Thanks to netflix, every country can produce an American series these days. Elite doesn't look particularly original, and eventhough I don't know what modern-authentic Spain looks like, I just have this feeling that it doesn't look like this.
I'm not saying that European productions should still look as offbeat and boundary-pushing as they did in the 1970s, but at the same time I'd hate to see that cultural identity disappear altogether.
When I watched the French series Le Chalet and The Churchmen I still very much got those French vibes from it, and that was part of the charm imho.
Elite is by-numbers-teenybopper-pulp which just happens to play in a Spanish setting (well, sort of) and I enjoyed the first series for its blatant schlock and handsome hunks. It's certainly not bad to look at, but when I started with series 2 I realised that's all it had to offer. Besides, it felt like a continuation for the heck of it and not because I needed to know more about them.
Having said that, Gran Hotel was a not-so-subtle tribute to the 1980s American prime time soaps and British Agatha Christie movies, but the period drama aspect and its characters made it just convincing enough that it was indeed a Spanish story, albeit a rather wacky one.
