When you're a Belgian or Dutch speaking person you got to love this. Great acting, fantastic script and unbelievably funny! I don't know if there's a subtitled version for non-Dutch speaking people and if the special kind of humor would be understood by everyone but I can only advice everyone to give it a try. Do not expect anything you're used to but see this as a positive feature.
5 Reviews
Superb Television
harikr31 January 2005
Het Eiland, another great TV series directed by the amazing Jan Eelen, who can't stop delivering some great television.
Het Eiland tells us the story about 3 friends(Guido, Franky, Michel) who work together at the administration in Cynalco Medics. When Alain 'protput' Vandam(a great role by Tom Van Dyck, just look at him and u start to laugh :D) arrives at Cynalco Medics to work with these 3 friends, the whole situation gets out of hand. Franky can't stand 'protput' (as he calls him) and continuously makes fun of Alain, who has always been a very different (his laugh :D), unsure type of person. This series gets so hilarious at times, unbelievable.
After 'Buiten De Zone', 'Alles Kan Beter', 'het Peulengaleis', 'In De Gloria' and even 'het Geslacht De Pauw', 'Het Eiland' is another great Belgian comedy you don't wanna miss.
Het Eiland tells us the story about 3 friends(Guido, Franky, Michel) who work together at the administration in Cynalco Medics. When Alain 'protput' Vandam(a great role by Tom Van Dyck, just look at him and u start to laugh :D) arrives at Cynalco Medics to work with these 3 friends, the whole situation gets out of hand. Franky can't stand 'protput' (as he calls him) and continuously makes fun of Alain, who has always been a very different (his laugh :D), unsure type of person. This series gets so hilarious at times, unbelievable.
After 'Buiten De Zone', 'Alles Kan Beter', 'het Peulengaleis', 'In De Gloria' and even 'het Geslacht De Pauw', 'Het Eiland' is another great Belgian comedy you don't wanna miss.
mediocre television that aged really bad
onze-kris24 May 2024
There are several flaws with this program and most of the directors others that i couldnt watch enough to commentate on.
Annoying background music the generic music in the background serves no function.
It distracts from what is happening
bad editing the editing is so obvious that it is really annoying. It is a trick to make believe that a shot is continuous. To use it once i understand to do it most of the time with no function again is too much
characters this is a television series. The characters are bigger clichees than those in anime or superhero movies and this brings us to the stories . These are at the the level of an elementary school.
This was really popular and i saw a couple of episodes at friends places back than. They thought it was hilarious. I thought it was pretty bad.
It is now recognized as a classic by the production house. In house marketing goes a long way... and i watched the first episode before i rated this.
As far as first impressions go. Well it is about as bad as they can get. I sat through it despite the really bad first minutes and trying to look for something positive.
Honestly there isn,t.
Similar shows with that setting are much better. Take for instance debiteuren, crediteuren. Or the office. Or in a slightly different setting the it crowd.
Even a show that aired 25 years prior to this the collega's is in every way superior and aged much better.
My rating avoid.
Annoying background music the generic music in the background serves no function.
It distracts from what is happening
bad editing the editing is so obvious that it is really annoying. It is a trick to make believe that a shot is continuous. To use it once i understand to do it most of the time with no function again is too much
characters this is a television series. The characters are bigger clichees than those in anime or superhero movies and this brings us to the stories . These are at the the level of an elementary school.
This was really popular and i saw a couple of episodes at friends places back than. They thought it was hilarious. I thought it was pretty bad.
It is now recognized as a classic by the production house. In house marketing goes a long way... and i watched the first episode before i rated this.
As far as first impressions go. Well it is about as bad as they can get. I sat through it despite the really bad first minutes and trying to look for something positive.
Honestly there isn,t.
Similar shows with that setting are much better. Take for instance debiteuren, crediteuren. Or the office. Or in a slightly different setting the it crowd.
Even a show that aired 25 years prior to this the collega's is in every way superior and aged much better.
My rating avoid.
Humor of a special kind..
pierre_vis7 February 2005
It's not easy to describe a series as this one! I think 'hilarious' is the best possible way to label it. You shouldn't ask yourself to much what you're watching at. Just enjoy the nice acting-work, the crazy mimics and the 'amazing' plots. I believe these series have the same spirit as 'In Den Gloria'. Not only because most of the crew-members are identical, but also because the kind of humor. You can laugh a lot watching the film, although there is something dramatic in the characters. Sometimes you just feel sorry for one of the characters, when he, once again, does something stupid. I have noticed that the Flemish public can be divided in two groups: Some people really don't see what's funny about this kind of 'over-acting', others consider it to be 'funny as hell' and really enjoy it. Maybe it's like 'Fawlty Towers' in a way: You like it a lot, or you don't, but there's no way in between..
Very good Belgian humor
nbaarend3 January 2006
This one is great. One of the best comedies made ever. You have to like the style. All the small things in it makes it a great series. Every character has something special. Alain has a great laugh. Sammy Tange is his best friend, and when those 2 are laughing together, you have to laugh too. The story begins on a normal workday. The boss of the department is fired, and someone has to replace him. There are three friends working on the same 'working-island', and one of them is going to be boss. That will be Guido. That results in a new employee to replace Guido (Alain is the replacer), but he is not welcome at first. This all results in very strange situations you cannot imagine. They think that Sammy Tange is the devil. Frankie wants to introduce games like 'helicopter' (spinning on your chair). Guido is not able to handle his new job. Sammy Tange can talk backwards. And so on... In the 2nd series, there is a new guy introduced, called Bucky. When he is around, all kinds of different situations are created, and things get worse and worse everyday.
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