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It’s high time for another of our occasional glances at what the world is watching; the TV popular on the beats covered by some of the Guardian’s many global correspondents. Last time we asked our reporters in Brazil, Jamaica, Japan, Nigeria and Poland, and heard about everything from telenovelas to Caribbean breakfast TV. This time we’ve commissioned a different set of correspondents to tell us about what’s driving the watercooler conversation in the countries they currently call home. Read on for Chinese microdramas, a worthy follow-up to Heated Rivalry and the show that has the hair salons of Côte d’Ivoire abuzz.
Argentina | Envidiosa (Envious)
It makes sense that, in a country often said to have the highest number of psychoanalysts per capita, one of its biggest TV hits would feature a therapist patiently “aha-ing” and “mmm-ing” a protagonist into self-awareness in every episode. It also makes sense that Envidiosa, whose fourth and final season premiered on Netflix on 29 April, has sparked debate in an Argentina still shaped by the feminist wave that culminated in the legalisation of abortion in 2020.
The series, which premiered in 2024, is a romcom starring Griselda Siciliani as Vicky, a 40-year-old spiralling after a breakup, watching others fulfil her long-held dream of marriage. From the outset, some feminist voices dismissed the show as a regressive “telenovela”, with its protagonist’s driving desire to get married and have kids seen as excessively patriarchal.
However, according to feminist journalist María Florencia Alcaraz, its cultural resonance lies precisely in that tension. The series, she told the Guardian, speaks to “a ‘sandwich’ generation … caught between the feminist effervescence of 2015 to 2020 and the enduring weight of traditional mandates”. Vicky is not a feminist heroine – she’s hardly a heroine at all – but she is shaped by feminist questions about desire and autonomy. Its broad comedy and heightened archetypes make room for something more uncomfortable, which ultimately goes beyond gender: a portrait of loneliness in an era of supposed freedom.
Facundo Iglesia, Buenos Aires correspondent
Canada | North of North
In Canada, the rugged, dangerous and disorientating land and waters of the north have long been an obsession for outsiders. Most people in the country, huddled along the southern border, will never travel to the communities scattered throughout the Arctic.
But in the eyes of two Inuit film-makers, the north is also deeply funny. North of North, a comedy show from CBC, follows a young and newly single Inuk mother, Siaja, as she navigates romance, family and her place within a close-knit community. Writers Stacey Aglok MacDonald and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril have used the show to give southerners a glimpse of the humour and humanity of a part of the country that is often an afterthought.
Heated Rivalry without question is the most popular Canadian television production in recent years for a global audience. But don’t count out North of North. Like communities in the Arctic, the show’s success and appeal have unfolded at a slower, quieter pace. It has been renewed for a second season and received 20 nominations at the Canadian Screen Awards – the most of any show in a single year.
Leyland Cecco, Toronto-based reporter
China | microdramas
Overworked commuters and unemployed young people who spend all day scrolling on their phones – China has plenty of both. And hundreds of millions of them are glued to microdramas: one- to two-minute episodes of high-octane entertainment that blend traditional plot-driven television drama with scrollable vertical videos. Plots are often soapy, fantastical and addictive. The first few episodes are free but the whole series is often paywalled.
The model has been wildly successful in China, where the volume of attention-span-sapping short videos and brain-rot content puts the rest of the world to shame. Chinese state media estimates that there are more than 660 million microdrama viewers and that the industry has surpassed 50bn yuan (£5.5bn) in value.
AI has turbocharged the genre, causing concern among actors, for whom microdramas were a rare source of reliable work.
But phone addiction is by no means a uniquely Chinese phenomenon. Many companies are already looking to expand overseas and millions of Americans have downloaded Chinese microdrama apps. Some reckon that the industry will be worth $10bn outside China by 2027.
Amy Hawkins, senior China correspondent
Côte d’Ivoire | Les Nounous (The Nannies)
Les Nounous is a dramatic comedy full of gossip that has caught most of the country’s attention. It follows six domestic workers in a fictional high-end residential neighbourhood in Abidjan. The stars of the show are the mischievous Affoué (Eve Guéhi), a scheming house help obsessed with her madam’s husband, and charming Dotty (Odo Marie), who ends up pregnant after being a tchiza – the local slang for a mistress – to her married boss, while also dating his son.
Since its debut, the show has been watched religiously every weekday and has sparked discussions in maquis (street-side restaurants) and hair salons across the country for its themes of domestic labour and aspirational lifestyles. The use of Nouchi (Ivorian Creole) and the French dialect spoken in Abidjan has also been a big reason for its soaring popularity.
Eromo Egbejule, Guardian west Africa correspondent
