On September 13, 2001, Carlitos, Carlos Alcántara’s spokesman, began to narrate the life of his family. 420 episodes and more than 30,000 minutes of airtime later, we’ve seen more than 1,000 characters move through the series: from Ana Duato and Imanol Arias in the roles of Mercedes and Antonio to other actors who not everyone may remember, like Luis Olmedilla, the director of the neighborhood bank (played by Antonio Resines), or Tinín, the tireless owner of the tavern (Enrique San Francisco). Jacobo Delgado, screenwriter of the series, explains: “There are actors who came for a few episodes and the impact of their performances was so great that many more stayed: this is the case of Ana Arias (Paquita), who is still in of the series.” Series or Terele Pávez (Mrs. Pura), whose presence was greater than initially expected.”
After processing all the subtitles of the 23 seasons of the series (512 broadcast hours), we have created a map in which the Alcántara family, and in particular Antonio and Mercedes, collect the most mentions in each episode: “They are the undisputed protagonists of the series. They appear in all chapters and in each of them there is a plot. Third in the race is Carlos, our narrator,” says Delgado. There are other characters who do not always have a plot but whose presence is “definitive,” notes the screenwriter: “This is the case of Herminia, who is the memory of the family and always keeps both feet on the ground.” Your vision of what happens to others is crucial.”
In the table below you can see the details of the episodes in which each character played the largest role.
Analysis of the subtitles allows us to see that each protagonist has his own constellation of supporting characters. Around the six family members you can see the faces of the subplots: This is the case of Marta, Juana, Deborah (Toni’s partners) or Valentina, Herminia’s inseparable friend at the beginning of the series.
Merche clothes or the family room, witnesses to 30 years of change
The series explores some of the historical events that shaped our country in the second half of the 20th century. Franco’s name is mentioned 1,264 times; Adolfo Suárez, in 249. An event like the Seville Expo, 92: It’s more than just a few recurring characters.
Spain’s history even shaped the series’ hypothetical endings, several of which survive: “There were many possible endings,” says Delgado. “The first thing that came to mind was Franco’s death. Then 23-F, the victory of the Socialists in 1982, the entry into Europe, the Olympic Games in Barcelona. When we knew that this season would be the last, we knew we had to reach 2001. It is the year of the September 11 attacks, which changed the world forever,” he explains.
A good example of how the wardrobe teams were inspired by the fashion of each era is the change in Mercedes clothing. Ana Duato, who plays her, felt her role was “an obligation to represent a woman who was a pioneer for her time.”
Merche begins her journey through the series as a village woman who recently arrived in the capital and eventually becomes a respected fashion designer. The merche of the sixties wore aprons, printed dresses and skirts below the knee. As the character evolves (he opens his own business, goes to university, learns to drive…), his way of dressing also evolves. Her wardrobe includes slightly flared trousers, figure-hugging dresses that emphasize the figure or clothing with cheerful prints or intense colors.
trousers
campaign
in the 70th
Rock of
under
Knee
trousers
campaign
in the 70th
Rock of
under
Knee
Rock of
under
Knee
trousers
campaign
in the 70th
Rock of
under
Knee
trousers
campaign
in the 70th
Rock of
under
Knee
trousers
campaign
in the 70th
In the eighties, Mercedes experienced a time of change. And her wardrobe with her. After overcoming breast cancer, baggy shirts are a constant; The dresses and skirts remain narrow, but at the same time become longer until they cover the knees.
Perhaps the most transgressive moment occurs right when she decides to divorce Antonio in the twentieth season. With the help of Fabiola, an orchestra singer, and after meeting Max, he puts on a Rolling Stones T-shirt, tight pants and sneakers. She is the Mercedes who wants to leave the wife and mother of her former life behind.
clothes and
the skirts
tailored
clothes and
the skirts
tailored
clothes and
the skirts
tailored
clothes and
the skirts
tailored
clothes and
the skirts
tailored
In recent seasons, an Ana Duato who is more than 15 years older than her real age represents a Merche who is almost seventy years old. Her wardrobe is based on late 1990s fashion: high leather boots, long cardigans and large scarves.
At her daughter María’s wedding, she wears a dress with a fitted waist, wide sleeves that reach her wrists and fall below her knees
At her daughter María’s wedding, she wears a dress with a fitted waist, wide sleeves that reach her wrists and fall below her knees
At her daughter María’s wedding, she wears a dress with a fitted waist, wide sleeves that reach her wrists and fall below her knees
At her daughter María’s wedding, she wears a dress with a fitted waist, wide sleeves that reach her wrists and fall below her knees
At her daughter María’s wedding, she wears a dress with a fitted waist, wide sleeves that reach her wrists and fall below her knees
In Cuéntame there are also places that are evolving. The most symbolic is the family room, the meeting place for Sunday paella.
Through this and the rest of the rooms in the Alcántara houses, the series tells “the story of the little things,” as Delgado summarizes it: “The Duralex jars or the Iber pots that we all had in our grandparents’ or parents’ house.” They are everyday objects that connect us and remind us of us because we have all had them before.”
The classic painting “Dogs and Deer”, as Antonio Alcántara calls it, traverses the family’s history from one end to the other: over the years it changes places around the house until it merches under a blanket in the middle of the house Reached room. Divorce.
“Cuéntame”: better than the rest of the Spanish series?
Since the series premiered in 2001, the way we consume content has changed, and with it viewership: the most watched episode of Cuéntame (the last of the third season) exceeded seven million viewers and 51% of the audience, an extraordinary fact.
The Alcántara family has met on screen – and survived – with other era-defining series such as Los Serrano, Nobody Lives Here or The Ministry of Time, but it is difficult to compare them. If you look at the ratings of anonymous users on Imdb (The Internet Movie Database), Cuéntame occupies an intermediate place in the ranking of the 100 best Spanish series.
In this classification, miniseries with short and intense storylines coexist with soap operas with thousands of chapters, which are more likely to have worse chapters. An example of this is the average score of the eight episodes of Veneno, which tops the ranking with an 8.7. Cuéntame has 41 chapters that meet or exceed this rating.
Cuéntame is also characterized by the stability of its ratings. The graphic below shows other long Spanish series. In some, like Los Serrano, Los Hombres de Paco or Nobody Lives Here, results gradually decline or eventually fall with disastrous final seasons. Others, like 7 Lives and Águila Roja, seem to improve towards the end, but it can be seen that far fewer people see and appreciate them.
Average rating of each episode on Imdb
Average rating of each episode on Imdb
Average rating of each episode on Imdb
Montserrat Hidalgo contributed to the development of this piece.
methodology
The subtitles are from the episodes published on RTVE Play. The character and chapter data as well as the rating data for the Spanish series come from the public database of the Imdb platform (the hundred most important Spanish series and miniseries with at least a thousand votes were selected).
We have assumed that a character is mentioned when their name appears in the subtitles of a chapter in which Imdb records their participation. For some characters we considered diminutives or nicknames, as in the case of Ana Arias with the names Paquita, Paca or Loba. For relationships, we count a relationship every time two characters are mentioned in a 30-second window in a chapter.
In the relationship graph, we only represent those that occurred at least 10 times. The colors correspond to the individual communities that we obtained using the Louvain clustering algorithm, taking into account the weights of each link. To display the graph, we minimized the weight of connections between communities when calculating their distribution to show the communities more separately.
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