A first date. Two thirty-somethings meet in a bar. They drink, they eat, they chat, they go through gestures but not, alas, through emotions. There is no spark between these two. But in the end, what can you do? Not accompany him to his apartment? It would be embarrassing. It is better to engage in unemotional sex than to face an unpleasant social situation.

Fortunately, disaster strikes. She receives a phone call from a friend who has had an accident. She must go. Clothes stay in place. A weak promise to get back together. Once the door is closed, his phone rings. A friend – who is currently playing a video game – claims to have been in an accident. But this security lie is not necessary. His excuse called first.

The television series by Francesco Capaldo and Davide Orsini Generation 56k is definitely a romantic comedy. The premise and plot are firmly in line with the conventions of the genre. The protagonist Daniel (Angelo Spagnoletti) is looking for love. On another date, he meets a childhood friend without recognizing her. And oh boy, the sparks are flying this time. But the evening ends without sex, without kissing, and not even a promise to see each other again. Why? Well, Mathilde (Cristina Cappelli) is engaged and will soon be getting married. When Daniel realizes who he met (and fell in love with), a second storyline emerges.

We are back in 1998 and Daniel’s father is one of the first inhabitants of Procida (and the island near Naples) to get an internet connection using a 56k dial-up modem. So what’s the first thing Daniel and his friends look for on this miraculous portal to the world? Is it knowledge? Of course not. It’s what any teenager would look for. Pornography! Not only do they consume it themselves. They even try to start a business by copying these pictures onto floppy disks and selling them to the other desperately horny boys on the island. These boys have never held hands with a real girl, let alone kissed. Sociologist Iris Oswald-Rinner (Sexual revolution?, 2015) coined a poignant term for this contradictory state of experience: “oversexed and underfucked.” Corn Generation 56k is not so much interested in sociology as in the juxtaposition of different forms of narration.

The genres that are crucial for this series – romantic comedy and pornography – are ultimately both wish-fulfillment narratives, though they follow opposite narrative strategies. While porn attempts to eliminate all forms of frustration by immediately offering its content (the naked body engaging in any sexual act imaginable), romantic comedy celebrates frustration by preventing its protagonists from meeting (at least until ‘to shortly before the end and almost never in the sense that these words would be understood in a pornographic context). While pornography ensures that its protagonists are always ready and able to perform, romantic comedy ensures that its protagonists are always ready and able to say the wrong thing and make the wrong decision – preventing any kind of happiness until the end. . In other words, romantic comedy locates the true nature of love and romance in the ability to overcome all obstacles in time, while pornography emphasizes the benefits of instant gratification – much like the Internet. , where everything is always accessible. Or at least supposed to be.

time itself in Generation 56k is indeed in many respects essential. Besides the obvious fact that the story takes place over two different decades, the question of the past and the present (and of course the future) is intimately linked to the narrative. There are many clues that could be easily overlooked. On his first and second occasions, Daniel tries to amuse his date by recounting and marveling at the intricate time travel plots of the various terminator movies. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s violent adventures as a humanoid cyborg aren’t the obvious choice for a romantic evening. But time and romance are apparently so intertwined in Daniel’s mind that these movies as a subject seem like a promising start for a date.

Matilda, meanwhile, works as a restorer of antique furniture. This places her firmly in the realm of the analog real and the analog past, in opposition to Daniel, who works as an application developer, his digital “reality” and the future. Matilda can also be read as an act of defiance towards her father – an actor who abandoned family for his career and whom she hates with searing intensity. In a touching episode, we follow young Mathilde as she visits her father in Rome. She wants to know – or better see for herself – what is more important to him than his family. It turns out that her father is recording a commercial, dressed as an ancient Roman soldier, selling toilet paper. The glorious past is ridiculed for the fleeting gratification of fame. It is the job of adult Matilda to restore the dignity of the past.

At the heart of the series is an emotional time machine. When the local bar owner dies, he leaves a huge glass jar for Daniel. For decades, each inhabitant of the island has been able to deposit a letter containing their most personal secrets and desires in this jar. The promise was that the jar would only be opened in the future. This gives Daniel an idea for a new app. A text messaging app that allows the user to decide when to message a loved one. Tomorrow, in a week, or maybe never? The most important things in life – and what’s more important than love? – need some time. His boss congratulates Daniel on his idea. “You’re right. We needed something…romantic.

If the ability to endure time is a prerequisite for love in romantic comedy, so is the willingness to give up the easy gratification of the pornographic image. The images that Daniel and his friends upload as children are never really shown. And the only sex we see is fairly chaste, mostly taking place under the cover of sheets. Moreover, this sex is not for pleasure but performed with the timid intention of making a baby, thus negating immediate gratification for future happiness.

Even the only direct allusion to the world of pornography in the current storyline pokes fun at its tense attempt to evoke pleasure at all costs. Matilda attends a divorce party for one of her friends. Someone gave the recent divorcee a stripper as a gift. But the stripper is pretty chubby, and his performance sends Matilda’s friend running away in tears (thus subverting the male gaze usually associated with pornography).

Generation 56k makes a rather optimistic statement about a generation that is supposedly alienated by technological devices of its own creation. Tinder’s quick swipes, where we’re tricked into deciding in seconds whether or not a person is attractive to us, can’t be the future (or present) of how we fall in love. For a genre not known for its cinematic prowess, this rom-com extols something more subtle about the mate-finding process, but no less important: the power of a second look. This second look, perhaps critical, demands of us something that never seems to be enough: time. The same can be said of love itself.