TV review | Are they disappointed at VI about the success of their replacement? ‘Hélène is one of us!’

All the boys were back from holiday on Monday evening. Van Roosmalen & Groenteman and then the men of Inside today. And with both programs they would ‘pop’. Marcel van Roosmalen had gone to an all-inclusive in Mexico during the holiday weeks, René van der Gijp was on Bonaire, Eus too, Johan Derksen had stuck to London. I don’t know where Gijs was. And they were looking forward to it again, or let’s say, they weren’t dreading it too much.

Groenteman kicked off with the announcement that the program would become considerably more “left-wing”, they would also invite more women. Former Speaker of the House Gerdi Verbeet was both. Marcel’s note was also there, the box with news, the television fragments. One new section, Marcel’s mini report. Swiping through a photo gallery on his phone, he talked about the eternally closed bridge between Wormer and Wormerveer. Didn’t run very well yet, because the end tune of the program sounded when it was still halfway through.

Spread, spread, spread, as Van Roosmalen had already said, on Monday evening the Senate met to debate the dispersal law that should ensure that all Dutch municipalities receive asylum seekers, and not a few municipalities that have many, as now. Political reporter Merel Ek knew VI to say that all members of the Senate stopped debating at half past four sharp. They were all expected at the king’s New Year’s reception. Didn’t see it coming at all, but Johan also thought that the distribution law should be passed. Eus thought the same, Wilfred the same. “Not collegial, not social,” they felt, when municipalities ran away from their responsibility. They already awarded the municipality of Bloemendaal five thousand “hopeless asylum seekers”.

A million viewers

Reporters from other programs had apparently stood at the front door of the studio to cover the return of the VI men. They were not very pleased with this interest, especially because it was hoped that they would be disappointed by the success of The Orange Winter, the program that replaced theirs and at times attracted more than a million viewers. As if they would be jealous of that. As if they would not grant Hélène Hendriks, the presenter, the success. As if they would have talked about that with each other during their holiday weeks. People think that we are in constant contact with each other during the holidays, said Johan Derksen. He didn’t want to think about it. What people do not understand, René van der Gijp said: “Hélène is one of us!” She is the fourth man at the table and when they hold their show in the Ziggo Dome, she can always come along. “She belongs to us.”

Who also belongs to them, or so I thought, is Noa Vahle (23), sports reporter. Our Noa, they always call her, don’t they? Whenever there is a football tournament somewhere in the world, she reports at VI, and often enough she is just there. Derksen suddenly, out of the blue, started a performance review about her, because she herself was not there. She should never have appeared in her mother’s magazine – she is the daughter of Linda de Mol, the namesake of the monthly magazine Linda in Linda.meiden, she was on the cover of the winter book. “Not good for her career.” Noa’s participation in the “shitty” program I love Hollandpresented by her mother, he didn’t like and she shouldn’t have sat at the table either The orange winter from Hendriks. She came across as a teenage girl among those old men, he thought. She added nothing. People find that boring. Boring, he says, is the entire De Mol family. “They all smell like Brussels sprouts.”

Ouch. Is that the price of being “one of us”?

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