Szomszédok
Szomszédok (Neighbours) was a Hungarian television series that ran between 1987–1999 and produced 331 episodes, airing its grand finale on December 31, 1999. The series aired on state-owned broadcaster Magyar Televízió (Hungarian Television) bi-weekly in primetime, on Thursday evenings, during it entire run.
| Szomszédok | |
|---|---|
| Created by | Ádám Horváth |
| Starring | Ferenc Zenthe Juci Komlós Ilona Ivancsics Károly Nemcsák János Kulka Éva Örkényi |
| Country of origin | Hungary |
| Original language | Hungarian |
| No. of episodes | 331 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Release | |
| Original network | Magyar Televízió |
| Original release | May 7, 1987 – December 31, 1999 |
The series was a soap opera, dealing with the lives of ordinary people, living and working in or around an average lakótelep (Gazdagréti microdistrict, a socialist housing estate with several thousand flats in Budapest, built in the 1980s). Its characters were explored, over time, in equal depth: ranging from elderly pensioners, busy middle aged professionals, up-and-coming young people, and children growing into their teens.
Many consider Szomszédok to be the definitive Hungarian television series, being a period piece of sorts that covers the last few years of the communist era, the rendszerváltozás (democratic transition), and nearly a decade of the new market economy Hungary thereafter.
The series often dealt with the important topics and issues of the day, which affected the lives of everyday people in Hungary. These included politics, the ongoing economical liberalization, and topics such as drug addiction, organized crime, and the introduction of personal computers at home. Szomszédok featured the first gay character in Hungarian broadcast media, a male hairdresser portrayed as a flamboyant, over-the-top gay man, appearing in a smaller, comical recurring role from 1990 to 1993.
Current airing
After some time off the air, Szomszédok was rerun on M1 (Hungary's terrestrial broadcast public television channel) until 13 March 2015. The rerun was initially narrated by computer text inserts, mainly to guide those too young to remember the late communist era (e.g. how much bread cost that time or what significance a particular public figure in mention had at the time). The original cast and director of the series publicly protested against this practice and the information text bubbles were discontinued after a few episodes. Reruns of this programme is now shown on its sister channel, the classic channel M3.
Nowadays, it has only a fraction of its original viewership, as its role has been taken over by Barátok közt, a more vivid and up-to-date daily soap opera produced by the commercial RTL Klub television.
External links
- Élet a Szomszédok után (Hungarian)
- Szomszédok at IMDb