“Do you think we have ever covered anything? We have not covered anything at all, it has been us with our defects and our virtues,” Belén Esteban responded this Tuesday at the presentation of Sálvese who can, giving the perfect definition of what the docu is. -Netflix reality show with which The People’s Princess, from now on La Patrona, Kiko Matamoros, Terelu Campos, Lydia Lozano, María Patiño, Chelo García Cortés, Kiko Hernández and Víctor Sandoval have wanted to wipe the slate clean, or almost.
“We have been in Sálvame for 14 years, which has been the program of our lives, but the time has come to close it,” says La Patrona. She is the leading voice, although she denies it, of this “authentic and great television” – in the words of Kiko Matamoros – which is Every Man for Himself, which Netflix premieres tonight at 9:00 p.m. – the first time the platform has done something like this – and that has taken the eight oldest, most famous and most addicted collaborators of Sálvame to Miami and Mexico.
“My full name is María Belén Esteban Fernández. I became known through a relationship that I had with a person, but I have been on television for many years and I do not depend on that person. I am now Belén Esteban. I am going to be The People’s Princess always, but from now on I want to be called La Patrona”. This is how the first chapter of the first three episodes of Sálvese que can begins – the other three will arrive in January. Quite a declaration of intentions because, although the docu-reality is Sálvame in its purest form, “it is its essence”, no matter how much they cross the pond for them and for La Fábrica de la Tele, the producer of the docu-reality and, of course , from Sálvame, this has to serve to turn the page once and for all. And not only with Sálvame but with everything, even if possible with Mediaset. “The only money that Mediaset is going to earn this year is from Netflix and not from what they are doing,” says Belén Esteban, who when she gets hot is worse than an erupting volcano.
In Sálvese who can, the eight collaborators go first to Miami and then to Mexico to find a professional future. This is a script; the final result, no. That is what Belén Esteban was referring to when she stated that they have never hidden anything. And the thing is that in Sálvese que can there is the best and the worst of all of them. “The shit box,” as Kiko Hernández assures, but also the family that all of them have formed after so many years and, especially, after this trip, which they hope “will be repeated, wherever they send us.”
At the moment, neither Netflix, nor the collaborators, nor La Fábrica de la Tele confirm if there will be a second season or if they will go to El Hormiguero -yes, the Telecinco competition program- to promote the docu-reality. “Anything can be, but we are not going to say anything,” says Belén Esteban, ordering absolute silence to the rest of his colleagues. Second season? “It all depends on how they work,” they tell us. Anything else? Deathly silence. It smells like after Prime Video is going to try the live shows of Operación Triunfo, could Netflix be thinking about a possible live Every Man for Himself? All rumors, but “when the water sounds…” they say on television lies. It will depend on how the relationship between La Fábrica de la Tele and Mediaset ends. And although Belén Esteban insisted during the presentation on shouting like a woman possessed that La Fábrica is “independent”, for now, Mediaset still has 33% of the production company.
What there is no doubt about is that viewers will have to settle or, rather, enjoy, and it is no small thing, to see how they arrive in Miami, how they meet Thalía’s sister, Laura Zapata, – they hate each other’s guts. -, see how all of them find work in the Mediapro program Siéntese qué puede. Everyone except Lydia Lozano. They skin Lydia, sink her, massacre her… Come on, as happened in Sálvame. The difference is that now it is not her colleagues, but local journalists and showmen who cause, as it could not be otherwise, that Lydia Lozano ends up crying like a cupcake, that she ends up shouting that she is going back to Madrid, while María Patiño, the great discovery of Every Man for Himself, begs him not to leave: “Please, don’t do this to us because I need you.”
We have understood this professional challenge as an opportunity to once again be next to the people who have loved us and hated us.
Lydia Lozano and Terelu Campos (Terelú, in Miami) are bitched, speaking badly and soon, the biggest thing. Everyone leaves Terelu. “I’ve never been to Terelu’s eggs in Miami,” and everyone drinks. “If you are sick to death, have the balls to say it,” threatens Terelu Campos in the middle of dinner on a luxurious yacht in the mythical bay of Miami. It’s seeing Belén Esteban in Miami Beach and asking Terelu to keep the insulin pump for her because she doesn’t want anyone to see her “with it.” It’s seeing Kiko Matamoros calling Chelo García Cortés Chelordomo and she ends up crying with indignation because she “is no less of a lady for helping a man.”
“The experience on a personal level has been very nice,” confesses Kiko Matamoros, although she acknowledges that the days were “exhausting.” “We have looked back with perspective and from a position in which we could feel uncomfortable, but we have understood this professional challenge as a gift, an opportunity to once again be next to the people who have loved us, who have hated us and the millions of people who have missed us,” he adds.
And there are many things that have been cut, like the moment of the 25 sachets of Cola Cao for which Terelu Campos paid a fortune in a cafeteria at the Barajas airport, because if she doesn’t take one in the morning as soon as she gets up , is not a person. She had left them at home, of course.
In these first three chapters there is no type of script, although there are certain moments that seem forced, but it is not known if because they are or because they really are like that. The collaborators got up every morning at the time they were told and, from then on, everything was a surprise. They were almost always divided into two groups. Five directors, all under the orders of David Valldeperas, were in charge of recording with each of the teams 14 hours of recordings a day, which is said to be early. The result: “A Mr. Bean multiplied by 10, a comic scene of people who wanted to give their lives to entertain.”
The one speaking is María Patiño, probably of all of them, the one who was most afraid of this new project – and, surely, the one who has had the most impact having participated in the docu-reality. The journalist has always been terrified of this type of format, and this one was no different because editing had to be added. “For me it has been the most healing experience of my life,” she explains, and assures that “if with Every Man for Himself we manage to make you go crazy, I swear that I no longer want to ask for anything more from life.” Spoiler: yes, you’re crazy.
You’re shocked because every man for himself is a big Save Me, a 24/7 Save Me, and on top of that, it’s done without any ifs or buts and without anyone clipping their wings. “Freedom, freedom, without anger freedom…”, the collaborators sing. “It’s so easy to work without being given a list of banned people…” Another blow for Mediaset and its Code of Ethics.
The only thing Netflix has done, as the protagonists have acknowledged, is “pay for everything” and then “let us do whatever we want.” And so you can see Kiko Hernández kissing the El Puma star on the Miami Walk of Fame, or María Patiño crying like a mourner when she saw Puma himself, or Víctor Sandoval returning to the house where he lived with Nacho Polo – her ex-husband – to discover that the woman who lived there had died a few days ago: “It’s a curse and some of us are going to take her.”
None of them come back cursed because for all of them, without any of them having said otherwise, Every man for himself “is now the future.” “I no longer have any feeling of guilt, a long time ago I stopped asking for forgiveness for what I did and wherever they take me there will always be someone who doesn’t like it and someone who likes it,” says María Patiño.
That’s right, Sálvame will always be in his memory, “because we left our lives for him”, but he is already more than dead and buried. “We are no longer on Sálvame or Mediaset, we are on Netflix and, surely, Save Who Can is also the program of my life.” Word of the Patron.
