Boris first aired on Fox in 2007, Boris is back in the limelight after 10 years: here are the 5 most representative episodes of the series
The TV series Boris first aired on Fox in 2007, winning the hearts of many viewers. Over time, it entered the hearts of many people and was considered one of the best Italian productions of recent years. Now it is back in the limelight thanks to Netflix, which has included it in its catalog from May 2020.
Boris – The Out TV series tells the story of the events that happen in the set of a fictional fiction entitled The Eyes of the Heart. Episode after episode, it becomes clear that the goal is not to narrate the behind the scenes in a funny and light way: we are actually in front of a hilarious and desecrating satire not only of TV but of Italian society, with its compromises, fragilities and cracks. So, not only do we laugh and reflect together with the actors, but we end up using their words, quoting them in our daily speech. Those who still haven’t seen this series can run for cover right away, perhaps starting with the 5 funniest and most representative episodes.
Boris episodes to watch: Il mio primo giorno
It may sound trite, but to discover Boris, you have to start from the first episode, the one that introduces the cast and, above all, introduces us to one of the protagonists of the fiction: the high-flying intern Alessandro (played by Alessandro Tiberi) who enters the game with many dreams and perspectives, driven by a boundless love for cinema but who, very soon, will realize that reality is quite different and that he has to bend and compromise.
It is thanks to Alessandro that we immediately get to know the set and the characters that animate it. In the first episode, we experience the first outburst of Renè Ferretti (Francesco Pannofino), a talented director who dreams of producing art short films, but who finds himself behind the camera of a shoddy fiction, which nonetheless guarantees him a salary.
Alessandro will interface for the first time with Arianna (Caterina Guzzanti), the authoritarian assistant director who brings him back to reality and makes him go straight, especially every time he tries to ask questions, which are judged inappropriate in any case. Alessandro will meet the stars of the fiction being filmed, that is, the second season of “The Eyes of the Heart”. We’re talking about the star Stanis La Rochelle (Pietro Sermonti), who has adopted a foreign name because he thinks that acting “Italian-style” undermines the quality of his work, which is in any case shoddy; and Corinna Negri (Carolina Crescentini) an untalented actress who got the role because she is the girlfriend of Dr. Cane, the head of the network.
Even Biascica (Paolo Calabresi), the chief electrician who speaks Romanesque and eats his words and takes it out on the interns by treating them badly, will appear in the first episode. He manages the lights following the orders of Duccio (Ninni Buscetta), director of photography who spends most of his time sleeping on the couch and using cocaine, which he offers to everyone indiscriminately. Alessandro in this installment witnesses the first motivational speech of Diego Lopez (Antonio Catania), the network delegate, seemingly at the top of the power ladder, but actually subservient to his bosses, who have the real decision-making power over the final product. Finally, Alessandro meets those who are even worse off than him and that is Lorenzo (Carlo De Ruggeri), the “dumb intern” or simply “the slave” forced to respond to commands without speaking and mistreated by everyone, when he is not ignored.
A + B = C
This episode available on Netflix is important because it introduces one of the characters who will appear from time to time in the fiction The Eyes of the Heart, and therefore also in Boris. We’re talking about Nando Martellone (Massimiliano Bruno), the comedian hired to start the comedic line of the fiction desired by Lopez and the network heads to increase the audience.
Naturally, he’s an untalented comedian who made his way because he invented a scurrilous catchphrase that he exclaims repeatedly in his sketches, all of which are without content. Later, as the TV series continues, his career will be jeopardized because Nando will be the protagonist of a scandal: he held a party at his house based on alcohol and drugs in which a transsexual woman died of an overdose and therefore he is investigated. The network wants him to die in the fiction because they want to untie him from his character that has become compromising, but he still manages to get away with it because he finds a loophole in the script of the fiction that allows him to remain in the cast and not lose his job.
Il Gioielliere
The third episode that we recommend is one of the funniest and has as its protagonist Corinna, the actress who is the symbol of Boris because she tries to be good but does worse and worse, managing to further ruin the fiction that already has a poor quality.
In this episode Corinna is unable to pronounce the word “jeweler” correctly and always ends up saying “gioieiere”. In the meantime, Gli Occhi del Cuore (The Eyes of the Heart) organizes a press conference and to fill the room, some “fictitious journalists” are hired, including Biascica, who asks Lopez a question about the overtime never paid by the network. At the end of the episode, Corinna manages to find a way to avoid saying “jeweler”, thus managing to close the scene after a thousand attempts.
Who will save us?
This episode is particularly important because it introduces us to the character of Mariano Giusti, played by Corrado Guzzanti. The actor plays the Count, an antagonistic character in Gli Occhi del Cuore. Unfortunately, actor Mariano Giusti has enormous mental disorders that lead him to have fits of rage in which he destroys everything. In this episode he returns to the set changed because he had a meeting with Jesus on the Rome-L’Aquila, who announced him his mission: to play Father-Frediani in the new fiction produced by the network. This character with his crazy and introspective traits will animate several episodes of Boris.
Una giornata particolare
The last episode of Boris that we recommend you watch, even though the list would be really long, is the one that introduces another key character: Glauco Benetti, played by Giorgio Tirabassi. He is a close friend of René’s and replaces him in some scenes of Gli Occhi del Cuore. When he arrives, he immediately revolutionizes the hierarchy of the set, giving Alessandro the role of assistant director and Arianna a second level role. In addition, in the second season (the episode is called No Logo) he will work to insert hidden advertising in the fiction in order to profit further without communicating it to the network.
He is the talented director who has chosen to work outside of Italy, in fact he moved to South Africa and devotes himself to auteur productions, but every so often he returns and when he does he has no scruples: he dictates the law, tries to earn and profit from everything and treats the actors badly.