Soda (TV series)

Characteristics

Soda is a French television series produced by CALT, it is based on Adam, an 18 year old high school student, and his everyday struggles to become an adult. Luckily he has his group of friends that are always with him. This teenager’s life is filmed in a funny but realistic way; that is what made this show such a success.

Features

An episode lasts twenty four minutes, each divided into sequences of three minutes and a half The shooting takes place in Bry-Sur-Marne. Its title, Soda, is the anagram of the word “ados”(teenager in French) ( which is explicitly shown at the beginning of the first credits.)

Season 1

This season has been broadcast on M6 with 244 episodes.

Adam is a normal teenager, he lives a quiet life in high school (although he never gets good grades), he has got very good friends (Slimane and Ludovic) and he is in love with the most beautiful girl of the high school (Jenna whose love will never be mutual). He is the oldest child of a common family. His father, Michel, works in a bank and his mother Elizabeth (aka Babeth) is a beautician who has her own business at home (her only true customer will be Malika who is also Slimane’s mother). Dreaming of having a golden life in the US, Adam thinks that this American Dream will fall straight into his hands so he has decided to do whatever he wants with his life, that is, not working in class, playing video-games again and again and doing bad pranks on the high school supervisors (Thierry and Patrick). However, his family compromises his American Dream by being very strict towards him, with his little sister’s bad tricks and by the numerous detentions gets by his high school’s director, Ms Vergneaux.

Season 2

This season has been broadcast on W9 with 249 episodes.

This is Adam’s final year in high school. Nevertheless, he apparently did not make the choice of studying in order to get his A-levels. Besides, the Fontella family is going to put up with the more and more regular attendance of Babeth’s mother, Gisèle, to Michel’s utter despair who cannot stand his mother-in-law anymore. Eve will start showing some interest in Ludovic, Adam’s friend, but he will not see the young girl’s love and will only be interested in his school work or Adam’s jokes who are, most of the time, based on him. Slimane will have a hard time getting rid of Stephanie, Jenna’s best friend, who is constantly tagging along hoping he will fall for her.

Season 3

This season was aired on W9 on September 7th 2013 with a total of 300 episodes. It marks Jenna’s departure because her father is transferred to Africa for business. Adam works part-time in a kebab, Slimane is starting to show some affection for Stephanie, although before he seemed to hate her. In this season, Adam is dating Juliette, who is his after school teacher.

Season 4

Kev Adams announced on Europe 1: In June 2014, a prime-time was shot and it will be broadcast in December 2014 in order to end the series. Adam, Slimane and Ludo will have finished high school and will be leaving to start their professional life

Viewings

The first episodes had very good rating in terms of viewing (2,5 million viewers, which means 11.1% of all television households were tuned in to view the program), but the success did not last very long and fell to 1.2 million viewers (7% of all television households tuned in). The producers still decide to shoot the next season but this time it is broadcast on W9 at 5:50 pm. On August 29th, the show has a total of 1.2 million viewers and season 3 hits 900 000 viewers (5 .8% of all television households tuned in).