A Season of Venice

Season one of Venice the Series is now over, the set up has been carefully hung in place to slide into the next season and and I have to say I have enjoyed this experience a great deal from the tweets to the show itself. It’s been fascinating seeing the peeks and troughs as Team Venice have navigated the minefield that is the Venice fandom and before the subscription ends on the 1st of May I will certainly be indulging in a bit of back to back episode watching!

I didn’t really know what to expect going into this, never having followed a webseries, let alone a webseries with such a ‘dedicated’ fandom before the first episode even aired, but I have to say it’s been rather compelling. My highlights include the long awaited kiss, of course, but the great thing has been some of the moments I didn’t expect to enjoy – such as seeing Ani kiss Lara (most enjoyable just for the record :P) and the final scene between Gina and Tracy on the beach. This last and the lovely rapport built up with Owen and Guya allowed us to find a note of sympathy for a clearly damaged woman who has had it tough loosing a mother so young and having a homophobic father. I need not mention the Giani scenes – most notably the hugging on the beach and inverted bench slide– that had me wanting more (oh I do hope we see more development of Giani in S2!) which captured some beautiful moments.

Though Venice the Series has not been perfect, with some episodes and scenes working better than others and with some elements of structure disrupting the flow, it found lovely elements of truth and while doing so entertained me. In fact more than that, it has offered fans a (mostly) loving and warm community where I have never before seen such outpourings of love and gratitude. That is certainly something special. They have been brave in being so immediately available to us because in doing so they expose themselves to what has at times been harsh criticism but instead of retreating from it, they have taken it on board and addressed it. In this way they have shown more grace than some fans and I admire that.

Thank you Crystal, Kimmy and Team Venice for bringing us Venice, for your tireless commitment to engaging with the fans and for listening to us even when listening can’t have been easy.

With season one behind us I am looking forward to the promised titbits they will be throwing our way as they gear up for the filming of season two and to following them as they continue on their journey. I hope they know that they have my support.

So meanwhile... a hand-cuff-cliff-hanger, eh?… Intriguing…