Antena 3 Primetime Bet ‘Agata and Lola’ gets first images
Spanish top channel Antena 3, part of the commercial broadcaster Atresmedia, behind ‘Money Heist’, ‘Veneno’, ‘Locked Up’, ‘Velvet’, ‘Alba’ and ‘Ángela’, has unveiled the first images of ‘Ágata en Lola’, the major new primetime series.
The series is produced by Atresmedia and Banijay Entertainment-backed Portocabo, a drama series based in Galicia in northwestern Spain, which has produced Movistar Plus+ hits “Hierro” and “Rapa,” Atresmedia’s “Honor” and “Weiss & Morales,” co-produced by Spanish and German public broadcasters RTVE and ZDF.
Starring Eva Martín (“The Vow,” “The Pier”) and Mireia Oriol (“Alma,” “Nevenka”), “Ágata and Lola” also rolls out as heavyweight IP and marks a Spanish adaptation of the France Televisions-RTBF series “Astrid et Raphaelle,” which ran for four seasons.
The French show also inspired the British makeover ‘Patience’. Season 2 became the most watched show to air on Channel 4 in the UK and was sold by Beta Film to over 100 territories, including PBS Masterpiece for the US.
Written by Portocabo writer Carlota Dans (“Weiss & Morales,” “Honor” and Dry Water), along with development manager Nina Hernández and Portocabo founder Alfonso Blanco, “Agata and Lola” opens with a well-dressed middle-aged man walking into the bank and withdrawing €9,000, which he immediately throws into a garbage can, pours gasoline on himself and lights a match.
Chief Inspector Lola Castro asks Agata, a young autistic police archivist who works in criminal records, to provide documents of a similar death. However, Ágata brings a second box with details of a third case, after remembering another absurd suicide. Ágata also suggests a partial explanation for the suicides – leading to a growing friendship between the chaotic Lola and Ágata, a carefully ordered but brilliant criminologist Ágata.
‘Agata and Lola’ also serves as a beginner’s guide for people on the spectrum: their horror of being touched, for example, and their confusion by noise from multiple sources – Ágata cycles to work and toils in the archives wearing headphones.
What’s new about this comfortable crime procedural is “how autism is depicted. We wanted to create in Ágata a character who had been diagnosed later in life, something strongly linked to the female condition (often overlooked), which we thought would be relevant to explore,” Hernández shared. Variety.
“The Spanish version has adopted the feel-good tone, which comes from the relationship between Ágata and Lola, a sense of elevation that is the central pillar of the series. It is also set in Vigo with many exteriors that highlight the city, the surrounding sea and nature as another character of the series,” she added.
This can be seen in the first photos. You find Lola and Ágata outside on a promontory, with Vigo Bay and the green hills beyond, nature, as in ‘Rapa’, providing relief from dark crime elements. In a second, Lola and Ágata are still walking along another part of the bay.
“When creating the series, we wanted to establish a clear identity. We focused on several key elements: the visual dimension, elevating natural locations through striking cinematography, and a cohesive aesthetic that bridges the art and styling departments. In terms of character, we wanted to move away from clichés, especially in the depiction of Ágata’s plight,” says co-director María Togores. Variety.
“We opted for a naturalistic approach, avoiding dramatic excesses and prioritizing character emotion over the plot,” said co-director Oriol Ferrer.
“Conflict arises organically from relationships and not from the specifics of the police case,” Ferrer noted. “The goal is to create an empathetic, intimate and accessible series – a series in which viewers can recognize themselves in the characters’ daily lives.”
