Secret Lives (1999)
Original title: Salatut elämät
Secret Lives is a 1999 Finnish-language soap series created by Jason Daniel and Anne Harris. It stars Sami Uotila, Esko Kovero and Tommi Taurula.
One Helsinki stairwell, a few dozen tenants, and no end in sight. Salatut elämät premiered on MTV3 on 25 January 1999, and the writers have mined the same apartment block, Pihlajakatu 23 B, ever since: neighbours, their children, their exes, their jobs, and the collisions of people who cannot avoid each other.
The form is the classic daily soap. Episodes arrive through the week rather than in prestige seasons, storylines hand off between households, and a thread can run for months before it lands. Length is the appeal. Characters age at close to real time, the ensemble takes in Timo Jurkka, Olga Temonen and Sami Uotila, and the tenants turn over the way they would in a real building. Of the original twenty characters, four are still around: Ismo, Kalle, Aki and Kari. Most of the current cast arrived in 2010 or later. Ismo has never left.
Take it as a habit rather than a binge. Newcomers can start anywhere, since the block keeps filling with fresh tenants and fresh trouble.
Official site
Cast
- Sami Uotila as Aki Nikkinen
- Esko Kovero as Ismo Laitela
- Tommi Taurula as Kari Taalasmaa
- Pete Lattu as Kalle Laitela
- Timo Jurkka as Lasse Sievinen
- Teemu Lehtilä as Aaro Vaalanne
- Markku Pulli as Joonatan Sievinen
- Mikko Parikka as Jiri Viitamäki
- Sanna Luostarinen as Elina Taalasmaa
- Anu Palevaara as Jenni Vainio
- Tuomas Kytömäki as Aleksi Salin
- Jarmo Koski as Seppo Taalasmaa
Similar series
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A few thoughts on Secret Lives
For the same city in a different register, Naked Harbour gathers a handful of Helsinki lives and lets their stories brush against each other, the ensemble structure of a soap pressed into one film. Girl Picture sticks with three young women through jobs, friendships and weekend nights, and it catches the texture of ordinary Finnish twenties that daytime drama rarely has room to slow down for.
In print, People in the summer night does the neighbour-to-neighbour hand-off that a soap does across episodes, moving between households over a single midsummer night. If the serial rhythm is the draw, try Suppli, a josei manga that follows one woman's office life and relationships volume by volume, with the same patience for small domestic turns.