Maldivas Season 1 review: A mediocre melodrama with plot holes and weak characters

2.5/5

Story:

The Maldivas is a condo community that promises to never keep its residents wanting for everything. But beneath the posh and luxury, the condo residents, including Milene (Manu Gavassi), Rayssa (Sheron Menezzes), Patricia (Vanessa Gerbelli), Veronica(Natalia Klein) and Kat (Carol Castro), hide some dark secrets. Meanwhile, somewhere else, young Liz (Bruna Marquezine) is celebrating her impending marriage, but realises that she cannot be truly happy unless she makes a last ditch effort to find her missing mother. Her search soon leads her to none other than Maldivas, which finds itself rocked by a tragedy.

Review:

Maldivas seems to be a badly made concoction of melodrama and murder mystery that does make an effort to intrigue, but ultimately falls short. The series initially did hold promise, inviting viewers into the enchanting world of Maldivas, a luxury condo community which seems to never leave its residents wanting for anything. Giving off Dangerous Housewives vibes, the series plunges into the many, many dark secrets that plague the seemingly ‘perfect’ lives of the Maldivas residents.

The phrase ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’ describes Maldivas perfectly, as the show tries to cram in the various plotlines of its main characters into its seven episodes that prove to be woefully inadequate. The result becomes rushed, half baked character arcs that are not accorded the required time to develop organically. The writers did seem to try and give the characters a semblance of depth and dimensions, as the skeletal remains of the same are visible in their stories. But even those at times seem to be cliched tropes sprinkled with bits and pieces of ingenuity. For instance, Milene’s story is a tale as old as time, her shallow pursuits only to fill the void of her husband’s neglect. Rayssa and Kat fare better in this regard, having a bit more complicated and layered arcs. While the former’s open marriage with her husband and affair make for some provocative bits of the show, the latter’s crime spree with her husband also made for an interesting turn of events. But sadly, neither of them are given their dues in the end, their stories either left unfinished or messily and unsatisfactorily tied up.

The intrigue Liz’s arrival at the Maldivas brought falls disappointingly flat as well. Instead of a well made mystery where Liz tries to uncover the truth about her mother’s disappearance, viewers are left with a protagonist as confused and directionless as they come. Add to the mess a confused and ill conceived love triangle between her fiance and the incompetent detective investigating her mother’s disappearance, and its the perfect recipe for a forgettable, lacklustre plot.

The saving grace of the series comes in the form of Natalia Klein as Veronica. Her witticisms and devil may care attitude serve as the perfect solace in the quagmire of the messy storylines.

The story itself has its fair share of plotholes, and the writers themselves seem to have forgotten the direction they wanted the show to take. Unanswered questions and missed opportunities rear their head all too often. From the very first episode the show teases viewers into getting their expectations high, especially when it came to an instance where all the protagonists found themselves positioned outside the door of a woman whose death sparks the turn of events in the show. But sadly this intriguing plot is thrown away and forgotten almost immediately, and viewers are kept waiting for an absorbing culmination that fails to deliver.

Verdict:

With too many plot holes and lazy writing, Maldivas loses its shine right from the beginning. A promising story quickly evolves into a mundane plot as the series progresses, and Natalia Klein’s performance as Veronica is one of the few things the show has going for it.