Fast forward to the year 2026 and the logical extension is to counter all the increasing nervousness about security by a radical new law – no one is allowed to wear clothing in public anymore. That is the only sure way to ensure that no-one is hiding a weapon. And the Saint Tropez police too go about their duty stark naked. Which is more than a surprise for a character in the series who awakes from an eight-year-long coma to the naked truth of his new reality.
If you can imagine it, no matter how eccentric the plot, one day it will appear as a script for a film. And if not for a film, a little more likely nowadays it will find its way into a TV series.
So imagine, after a series of major terrorist incidents in France that, in the future, none of us were allowed to dress in a way that could hide a weapon. This was the essence of French Press reports about a TV program on the channel OCS Go, following an interview with Olivier Fox. We glean from those reports that recent terror incidents in Paris had triggered the idea in his mind.
Of course, for the TV series to succeed it would have to have some very attractive cops – which just might be the reason the first 10 episodes of “Nu” (Nude) have been a smash success. Maybe we should not be surprised – naturism seems particularly a la mode in France nowadays.
The Palais de Tokyo contemporary art museum in Paris this May became the first to accept nude visitors, if just for one day. Now if all this is not sufficiently fanciful for you – wait for it, there is an extra imaginative leap in the story-line of the TV series. Or should we say an “out of this world” leap that draws on Monaco being the one place in the world where everyone would want to live. The director of the series is a man who apparently has wonderful memories of childhood holidays in Monaco and is a passionate fan of AS Monaco football team. Imagine Monaco wiped out by a global warming catastrophe that has caused a rise in tides. Absurd but this is the plot. Monaco is now like Atlantis drowned under the Ocean, but not before Monegasques have fled to France as unwanted immigrants. A ridiculous plot one might think but add attractive nude police chasing clothed Monegasque immigrants and you have a successful soup of nonsense that draws viewers.
Nude science fiction appears to be a new genre that is being tested on the frontier and surprisingly has “legs”. Bare legs enough at least for a second French series. And rumour has it that Italy is lining up as the next prospective market for the TV series. “Dolce Vita” in the nude? Imagine the unimaginable and TV will show it!
