Lying on the beach: Even the third Croatian series did not succeed. Prima doesn’t know what to do anymore

Get into your sleeping bag with Tomáš Klus finally got off the TV screens just like On the waves of the Adriatic, while the next series is not planned due to the disastrous viewership, but we didn’t have enough time to relax even for a week and we already have another summer theme along with the return to the beloved destination of Bohemia. Those who regularly watch commercial stations in the evenings must already think that they have gone completely crazy on TV, and after exclaiming: “Enough of TV crime dramas and soap operas!”, it would be appropriate to add: “Enough of Croatia!”

After On the waves of the Adriatic and Hvar police (of course it’s from Nova) is Lie on the beach in order of the third series taking place in this location on the current screens. Only this time without the corpses and the police. However, this does not mean that the classic TV misery with uninteresting characters and a stupid script does not happen. She just might look a little sexier than usual.

If you ask yourself why Prima is coming with the second series from Croatia, look for the answer in the authors of the series. There is a couple behind him Vojtěch Moravec and Sandra Novákováof which the first-named has the mentioned account On the waves of the Adriatic and the latter is his wife, who must not automatically be absent from his actions.

During the filming of the previous series, both of them obviously decided that it wouldn’t be out of place to extend their sunny vacation by the sea by a month and hoped that they would approve the new topic on TV and thus defacto pay for the vacation. Since Prima jumps on anything that looks promising on paper, and even better can be stretched to any number of episodes for little money and with solid viewership, this plan worked perfectly for them.

So that Moravc’s wife wouldn’t slack off, he left her in charge of inventing the story and writing the script, which was the main stumbling block of the concept, which could have easily worked in more capable hands. Here we follow a trio of young lads from the Czech Republic, who one day break into the system of government contracts, which is why the mobsters are after them. The first thing that comes to their mind is to pack their bags and go to the first hotel in Croatia they come across. Here they meet three charming girls who work here, and although they want to continue their escape from the mafia, they decide to stay in the exotic hotel. They only have to pretend they are part of the staff.

The fact that the storyline is already quite stupid, illogical and naive on paper would not be too much of a problem (especially when the current bar on Prima is very low) if it worked properly where it should – in characters, humor and the use of an attractive environment. Unfortunately, he fails at everything. Every now and then the creators try for potentially good humor by tapping into the stereotypes of Czechs on vacation and their pointless complaints at the hotel reception, but the jokes seem too artificial, forced and awkward.

The hotel environment in which we immediately land after the first episode looks better than the unpleasant campsite on the banks of the Ohra from Get into your sleeping bag and a thousand times better than the papundekl backdrops from Eliška and Damián, even so, a large part of the scenes take place quite unnecessarily in interiors that already look punkish. The curse of cheap-looking TV series could not be broken again.

Lastly, the series also fails in the characters. However, the faces of the main six heroes are presented Radek Melši, Daniela Kadlec, Philip Francis Robins and lovely actresses Josefíny Prachařová, Rozálie Prachařová and Sofia Frida Höppner unsolicited, if we take a closer look at their names, we will find that we are again in the same clan of TV actors who employ their descendants in series. While Josefína and Rosálie do not deny their no less charming mother Linda Rybová in their face and voice, and we see them on TV for the very first time, for Ivana Jirešová’s daughter, Sofia, Addicts this is only her second major role.

It cannot be said that the performances here are in any way weaker than elsewhere, they are still far from perfect. The somewhat shallow and sterile acting does not stick in the audience’s memory in any way and does not evoke feelings in them to take a deeper interest in the characters here. At least the actors are easy to understand. At the same time, they are not embarrassing enough (that is, with the exception of Nováková, who has a supporting role as a stepmother here) that it is a kind of guilty pleasure that you laugh at on TV for how stupid it is.

Those who stay tuned will only watch for eight episodes the repetitive flirting and escalating lies of young boys while establishing relationships with charming young ladies. After all, this could be more than enough for the younger group of viewers, whom the series was intended to target and who otherwise have no reason to turn on the TV today, if Moravec and Nováková could at least humorously touch on the behavior of the current generation Z. Considering the jokes about statuses on Facebook, etc. however, it is obvious that they have no idea what this digital generation actually lives by.

Therefore, the whole resulting product most of all seems like someone’s effort to prolong a nice vacation at the seaside at all costs with other people’s money, and someone else needed to keep their offspring busy in something where no one will require more than basic acting skills from them and they will not have to go to real work. And maybe thanks to this, one day they will be able to get a dream role in some endless series for a lot of money. Something tells me that we will meet some local actors or actresses on the screens of this station regularly for a long time after the last episode of the series Lie on the beach.