Whoever came up with the mantra “catch flights, not feelings” has clearly never experienced the effect being in a new place can have on your love life. Maybe those butterflies in your belly are from the thrill of an alien experience, or maybe they’re from a crush. Either way, things are almost certainly going to get saucy.
But then again, sometimes the where of our relationships is exactly why they can’t work out. Just ask anyone who’s ever had to date long-distance, or had a way-too-hot colleague.
As SBS On Demand’s highlights, the setting of a romance can help sparks fly just as much as it can snuff them out — and sometimes this even happens at the same time. If you’re looking on going on a journey (in more ways than one!) then this globe-trotting series of shows is for you.
Four Years Later
Four Years Later follows the poignant story of shy, workaholic Yash and free-spirited Sridevi, a newly married couple from India. On their wedding night, Yash is offered a medical traineeship in Australia, and so the two must live separately for an agonising four years. Is long distance going to pull them apart, or is it the reunion that will leave them feeling so alienated? Told in dual perspectives across time and space, this SBS Original drama explores how the two locations shape the pair and how they feel about each other. Ultimately, it asks: is love enough to survive the changing tides of a marriage marred by distance? What about the changing tides of a person?
Four Years Later is streaming at SBS On Demand, subtitled in seven languages.
Stream free On Demand
Four Years Later
series • drama • Hindi
M
series • drama • Hindi
M
Maxima
This Dutch drama, which has been compared to The Crown because of its fascination with the lives of royals, follows the story of how Máxima Zorreguieta, the daughter of a controversial Argentinian politician, fell in love with the Dutch Crown Prince Willem-Alexander, and eventually became Queen of the Netherlands.
Máxima’s father was a cabinet minister during the National Reorganization Process, also known as Argentina’s most recent dictatorship, and served during a period of state terrorism that saw more than 30,000 people killed or disappeared. It comes as no surprise that this terrible legacy followed her from Argentina all the way to Holland and left her with the existential question of whether reconciling her new home with her old self was possible. Can she love both Willem-Alexander and her own family, with its dark history? There’s only one way to find out.
Maxima is streaming at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Maxima
series • drama • Dutch
M
series • drama • Dutch
M
Saving The F*cking Planet
Daniel is jobless, turbulent, and an internet troll. Elin is a law student from an Indigenous community that is threatened by the very copper mine Daniel wants to land a job at. By chance, the two meet and instantly connect – not realising that they’re on opposite sides of a conflict tearing apart their town. The bitter divide in their ideologies leaves them wondering whether they truly understand each other at all, and yet, they can’t stay away from each other.
Can people with opposing values fall in love and actually make things work? What if one of them is a climate sceptic, and the other an environmental activist, and the backdrop is a mining conflict? This might sound like the set up to a pretty bad joke, but it’s actually a poignant question explored in this Norwegian teen drama series.
Saving The F*cking Planet is streaming at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Saving the F*cking Planet
series • drama • Norwegian Bokmål
MA15+
series • drama • Norwegian Bokmål
MA15+
Latecomers
Sarah and Frank are two people with cerebral palsy who, after watching their able-bodied carers hook up in a bar, decide they want to get their own juices flowing. But where do you start when you haven’t even had your first kiss?
This Aussie dramedy follows our leads as they fumble their way into dingy bars, adult stores, swimming pools and even a grope box in a bid to explore their connections with their bodies and each other.
Latecomers is streaming at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Latecomers
series • drama
MA15+
series • drama
MA15+
Paris etc
This list would not be complete without a nod to Paris, the city of love… or the city of pickpockets, crowded public transport and leering men, if you ask the ladies in Paris etc. The French drama follows the intertwined lives of five women – Marianne, Mathilde, Nora, Allison and Gil – as they navigate chaotic and busy lives in the equally frenzied city of Paris.
Paris etc subverts the narrative of Paris being a city of romance by honing in on the parts of it that are anything but. Turbulent relationships, frustrating traffic jams, tourist traps and unforgiving hospitality jobs form the backdrop of these women’s lives, and yet despite their exasperation, Paris etc. still somehow leaves the city with an endearing mystique that captures the heart anyway.
Paris etc is streaming at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Paris etc
series • comedy • French
MA15+
series • comedy • French
MA15+
All and Eva
Sperm donors are an ideal way to have a baby with no strings (or a man) attached, right? Well, not for Eva. Swedish dramedy All and Eva follows the single 40-year-old, who doesn’t believe in love but wants to settle down and have a baby. So, she decides to head to Copenhagen and use an open sperm donor service instead. Not satisfied with her donor Mads’ profile, however, Eva seeks him out to learn more about him.
But before she knows it, sparks fly. Mads develops feelings for her, and the two flit back and forth between Copenhagen and her home as he pursues a connection – all while having no idea he is the father of Eva’s incoming baby.
All and Eva is streaming at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
All and Eva
series • drama • Danish
MA15+
series • drama • Danish
MA15+
Scrubs
The hum of a dialysis machine, the beeping of a pager, the hacking cough of a patient who has been lingering around the emergency ward for hours… these sounds probably don’t inspire romance in you, but they certainly don’t stop the doctors of Sacred Heart Hospital from getting it on.
Scrubs, one of the US’ most iconic sitcoms, follows the shenanigans of John “J.D.” Dorian (Zach Braff) as he begins his career as a doctor-in-training at a fictional hospital. Of course, what better way for J.D. to meet his love interest than by competing with her in a class full of trainees who all want to prove their worth. Yep, this is a rivals-to-lovers trope, my friends, with all the chaos of an emergency ward to boot.
Scrubs is streaming at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Scrubs
series • medical
M
series • medical
M
House of Promises
Set in Berlin in the roaring 20s, House of Promises is anything but glitzy. The German romance follows wide-eyed Vicky as she moves to the city for a promising new future, only to be met with the harsh reality of a devastated economy. Desperate to make something of herself, she gets a job in a glamorous department store and develops a romance with a seemingly poor pianist – who turns out to be the son of the department store’s owner. The star-crossed lovers must overcome their class differences if their forbidden romance is to survive. But in such an unforgiving city, will this be possible? What will they have to sacrifice?
House of Promises is streaming at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
House Of Promises
