Spanish Remake of Norwegian Teen Drama Finds Its Own Voice

Movistar+ had a problem worth solving in 2018: how do you remake a Norwegian phenomenon without losing the thing that made it work? Julie Andem’s original Skam built its audience on clips released in real time, matched to the actual clock of its teenage characters’ lives. The Spanish version, SKAM España, kept that engine. It ran for four seasons and 39 episodes, from September 16, 2018 to October 25, 2020, and it moved the whole thing to Madrid.

The show follows a group of 16-year-olds at IES Isabel la Católica, a high school near El Retiro. It deals with shame, loneliness, self-acceptance, bullying, bisexuality, feminism, empowerment, sorority and toxic relationships. That is a long list, and the show’s best seasons earn most of it.

Trailer, via Movistar Plus.

Eva Vázquez and the first season

Season one belongs to Eva Vázquez, played by Alba Planas. She is the entry point, the girl whose friendships and romances set the terms for everything that follows. The premise is plain: dependence on social media, how these kids face sex, love and ruptures, religion, the search for identity and the need to fit in.

What SKAM España gets right early is the ordinary cruelty of it. These are not villains. They are teenagers making small decisions that cost them people. The show does not dress that up.

Cris Soto and Joana Bianchi

Season two hands the story to Cris Soto, played by Irene Ferreiro, and Rizha as Joana Bianchi. This is where the series finds its strongest thread. Cris’s season carries the bisexuality storyline the premise promises, and it does so without turning the relationship into a lesson.

Ferreiro and Rizha play the attraction and the fear of it as one thing, not two. The season is the strongest run the show has.

Nora Grace and the third year

Nora Grace, played by Nicole Wallace, takes season three. By this point the show has settled into its rhythm: a new lead, a new set of pressures, the same school and the same group of friends orbiting in and out.

Wallace plays Nora with a guarded quality that suits the material. The season is more uneven than the one before it, but it holds.

Amira Naybet, Viri Gómez and the last season

Season four splits its attention between Amira Naybet, played by Hajar Brown, and Viri Gómez, played by Celia Monedero. Amira is the character the premise’s mention of religion is built around, and Brown carries that weight without the script ever reducing her to a symbol.

The final season aired its last episode on October 25, 2020. Four seasons, 39 episodes, and a cast that also includes Fernando Lindez as Alejandro Beltrán, Alejandro Reina as Lucas Rubio, Lucas Nabor as Dani Soto and Soufian Elben as Kassim.

The real-time release schedule

The format is the show’s signature, and it is worth laying out plainly. SKAM España did not release seasons as blocks. It released material on a schedule tied to the characters’ week.

That structure is the whole bet. It asks the audience to show up on the show’s clock rather than their own, and it makes the characters feel like people with a Tuesday, not a plot with a runtime.

What the Madrid setting adds

Moving the story to a high school near El Retiro is not a cosmetic change. The Norwegian original had its own specific geography, and SKAM España has Madrid. The show uses the city as a real place these kids move through, not a backdrop.

The Spanish adaptation also keeps the genre mix the source material lists: drama and comedy. The comedy matters more than it gets credit for. These characters are funny, and the show lets them be.

Where the show falls short

Four seasons is a lot of room, and SKAM España does not fill all of it equally. The later seasons lean harder on the ensemble and lose some of the focus that made the early runs work. When the show spreads its attention across the whole group, the specific pressure of a single character’s shame gets diluted.

The format also has a cost. Real-time release rewards the audience that keeps up and punishes the one that arrives later. Watched as a finished object, some of the tension the schedule created on first airing does not survive the trip.

The score

SKAM España earns a 7.7 out of 10. The Cris and Joana season alone justifies the watch, and Hajar Brown’s Amira gives the series a closing run with real weight. The show understands that shame is not a theme you announce. It is a thing a 16-year-old feels in real time.

That is the part worth keeping. The Madrid version of Skam is not the definitive one, and it does not need to be. It is a remake that took the premise seriously, cast it well, and trusted its audience to keep up. A 7.7 out of 10 is a fair score for a show that was very good at its best and merely good at its worst.

Movistar+ · SKAM España · Spanish TV · Streaming · teen drama · TV Review