26-01-2011

Polsat Renews Hit Local Series

By Katarzyna Grynienko

    WARSAW: Polish commercial broadcaster Polsat (www.polsat.pl) has commissioned a 13th season of the sitcom The World According To Kiepskis, one of the most popular local shows of all time, from leading Polish television producer ATM Grupa (www.atmgrupa.pl).

    The decision surprised Polish media commentators, who thought the series had stopped being contemporary enough.

    The shoot started on 3 January and will last till the end of March 2011 at ATM studios based in Wrocław.

    World According To Kiepskis ('kiepski" is a Polish term meaning crappy or shabby) is a Polish sitcom that was loosely inspired by the American sitcom Married with Children, which was very popular in Poland in the 1990's. The series evolves around the Kiepski family, stereotypical low-middle class citizens, and picks on their bad habits and behavior. The cast includes Andrzej Grabowski, Marzena Kipiel-Sztuka, Bartosz Żukowski and Barbara Mularczyk.

    The Polish series premiered on Polsat in 1999, directed by Okił Khamidow and later by Patrick Yocka. The show had a break in production in 2006 but was brought back in 2009. In the meantime the station continued to air reruns of the 12 season of the show (350 episodes), which never lost its popularity and had an impressive average of 4 million viewers per episode. The 16 new episodes will be aired by Polsat in the spring of 2011.