TV review | One starts a new relationship, the other rushes to death

Before the worst program started, I gave myself a little respite. Let’s see how Saul, Benjamin, Guido, Marco and Edith fare Winter full of love. Just like with soap operas, you can tune in every day of the week and still follow what’s happening. This is the last week of the program, it is even possible to respond to the new candidates for the next winter season. The final is approaching, choices have to be made and couples formed.

Benjamin (26) from Switzerland notes that he will experience a last first impression. All the men he invited have now left, the only potential partner still to come is Michiel, a finance employee from Amsterdam. My first impression is that the two get along quite well. In Norway, Marco and Joyce took a husky sled ride. I also see a rapprochement between the two. Saul from Switzerland is faced with a choice between two women, one he has known for just two weeks, the other for ten years. Rafaëlla is his ex-girlfriend. On Tuesday he sent home the two new women who had come for him. On Wednesday, he promised viewers, he will make the decision. Does he choose the lovelorn Amy Rose or the trusted Rafaella? Guido from Sweden also has a choice of two, that will work. Only Edith actually has no choice. It’s not going to work out with Aroen, that’s clear, and he was her last candidate.

Sympathize, masters

And then it was time for Eva (23), Jeffrey (35), Zoë (27), Jegor (31) and Maaike (32). To sympathize with them is to die with them, because that is what they do. Dying in short order. Over my dead body starts with Zoë’s funeral, she had metastatic bone cancer. Eight months before she died, we see her, apparently in good health, talking about the ‘cancer party’ she gave when she was declared cured for the first time after an operation and fourteen rounds of chemotherapy. At that moment it is already clear that metastases have been found elsewhere in her body and that nothing can be done about them. We see Zoë talking to her parents about her funeral, she wants to arrange the cremation, the funeral cards, the guest list. Her parents don’t want to, but they can’t handle it yet. But Zoë has been to a medium. And he told her that she will see her, in the next life, in a house with a kitchen, with a husband and children. She cannot say exactly how many, but “more than three.” From that moment on, Zoë is in a hurry to die. “I look forward to life after this life.”

You can think all kinds of things about Tim Hofman, but he does this program well and he will certainly not be shy about following terminal people for a year and a half. He finds the tone to discuss everything, light where necessary, serious where possible. He has known Jegor for just an hour when he accompanies him to the appointment with the neurosurgeon. Jegor has already been operated on twice for a tumor on the left front of his head. Things seemed to be going well, but recently he had an epileptic seizure. Could the tumor have started growing again? Jegor is in agony. In the hallway on the way to the consultation room, the neurosurgeon whispers to him what he most wants to hear. “Your scan is good.”

Plumber Jeffrey, married and father of two young children, has metastatic colon cancer. He is the coach of the first team of his football club. Hofman stands next to him at the match on Saturday morning. Jeffrey reports that he started a new chemotherapy treatment that morning. No, it won’t make him any better. At most he will die less quickly. End of service announcement. The match ends 3-3. Jeffrey walks off the field. Furious. Frustrated. Defeated. “It makes me really sick.”

And that’s funny. And bad.

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