It was time, TV3. Being Catalan is often boring. Boring as f*ck. It must be due to this thing about being a stateless country. The proud motto says som i serem - we are and we will be - but deep down we would really like to be more, much more. And since at the moment we aren't, we take ourselves too seriously. And we always have to do everything better and bigger than the rest. Double forward somersault dive with a triple anticlockwise twist. Everything must be multitudinous and historic. Whether it's going out to buy some bread or taking to the streets to demand independence. Not forgetting that, whichever of the two it is, we naturally have to get up ben d'hora ben d'hora - very, very early - to be unstoppable. And if the alarm doesn't wake us, it's because Madrid robs us.
'Alegria!'
However, they won't be able to do it if they are faced by a combative people, agreed, but also by a people full of alegria. That alegria that Antonia Font sang about in all its glory. Because, who are we trying to fool, we Catalans also like sauciness, we read the gossip press every morning, to the irritation and annoyance of our own (perfect) beautiful people, and watch realities and talent shows. A format that our telly - La Nostra, as it likes to call itself - had gathering dust on some back lot until weeks ago when they premiered Eufòria - to be honest, some Catalan realities had been made before, but all of them were so kitsch and drenched in our dated modernness (okay, El Llop ? Sure, great program that one, has to be said), that, let's be honest, we couldn't really be bothered.
TV3 is living its particular moment of Eufòria
Catalan-hog day
There was once a time when the Catalan public channel TV3 was irreverent and transgressive. That period when Mikimoto, aka Miquel Calçada, was conducting Persones Humanes, the first late show anywhere in the Spanish state; theatre company La Cubana performed the New Year's Eve specials and Jordi González explained Les 1000 i una - on a thousand and one summer nights. It all ended that day when Mikimoto, aka Miquel Calçada, made that joke about the Infanta Elena (if I'm not mistaken, it was actually writer Quim Monzó, who had a spot on the show, who did it) and they unceremoniously sacked him the next morning (some time later he would return with that exquisite thing that was Afers exteriors - Foreign Affairs). Since then, watching La Nostra has been like playing Bill Murray's role in Ground Hog Day. Switching on and hitting the "3" button on the remote meant inevitably coming face to face with Tomàs Molina, Helena García Melero, Toni Soler and Lluís Canut.
'Boig per tu'
In 2001, Spain's TVE, another public broadcaster that smells like mothballs, premiered Operación Triunfo, the mother of all talent shows. A format devised by a Catalan production company, let's not forget, which has since been imitated and copied a thousand and one times on all the world's television networks. All but La Nostra. As Mariano Rajoy famously said, "Catalans do things" - but not talent shows, it seemed. At least until the premiere of Eufòria. I must confess that I was reluctant at the beginning: a TV3 talent show that shares a name (and graphics) with a current HBO series? I imagined the typical pallid, harmless and innocuous space with four contestants doing the umpteenth version of Sau's Boig per tu (watch out, I'm sure that one day they'll sneak it in again). I was wrong.
Twenty years late
With Eufòria, TV3 enters the 21st century twenty years late, but it finally gets here. It doesn't invent anything, in fact, it's all a copy of the original format, but the plagiarism is perpetrated perfectly. The direction is remarkable, the presenters and jury members, with one or two reservations, well selected (brilliant to have put the musical direction in the hands of Jordi Cubino: as a producer of disco music in the eighties under the name of David Lyme, one of the figures most important in the history of music in Catalonia), and above all in Eufòria there are two aspects that stand out: the musical choices - we have finally abandoned the campfire songbook and, without forgetting our Txarangos and Oques Grasses, have opened up to the international hits of the moment; and the selection of contestants, a perfectly-crafted cast with a range of voices and personalities that, reinforced by a magnificent job on social media, have instantly connected with the younger audience. It has been years, if not decades, since TV3 managed to win over these viewers.
Catalans do things, and now, yes, talent shows as well. All that's needed now is for TV3 to be encouraged to do a Big Brother and we will be a completely normal country! As Mazoni sings, happiness is not enough, we demand Eufòria.