Arcadia - Season 2

Arcadia is a prestigious science fiction series that introduces us to a world where your social status is determined by the score you have.Arcadia, a Flemish-Dutch collaboration to create a sensational SF series, was already renewed for a second season before the first episode was broadcast. On average, the episodes of this utopian series cost around 1 million euros. It must have caused a lot of gnashing of teeth among the makers when it turned out that the general public was not immediately enthusiastic about this series, which is set in a world where an individual's score is the most important factor. The higher the score, the better your life is. Of course, you can also win or lose points and as soon as you fall below a certain limit, you are banned.



In the first season we saw how the paterfamilias of a new blended family, Pieter Hendriks, is banished because he has tampered with the points system. Some of his family is also demoted, but their score is still enough to avoid being banished. While Pieter tries to survive in the wilderness where he has ended up, his family members try to find their way in the world without him. For some this is a bit easier than for others. Here it is mainly their job and their score that counts. Some family members work for the Vizier, the board of Arcadia, and therefore remain largely unscathed, while others suddenly have to deal with a demotion because their score has dropped.

The eight episodes of the first season were mainly a very big and long introduction to the world of Arcadia. That world, ruled by the Vizier, is protected by the Shield. In the second season, the system of Arcadia is attacked both internally and externally and the almost crime-free world of Arcadia is turned upside down by abuse of power by both the head of the Shield and the Vizier himself. That Pieter Hendriks and his family play a major role in this, was to be expected. After all, they were the characters who were emphatically put forward in the first season.



That fact certainly ensured that the second season of Arcadia gained a lot more momentum. Perhaps a bit too much, because I sometimes had the feeling that the makers had to adjust their ambitions after the disappointing reactions to the broadcast of the first season. The recordings of season two had already started, so backing out was out of the question. I think the makers had several seasons in mind for the story they wanted to tell. In episode eight, however, everything comes to a climax, which means that a possible sequel to Arcadia could be a completely different story.