How Russian TV series have changed in recent years

The emergence of streaming platforms (KION, Start, more.tv, Wink, Okko, and others) has greatly influenced Russian TV series. In just a few years, they have changed so much that practically nothing connects them with the projects of the 2000s and the first half of the 10s. We understand what's new in the domestic series of recent years.

Identity appeared

The Netflix example shows that filmed in Korea or Germany series that do not mimic American ones are successful in many countries. Identity attracts viewers, and Russian projects have taken a giant step forward in this direction.

If you look at the television series of the 2000s and their sequels, you might think that they were not filmed in Russia at all. For example, "Happy Together" (2006-2013) showed a two-story apartment where a poor family walks in shoes, and "Univer" (2008-2011) and especially "Univer: New hostel" (2011-2018) demonstrated a hostel, which in the country is simply No. The scriptwriters seemed to specifically refuse to accept Russian realities. Stories and plots looked universal, that is, they could be filmed anywhere. For the same reason, there have been many adaptations: Don't Be Born Beautiful (2005-2006), My Fair

nanny"(2004-2006)," Margosha "(2009-2011) and many other projects simply adopted other people's ideas. In rare cases (“Soldiers”, “Streets of Broken Lanterns”), the connection with reality was still traced, but this is rather an exception to the rule.

Modern serials do not abandon the place of production. So, the authorsmiddle lane vampires"(2021 - present) constantly focus on the fact that the action takes place in Smolensk, and in "Khrustalny" (2021) a provincial village is shown in its natural form. Now the heroes of domestic serials live in Russia.

Projects have matured

The naivety inherent in low-quality TV products is gradually disappearing. "Barvikha" (2009-2011), "Ranetki" (2008-2010) or "Kadetstvo" (2006-2007) showed teenagers who had practically nothing to do with reality. In fact, these are adult fantasies about how children live. The young audience liked the projects, but it is unlikely that an adult could endure at least a couple of episodes of "Ranetok" or "School" (2010) and not go crazy.

Modern series about schoolchildren are interesting not only for them. For example, "black spring(2022) shows the difficulty of growing up in a province where there are no laws or moral authorities. Violence, which teenagers are fond of, becomes a method of establishing at least some order. My Mom's Penguins (2021) demonstrates the difficulty of growing up in a situation where parents do not have time to fully communicate with their children. But Happy End (2021) tells about young people who start working as webcam models due to the lack of other options for earning money. Both the choice of topics and the well-developed dramaturgy make these stories entertaining for any viewer.

Projects with conventionally adult themes have also changed a lot. They have a political dimension ("House arrest" and "Officer" as the best examples), as well as a look into the past. If 10 years ago, only Channel One filmed high-quality historical shows, but now there are definitely more of them - although the authors are also interested in other topics. For example, the writers turned to individuals, including artists ("Ranevskaya”,“ Vertinsky ”) and maniacs (“Fisher”, “Chikatilo”). In addition, now on the screens you can find good psychological thrillers with an interesting plot and deep heroes - so, for all its shortcomings, the "God Complex" is three heads higher than any similar series from zero.

The quality of filming and scripts has increased

Modern Russian projects differ from their predecessors by an increase in the technical level. They sound and look better. Of course, technological progress has played a big role (good cameras and microphones have simply become cheaper and more affordable), but the approach is no less important.

As in the rest of the world, TV series are no longer considered something shameful in Russia, so professionals are not afraid go into the industry. Where the operator of the old show would have put a simple frame "according to the textbook", the current one will experiment. Or perform their basic duties with high quality: work with proportions, build a composition (and not shoot at random). Within one episode, operators can switch from a manual camera to a static one, play with angles. In the projects of the 2000s, the camera work was faceless, and today it is an important specialist who helps the director to make a more interesting visual range.

The sound quality has also stepped up. Technological innovations have led to the fact that some domestic series look no worse than projects HBO or Netflix. True, this applies mainly to talk shows, the action is still on another level.

The quality of the scripts has also improved. The authors are trying to write interesting, not long stories: more and more mini-series are being released that do not claim to be 5-10 seasons. Producers care about the relevance of sequels, not just ratings. Of course, there are a lot of exceptions (in the conditional "Method" one season is enough), but in the 2000s, short projects were quite rare.

The language has changed

The authors of serials for television have always been limited by the boundaries of what is acceptable. I had to give up obscene language, and bed scenes and looked completely comical. As soon as the series moved to streaming, the bans automatically disappeared. Now the heroes speak a living language: with obscenities, anglicisms, slang. True, something similar was in the series "School", but it looked so ridiculous that it was not taken seriously. The scriptwriters, who wanted to diversify their speech, tried to sit on two chairs and “beeped” swear words. Internet platforms allow you not to think about censorship in this regard and age restrictions, and therefore the characters become more diverse.

Of course, there is a downside - sometimes the checkmate replaces normal dialogue (as in last year's "Luca"), but this is a small price to pay for the general changes.

Probably the most changed on-screen speech teenagers: they used to talk the same way as adult characters. The lexicon of Perepechko and Dukalis consisted of the same words, which is at least strange. Now everything is different: the heroines of Aurora (2022) and Officials (2021) use different vocabulary, and a Moscow teenager from My Mom's Penguins communicates differently than his peers from the provinces in "Black Spring".

The emergence of streaming services has had a huge impact on the Russian TV series industry. They have become not only more diverse, but also better. At the same time, big-budget projects still look raw. Therefore, it is better to spend time on, for example, Big Second (2021) or Aurora than on Legacy (2022).