Greek Island Murder Mystery ‘The Beach’ Puts Dark Spin on Summer of Love, Proves to Be Primetime Hit

variety.com:

Christopher Vourlias Even before it became a primetime sensation last fall, Greek drama “The Beach” had all the elements of a smash hit.

Set during the summer of free love in a hippie commune on the island of Crete, the sun-splashed series takes a dark turn with a mysterious murder, setting into motion events that have captivated Greek audiences across more than one hundred episodes to date.

For the creative team at Foss Productions, which co-produced the show with public broadcaster ERT, “The Beach” was an opportunity to push the envelope in a way that hadn’t been done before on Greek television. “We thought, ‘Let’s try to approach a long-running show in the same way that we approach a mini-series,’” says Orestis Plakias, of the Athens-based outfit behind shows like the Netflix original series “Maestro in Blue” and 2023 Series Mania competition selection “Milky Way.” “We wanted to introduce something different to the long-running shows,” he continues. “We tried to do it in the most cinematic way.

That’s what we do. We love the movies, and we want to do shows that feel like a movie.” “The Beach,” which is being sold by Beta Film at MipTV, begins on the shores of Crete in 1969 and follows a commune of free-loving hippies whose radical belief system sets it on a collision course with the neighboring island community, which still clings to a more traditional way of life.