Review of Turkish Netflix series 'Not a Stranger'
Daily Sabah · A. Peter Dore ·
'Not a Stranger' largely squanders its potential through an uncomfortable and odd mixture of ambiguity and excessive laboring of plot points
The typical Turkish soap opera, or "dizi," does not really resemble the traditional long-running, indeed multigenerational, soap operas of the U.S. and the U.K. such as "General Hospital" or "Coronation Street," which have been on the air since the 1960s. Nonetheless, they are also unlike typical drama series which run for a set number of episodes and complete a full story arc. The typical Turkish dizi is designed to last for at least a year, although if it survives early cancellation and proves a success, a new season is invariably commissioned. But at some point, it does all come to an end, and, while there are exceptions to this, it is unusual that a Turkish dizi passes three years on the air.
The typical dizi is on once a week in the evening. Although technically they are scheduled to start at 8 p.m., a great deal of advertising time eats into this, interspersed with a summary of the previous week’s action. These summaries are not simple two- to three-minute affairs but are detailed to the point they are more akin to abridgements of novels. As for the new episode, that starts at some point after 9 p.m. and interspersed with fairly long commercial breaks, it runs to just beyond midnight. The typical dizi invariably centers on a love story but includes the wider families and acquaintances of the couple, and the viewing experience it offers is less one that requires hawk-like attention to every detail, but is rather a more relaxed affair of television-centered socialization involving gossip and speculation among those watching it in the living room.
As the traditional dizi is the expected form of TV drama in Türkiye, Netflix presumably saw a hole in the market for the type of series that it has commissioned with such success elsewhere. Such series hold out the promise of a different kind of viewing experience by keeping the storylines tight rather than multilayered and focusing on a smaller set of characters, yet also enabling deeper development of both than that allowed by the shorter running time of a feature film. As such, the Netflix approach had the potential of making Turkish dramas that are so gripping that the viewer will feel they cannot wait for the end and will attempt to binge the series in one viewing.
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