Control Z (Netflix Mexico) S01: C+

A group of teens are harassed in their high school by a hacker, that threats them with exposing their secrets if they do not play along in his game.

This is the simple way to explain what this series is about without letting on too much on the story and spoiling it.

For me this is the newest guilty pleasure. A series that is kinda bad, but for some reason I couldn't stop watching. Yes I already told you I'm a sucker for high school dramas and watching eye candy like Michael Ronda and Andres Baida (who play Javier and Pablo respectively) helps boost this series.

Alexis Fridman who also produced Monarca for Netflix, brings to our screen this story about trying to fit in, in the complicated world of high school.

Why I love the series? The hacker plays a very nice game of putting our group of students against each other, and in this type of series we always ask, where are the parents in all of this? well here they answer the question for that and the school's principal is obviously not very good at his job, the voices of the parents that demand solutions to the school's bullying problematic are heard, but he doesn't know how to stop them. When the hacker even threatens the school with exposing their secrets. Of course the parents are also not very good at parenting or even adulting. Not all of them, but most. But this is a teen drama so we do not focus on that very much. Except they have a perfect story line for a potential second season.

One of the actresses that specially caught my attention is definitely Zión Moreno (who plays Isabela) she has some of the best one liners, and true she still looks kinda stiff, but I already put her on my watch list, she would be part of the upcoming Gossip Girl reboot at HBOMax, streaming service that was launched yesterday. Can't wait to see who she's playing there and I'm pretty sure she is going to kill it.

The dramatic elements even though they start a little bit ridiculous and childish, soon one of those storylines escalates quickly, to then slow down to build up to that moment in the season finale. Must confess I did shed a tear at one moment.

Now let's go to the bad things about Control Z. I'll try to be nice.

Monarca had the feeling and look of a prime time soap opera. But Control Z looks like a cheap day time soap opera. What little I saw from the trailer I questioned why Álvaro Rico from Elite accepted to promote this series. I though is he really that desperate for money?

And production wise the series did not improve as we advanced in the series. But the storyline did improve enough for me to get hooked.

Also the story centers and rely a lot on Sofía (played by Ana Valeria Becerril). First I don't think she is a bad actress, I think she was given most of the worst dialogues that we hear in the series. Sofía is this outsider that doesn't fit in with any high school clique. She's way too smart and mature for high schoolers. And it's with her advantage point of view that she's asked to help in discover who the hacker is. And they give this CSI type of dialogue and quick editing (that ironically is not that quick) so we discover along with her the clues of a person's back story and secrets. She follows the thread until she's also deep into high school drama.

All of this dialogues and images seem so forced and unnatural. There are times that it looks like the actress doesn't even know what she's saying or at least doesn't believe in her dialogue. Because yes sometimes times those deductions are very stretched.

And sadly for the series they somehow made her the lead role, when it would have worked better to be a group ensemble just like Gossip Girl or Elite.

But very naturally they close doors and open a bunch more for a potential more troubled second season. Hopefully they would invest more in it, because they might have gold in their hands.

This series can have the potential to become the first world wide hit from Netflix Mexico. Like Elite, Dark, or Money Heist.