Fiction, sometimes, does not lag behind reality. Yesterday, the peninsular territory was without electricity and communications for several hours. While the technicians investigate the exact origin of the incident, a question began to repeat itself: wasn’t there a series that told a similar story?
Yes, it was called Apagón, it was first a podcast, it premiered in 2022 on Movistar Plus+ and had an eerily similar starting point: a solar storm hit the Earth and caused a generalized electrical collapse.
What’s the Blackout series about?
No lights, no Internet, no phones, no public transportation. Five chapters, five stories directed by different but some of the most solid names in Spanish cinema -Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Isa Campo, Alberto Rodríguez, Isaki Lacuesta- that portrayed how the population went through five phases: denial, emergency, confrontation, survival and equilibrium.
Isabel Peña, screenwriter of the first episode, made it clear in her day: “The possibility of a blackout caused by a solar storm is absolutely real, as discouraging as it may seem”. And that’s what Apagón did: turn that scientific threat into a cult miniseries that relied on the podcast El gran apagón, by José A. Pérez Ledo, to explore what would happen if the world were to suddenly return to the 18th century.
Fiction and reality, closer than ever before
Although the cause of the real blackout that yesterday left much of the country in check remains unconfirmed, the thematic coincidence has not gone unnoticed. Neither for viewers nor for algorithms: since early in the morning, searches for Apagón have skyrocketed, and Movistar Plus+ has once again placed the series among the most watched in its catalog.