Skam (TV series)

• Lisa Teige as Eva Kviig Mohn (born June 2, 1999) is the main character in the first season. When we first meet Eva, she recently started dating Jonas, who just ended a relationship with Eva's best friend Ingrid. Her relationship with Jonas is complicated and she finds it hard to trust him, eventually leading her to cheat on him and ultimately leading to their breakup at the end of season one. Eva lives at home with a busy mom and starts at the Hartvig Nissen school ("Nissen") in 2015 together with her friends and former classmates Jonas, Ingrid, Sara and Isak. Losing her former best friends Ingrid and Sara due to her relationship to Jonas, she starts up new friendships with Noora, Chris, Vilde and Sana at Nissen. After season one, Eva is mostly portrayed as an outgoing and promiscuous party-girl.
• Josefine Frida Pettersen as Noora Amalie Sætre (born April 6, 1999) is the main character in the second season. Noora is portrayed as a confident, smart and helpful character in seasons one and two. In the second season, it is however revealed that she has some insecurities after all. She lives with two roommates and does not have contact with her parents. Unlike her friends Eva, Chris and Vilde, Noora is not into drinking or hooking up with guys. When the school's playboy William continues to flirt with her despite several rejections, she eventually gets interested in him, but due to her prejudices against him, she finds it hard to accept. They end up in a relationship at the end of season two. In seasons three and four, Noora faces complications in her relationship with William.
• Tarjei Sandvik Moe as Isak Valtersen (born June 21, 1999) is the main character in the third season. Isak is a close friend of both Eva and Jonas in season one. At the end of the season, Noora and Eva find homosexual pornography on Isak's phone, raising suspicions about his sexual orientation. Season three follows Isak's struggles to accept his sexuality. He meets Even, and the two quickly fall in love and begin to secretly see each other. However, Isak unknowingly pushes Even (who has bipolar disorder) away by revealing that he doesn't want to be around people with mental disorders, due to his traumatizing experiences with his mentally ill mother. After struggling with his feelings for Even, Isak decides to come out to his best friend Jonas, and eventually to other people that he is close to. He gets back together with Even with the aid of his friends, but after Even has a manic episode, he distances himself from him again out of fear and heartbreak. However, he comes to better understand Even's situation after a discussion with his friends, and reunites with Even after he realizes that he loves him, accepting the obstacles created by his disorder. In season four, Isak is portrayed as much happier, as he lives comfortably and publicly in a relationship with Even.
• Iman Meskini as Sana Bakkoush (born December 24, 1999) is the main character in the fourth season. Sana's biggest struggle throughout the series is to live the traditional Muslim lifestyle and the traditional Norwegian gymnasium-lifestyle at the same time. Sana is portrayed as decisive and eloquent, but faces constant prejudices from her classmates, her parents and people she meets on the street, which sometimes leads Sana to take irrational decisions. This peaks when Sana anonymously cyberbullies her classmate Sara, who wants to exclude Sana from their russefeiring-squad. Unlike Eva, Noora and Isak, she has a close relationship with her family. In season 4, she falls in love with Yousef, who she initially thinks is a Muslim, but turns out not to be. After initial attempts to distance herself from him, they appear to grow closer later in the season.

• Marlon Valdés Langeland as Jonas Noah Vasquez (born December 20, 1999), Eva's boyfriend in the first season. He is also Isak's best friend and a classmate of all the main characters.
• Ulrikke Falch as Vilde Hellerud Lien (born July 13, 1999), the naive fourth member of the main girl squad. She is the enthusiastic initiator of russefeiring, revy and other social events for the squad.
• Ina Svenningdal as Christina "Chris" Berg (born January 6, 1999), the amusing fifth member of the girl squad. She usually avoids most conflicts and emotionally deep conversations.
• Thomas Hayes as William Magnusson (born January 10, 1997), the flirt and eventually boyfriend of Noora in the second season. He is also classmate and best friend of Penetrator-Chris.
• Carl Martin Eggesbø as Eskild Tryggvasson (born August 19, 1995), the stereotypically homosexual roommate of Noora in season two and four, and of Isak's in season three.
• Henrik Holm as Even Bech Næsheim (born February 12, 1997), the love affair and eventual boyfriend of Isak. Even is diagnosed with bipolar disorder at some point prior to season 3.
• David Stakston as Magnus Fossbakken (born October 30, 1999), Isak's awkward friend and classmate. In the fourth season he is in a relationship with Vilde.
• Sacha Kleber Nyiligira as Mahdi Disi (born January 19, 1999), Isak's friend and classmate. Member of the boys squad.
• Cengiz Al as Yousef Acar (born September 21, 1997), the atheist love interest of Sana. Yousef is also Elias's best friend and former classmate.

