who had to go all out and show her body. A good example of this trend is Game of Thrones, often accused of extreme sexualization of both the main protagonists and the supporting actresses, and even extras. In recent times the trend has reversed and we can say that we have entered the era of naked male torsos. Many of the recent great series hits do not need many excuses to show their protagonists shirtless and with well-defined pecs.

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Past the halfway point of 2026 and when it's still too early to make lists of the best series of the year, we review some of the titles that have premiered during the first semester and are worthwhile. It's a selection that represents a mix of genres and various degrees of intensity: some aspire to be among the most outstanding fictions of 2026, while others seek to fill the space of light entertainment.

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Hannah Murray began her acting career as a teenager, but for the past eight years she has been living completely retired from the world of acting. Between the beginning and the end of her career there are two defining moments: her time on Game of Thrones, which made her known worldwide, and her entry into a cult that led to a mental health crisis. Now the actress, who for many will always be remembered as the wild Gilly, reviews her traumatic experiences in the autobiography The Make-Believe: A memoir of magic and madness. Although Game of Thrones is the most popular title in his filmography, Murray has also participated in other productions such as the risky teen series Skins(2007-2013), she played a young woman with anorexia nervosa, or the musical film "God help the girl (2014), the directorial debut of Stuart Murdoch, leader of the band Belle & Sebastian. In the book, Murray explains how his entry into a cult, which he calls "the organization", coincided with one of the most important projects of his career, the film Detroit (2017), by Kathryn Bigelow, had scenes of great emotional wear. To prepare for them, the actress contacted a coach of interpretation that introduced her to the idea of "opening yourself as much as possible to let something pass through you." The actress describes the process as "almost shamanic."

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In a month when many people already have holidays on their minds, platforms are opting for light entertainment, with series that have few pretensions beyond entertaining the viewer. We review the most outstanding titles of July.

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Since September 2017, Alicia González Laá is Eva, the most innocent and love-struck member of the cast of Com si fos ahir, TV3's daily soap opera. After having appeared in other series such as Nissaga de poder or Ventdelplà, the actress has become one of the essential faces of Catalan afternoon television.

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Choosing a series to watch is often a difficult task due to the avalanche of offerings currently available. To separate the wheat from the chaff, it's always interesting to listen to recommendations from friends or someone who knows about it. With this goal in mind, ARA has launched La seriòfila, an Instagram channel where series lovers can find good recommendations, but also information related to the audiovisual world. The channel is managed by Alejandra Palés, a writer specializing in series for ARA. To subscribe to La seriòfila, you just need to go to the ARA newspaper's Instagram profile and enter the channel through the tab below the profile's biography. Another option is to subscribe through this link.

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Lorena Iglesias (A Coruña, 1980) is the creator and protagonist of Filmin's new original production series, Millennial mal. The comedy, which premieres this Tuesday on the platform, follows Judith, an unemployed 42-year-old librarian who mistakenly receives a university scholarship she applied for when she was a student. With nothing to lose, she decides to return to the classroom, but first, she will undergo a transformation process to go from being a woman of the millennial generation to becoming a young woman of the Generation Z.

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When The bear premiered on Disney+ in June 2022, it quickly won over most critics and viewers alike. It was the series of the moment: everyone was talking about this drama set in a restaurant and its lead actor, Jeremy Allen White, who played a fine-dining chef taking over the family sandwich shop. Although he had already participated in long-running shows like Shameless, The bear propelled Allen White into the big leagues and made him one of the most talked-about actors. After the experts' praise came the awards: at the 2023 Emmy Awards, it swept the most important categories. Of course, curiously, despite being clearly a drama or, at best, a dramedy, the platform submitted it in the comedy category, and all the awards it has accumulated so far are for this genre.

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The universe of Game of Thrones continues its expansion with a new season of the franchise's most successful spin-off, House of the Dragon. The wait between the first and second season was two years and the series team is repeating the strategy. Fans have had to test their patience for two more years. Finally, on June 22, HBO will release the first of eight new episodes, which will be an hour long. HBO maintains the broadcast plan and the number of episodes per season —the first had 10—, and will release them weekly, every Monday, to offer the season's final episode on August 10. The platform has also announced that it will conclude the series with a fourth season which, following the series' timeline, is expected to premiere around 2028, and will conclude the Targaryen era.

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The award-winning documentary series by Raül Gallego, Punt de no retorn, premieres its third season on June 22. It will be available on the 3Cat platform from Monday. Each episode will be forty minutes long and will continue to give visibility to current conflicts. L'ARA spoke with Gallego at the beginning of last year and, in the interview, the director explained the origin of the series, the choice of topics for the episodes, or the author's ability to approach extreme situations and people suffering the consequences of conflicts. But one of the achievements that the Catalan director probably did not imagine reaching at the beginning of the production was winning the International Emmy for Best Short-Form Series in 2024 and the Online Journalism Awards, in the digital short-form video storytelling category.

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In Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, Mary Bennet is the overlooked and often ridiculed sister of the main protagonist, Elizabeth. In fact, Mary is a minor character who, in the book, does not have a plot of her own with substance, beyond being the butt of jokes when she decides to sing at social gatherings. But in The Other Bennet Sister, the miniseries that Movistar Plus + premieres this Tuesday, the introverted girl becomes the protagonist of the story: tired of being her mother's whipping boy, who always finds an excuse to belittle her, she decides to forge her own path and make decisions for herself. When all her sisters get married, she leaves the family home and moves to London to live with her aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner.

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