24th November, 2018.
Not that I’m feeling rushed here …
No, really, I’m not …
I’m just very aware that it’s getting rather late.
And that there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask …
How’s your Spanish?
If you’re anything like me, it ranges from know how to say ‘Thank you,’ to completely non-existent.
If you’re anything like Old Peculiar regular, Olga?
Then you’re a native Spanish speaker, and speak Catalan and English as well!
AND a professional translator.
I’m quite definitely the former: totally hopeless at anything resembling a foreign language.
But quite thankful for the existence of subtitles.
Without those? Watching a series Olga mentioned to me, some time ago, would have been impossible*.
Yes: and as I mentioned in the opening video, there?
I’ve just seen the first episode of the Spanish language series, El Ministerio del Tiempo/The Ministry of Time.
Episode one of series one, so you know.
I’m impressed.
~≈§≈~
Episode 1 — El tiempo es el que es/Time is What it Is — introduces us to Julían (Rodolfo Sancho), an emergency paramedic in Madrid.
An paramedic still grieving the death of his wife in a car crash three years earlier.
And, as a result?
Alienated from many of his co-workers: frustrated by the dangerous situations he automatically throws himself into.
It’s on one such night? He dashes in to a burning building, convinced he can see shadows of inside …
Only to find the still living body of what looks like a soldier … in the scarily accurate version of The uniforms worn by Napoleon’s Grand Armée …
It’s only once he survives this … ?
He get’s recruited …
~≈§≈~
Many centuries earlier?
We are introduced to Alonso de Entrerríos (Nacho Fresneda), a Spanish soldier — a Tercio — in deep trouble: as we meet him?
Alonso is in a prison cell, having a last conversation with his fiancé … before being hung for assaulting an officer.
It’s only once Blanca has gone … ?
That the mysterious monk who’s sneaked in to the cell tells Alonso he’s not there to do the last rites …
No …
The padré’s got a job offer …
~≈§≈~
Somewhere in between … ?
We meet Amelia Folch (Aura Garrido), the only child of a well-to-do Barcelona family, who is the only woman her class at University.
Causing something of a stir in the Spanish academia of the 19th century.
After one especially contentious lecture?
She meets the mysterious Irene (Cayetana Guillén Cuervo).
Irene’s interested in women’s rights …
And thinks she knows a thing or two that will grab Amelia’s attention …
~≈§≈~
The three eventually met … in modern day Madrid.
They’ve recruited by a very odd, and very secretive, government department called the Ministry of Time.
One with access to time travel through a series of doors in the Ministry’s HQ …
One that’s found a pair of Napoleon’s finest causing havoc, with a stolen gun, and an unauthorised door …
And one that needs three new recruits to make history goes as it should …
~≈§≈~
Now … impressed … ?
Oh, yes: this first episode is quite something!
For starters?
At just one 69 minutes, I was expecting something a little slowly paced.
But got a fast paced, rapid fire, SF thriller: that, with my interested in history, had me glued to my seat.
One that also had sympathetic characters with well explained motives, good dialogue — at least, subtitled that looked good — and a look and feel that had me both excited and transfixed.
Can I make a confession, here?
As you’re no doubt aware, I’m a Dr Who fan.
And one who enjoyed Torchwood, when it was on.
Thus far?
El Ministerio del Tiempo is reminding me of Torchwood.
There’s a very good mix of action, politics, and emotion in El Ministerio del Tiempo that gets me thinking investing more time in it?
Would be a damn good idea … !
* Like I say, gracias is about the only word of Spanish I know!
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