• Herman Tømmeraas as Christoffer "Penetrator-Chris" Schistad (born April 2, 1997), the on-and-off love interest of Eva through all four seasons. He is two years older than the main cast, but also studies at Nissen in the first two seasons.
• Kristina Ødegaard as Sara Nørstelien (born July 12, 1999), Ingrid's best friend and leader of the "Pepsi Max" squad. Sara dates Isak in the second season.
• Rakel Øfsti Nesje as Linn Larsen Hansen (born January 1, 1996), the introverted roommate of Eskild and Noora/Isak.
• Simo Mohamed Elhbabi as Elias Bakkoush (born March 5, 1997), Sana's brother and Even's former classmate.
• Cecilie Martinsen as Ingrid Theis Gaupseth (born February 23, 1999), Jonas's girlfriend and Eva's best friend prior to season one. Ingrid is a member of the russefeiring-squad "Pepsi Max", which often rivals the main characters squad.

The first clip from season 1 was made available on Tuesday, 22 September 2015,[8] with the combined clips during the week premiering as a full episode on Friday, 25 September 2015.[9] The season consists of 11 episodes; the main character is Eva Mohn.[9] The storyline deals with Eva's difficult relationship with her boyfriend Jonas and the themes of loneliness, identity, belonging and friendship.

The first clip from season 2 was made available on Monday, 29 February 2016,[10] with the combined clips during the week premiering as a full episode on Friday, 4 March 2016.[9] The season consists of 12 episodes; the main character is Noora Amalie Sætre.[9] The season is about her relationship with William and deals with issues of friendship, feminism, eating disorders, self-image, violence, sexual violence and the contemporaneous refugee crisis in relation to Norwegian democracy.

The first clip from season 3 was made available on Sunday, 2 October 2016,[11][12] with the combined clips during the week premiering as a full episode on Friday, 7 October 2016.[9] The season consists of 10 episodes; the main character is Isak Valtersen.[9] The season deals with Isak's burgeoning relationship with Even Bech Næsheim and is principally a coming out story that deals with issues of love, sexual identity, authenticity, mental illness, religion and friendship.

• NRK TV and NRK P3 used different titles for 7 of the season 3 episodes.

The first clip from season 4 was made available on Monday, 10 April 2017,[13] with the combined clips during the week premiering as a full episode on Friday, 14 April 2017.[9] The season consisted of 10 episodes,[14] and the main character is Sana Bakkoush.[9] The season deals with the Islamic religion, forbidden love, cyberbullying, friendship, and the Norwegian russ celebratory period.

The series finale episode switches character clip-to-clip, focusing on short stories by characters not given their own, full season. The episode deals with parental depression, love rejection, jealousy, friendship, mutual relationship support, and fear of abandonment.

In Norway, on average, about 192,000 viewers watched the first season, with the first episode being one of the most viewed of all time on NRK TV online.[33] In the first week of June 2016, streaming of Skam was responsible for over half of the traffic on NRK TV.[34] Following the release of the third-season finale, NRK stated that the second season had an average audience of 531,000, while the third season broke all streaming records on its NRK TV service with an average audience of 789,000 people.[35][36] The trailer for the fourth season, released on 7 April 2017, was watched by 900,000 people within four days.[37] During the start of the fourth season, 1.2 million unique users had visited Skam's website, and the first episode had been watched by 317,000 people. NRK P3 editorial chief Håkon Moslet told Verdens Gang that "We see that there is high traffic and high interest for season 4. Since the end of the season we have seen a pattern around viewer interest. We lie high in the first week and towards the end of the season when the drama kicks in."[38] In May 2017, NRK published a report on 2016 viewing statistics, writing that the third season broke both the streaming record for a series on NRK TV and for streaming of any series in Norway.[39]

An October 2016 Aftenposten report detailed that Skam had become popular in Sweden, with "well over 5000" viewers with Swedish IP addresses watching the episodes, not counting the individual clips.[40] A later report from Verdens Gang in January 2017 stated that Skam had "broken all records" in Sweden, with over 25 million plays on SVT Play.[41] Following the series' licensing deal for broadcasting in Denmark,[42] the series broke records in January 2017, with the show's first episode scoring 560,000 viewers on DR TV.[43] In Finland, the first episode had more than 130,000 views by the end of February 2017, two and half months after its release, described by Yle audience researcher Anne Hyvärilä as "quite exceptional".[44]

