"The Girl in the Mirror" by Sergio G. Sánchez (2022)

A perfect example of the TV series that start very good and than along the way completely loses the plot and you find yourself wondering how did you ever came to this point, "The Girl in the Mirror" (or as in original Spanish "Alma") is a supernatural thriller series that grabs you from the first episode but later sucks out all the energy from the script and from the audience. It is a pity since it could have been much, much better if only Sergio G. Sánchez (its director and screenwriter) kept a better focus on whats important, instead of stretching the story across 9 episodes to the point that we are all exhausted and can't wait for the darn thing to finish. 

The story itself is quite interesting: after a horrible bus crash where almost all of her classmates die, Alma wakes up in a hospital with total amnesia and only trough the patience and support of her parents and close friends, tries to remember what actually happened that particular day. Even while she is in hospital, Alma is aware of a disturbing ghostly presence that no one else can see except herself. 

Now, the beginning is actually genuinely good - there is a strong story that has to do something with immortal ghosts & demons that are trying to posses the human form. We are told bits and pieces about it at the introduction of each episode. And we as the audience are also aware there are some demons involved in a bus crash and this all has to be somehow connected. Unfortunately, instead of focusing on this, Sánchez gets really distracted with personal drama of each supporting character and before you know it, suddenly you find yourself in the middle of some teenage drama with kids agonising about their trivial issues - it makes you want to scream "wait! what about the demons?"  but sadly it is what it is - a teenage drama pretending to be something else, a supernatural thriller. 

After 9 episodes (each of them feeling longer than the previous one) you come to the end of the season and - voilà! - you realise that nothing is explained, the main story about the demons was lost somewhere along the way and we are hurling towards the second season. Which feels like a cheat, since you invested so much time and effort to follow everything to this point. In a way, very similar to Spanish supernatural series "30 Coins" ("30 monedas") that also started good and went on too long, until I decided not to continue with second season. The best thing about it is a stunning location of Asturia in the Northern Spain that actually looks sensational.