Los Simuladores | |
---|---|
Genre |
Comedy-drama Suspense Mystery Black comedy Satire Thriller |
Created by | Damián Szifron |
Developed by | Damián Szifron |
Starring |
Federico D'Elía Alejandro Fiore Diego Peretti Martín Seefeld |
Opening theme | "Cité Tango" by Gotan Project |
Country of origin | Argentina |
Original language(s) | Spanish |
No. of episodes | Season 1: 13/Season 2: 11. |
Production | |
Camera setup | Multicamera setup |
Running time | 60 minutes |
Release | |
Original network | Telefé |
Picture format | PAL |
Original release | March 21, 2002 – December 23, 2003 |
Los Simuladores (The Pretenders) is an Argentine television series about a small team of con artists for hire, who use their skills to solve common people's life problems. The show ran for two seasons, from 2002 to 2003. It was very popular and highly acclaimed, winning a Golden Martín Fierro Award. A number of remakes have been produced for various markets worldwide. There are also plans to release a film based on the series.
The original series was produced and aired by the Argentine network Telefé, and ran for two seasons (the first one with 13 episodes and the last one with 11) in 2002 and 2003. The series is occasionally shown in reruns on Telefé. Remakes were soon produced in Chile and in Spain (the latter produced by Cuatro), using some of the same actors and production members. Another remake was made in Russia. Since 2008, Sony Pictures Television International has produced a remake for Mexican television network Televisa; as of late 2010, early production is starting on a third season, in which Salma Hayek is scheduled to appear.
The premise of the series centers on a team of four associates who ran a "simulation" business, solving the problems and needs of their clients by staging simulacros ("simulations", or confidence tricks) aimed at confusing whoever is giving their clients a problem (bosses, criminals, spouses, unscrupulous businessmen, etc.), thus helping the client come on top of the situation. The price the team charges for its services was exactly twice the cost of the simulation, as well as the client's promise to participate in future simulations (this led to characters who appeared in previous episodes re-appearing in later episodes as secondary actors and helpers for the team, giving the show a degree of continuity). The underlying philosophy used by the team was that sometimes what's legal is not fair, and sometimes what's fair is not legal.