Skam has received critical acclaim. The newspaper NATT&DAG selected it as the best TV series of 2015.[45] In its second season, Kripos, Norway's National Criminal Investigation Service, praised the series' handling of sexual abuse, including the girls' encouraging the victim, Noora, to go to the emergency room to explain the situation and gather evidence of the abuse, and Noora confronting her abuser with relevant laws he has broken to prevent the sharing of photographs showing her naked.[46][47] The National Center for Prevention of Sexual Assault also praised the portrayal, adding that they wish for the series to become a syllabus in schools.[48] In the third season, Martine Lunder Brenne of Verdens Gang praised the theme of homosexuality and wrote that "I praise it first and foremost because young homosexual people, both in and outside the closet, finally get some long-awaited and modern role models. It doesn't matter if it's a character in a fictional drama - right now, Skam is Norway's coolest show".[49] In the fourth season, Christopher Pahle of Dagbladet praised a conversation about religion, writing: "two young people, with Muslim backgrounds, have a reflected, respectful and enlightening conversation about religion without arguing or taking it to the trenches. Think about that. They pick flowers and dribble a ball, and even if they don't necessarily convince each other, that's not the purpose either. The point is that they understand each other".[50]

Skam has been recognised for its contributions to promote Norwegian language and culture, and to foster affinity between Nordic countries. In December 2016, the Nordic Association awarded Skam the annual Nordic Language Prize for its ability to engage a young Nordic audience, connecting with young people across the Nordic region and fostering positive attitudes about the region's neighbouring languages.[51] In April 2017, Skam and its creator Julie Andem were awarded the Peer Gynt Prize, an award given to a person or institution that has had a positive impact on society and made Norway famous abroad.[52][53]

In June 2017, just prior to the show's ending, Aftenposten published a report featuring interviews with many well-known Norwegian television creators, writers and directors, all praising Skam showrunner Julie Andem for her creative work on the show. Praise was directed at the series' "unpolished" nature, her ability to maintain "such a high level of quality over a long period of time", the series' blend of different sexualities and ethnicities and use of dialogue to resolve issues, and the show's compassion, thereby its ability to truly capture its generational audience.[54]

The show's series finale received positive reviews. Vilde Sagstad Imeland of Verdens Gang praised the final clip for being a "worthy and emotional ending".[55] Cecilie Asker of Aftenposten wrote that "The very last episode of Skam leaves us with a big sorrow, a sore loss, and a craving for more. It couldn't have been better."[56]

On 1 July 2017, during the celebration of Oslo Pride, Skam, its creator Julie Andem, and actors Tarjei Sandvik Moe, Henrik Holm and Carl Martin Eggesbø were awarded the "Fryd" award, an award given to persons or organizations that break the norms in gender and sexuality in a positive manner.[57][58]

In February 2018, Prince William and his wife Catherine, members of the British royal family, visited the Hartvig Nissen school to meet with the cast and learn more about Skam, its impact on the actors' lives and to discuss youth and mental health.[59]

Starting with season three, the show attracted an international audience, and NRK was therefore heavily asked to add English subtitles to the Skam episodes online. The requests were declined due to the license for the music presented throughout the series being restricted to a Norwegian audience, and that easy availability outside Norway would violate the terms of NRK's license agreements. An attorney for NRK elaborated that YouTube videos featuring more than 50% original Skam content would be automatically removed.[60] When denied official subtitling, fans started making their own translations of the episodes into several world languages, greatly expanding the online fanbase.[61] Norwegian viewers were quick to share translated clips quickly after availability through Google Drive, and also started blogs to cover additional material and language courses to explain Norwegian slang.[61][62]

By the end of 2016, Skam had been trending globally several times on Twitter and Tumblr, and its Facebook, Instagram and Vine presence grew rapidly.[62] On social media, fandoms developed creative paintings, screensavers, phone covers, and fan videos.[62][63][64] Filming locations, including Sagene Church,[65] and the Hartvig Nissen school, were visited by fans, and the actors were receiving worldwide attention.[61] After being featured in an episode in the third season, Gabrielle's song "5 fine frøkner" saw a 3,018 percent increase in listening on Spotify, with over 13 million streams and, at one point, rising to eighth place on the Swedish top music rankings.[66] Its social media popularity continued into its fourth season in April 2017, with over 20,000 tweets containing #skamseason4 registered in 24 hours at the time of season four's first clip, a substantial portion of which originated from the United States.[67]

In January 2017, Skam was geoblocked for foreign viewers. NRK attorney Kari Anne Lang-Ree stated that "NRK has a right to publish content to the Norwegian audience and foreign countries. The music industry is reacting to the fact that many international viewers are listening to music despite NRK not having international licensing deals. NRK takes the concerns from the music industry seriously. We are in dialogue with [the music industry] to find a solution".[68] NRK stated that "We want to thank our international fans and followers who have embraced SKAM. We are blown away by your dedication – it is something we never expected. That is why it hurts to tell you guys that due to a necessary clarification with the music right holders, SKAM will until further notice not be available outside Norway. We are working hard to figure out how to solve this issue so that the fans can continue to enjoy SKAM from where they are".[68] When the fourth season premiered in April, the geoblock was removed for Nordic countries.[20]

The series has received significant attention from international media publications for its unique distribution model of real-time snippet-based information.[64][69][70][71]

Anna Leszkiewicz of New Statesman posted in March 2017 that she considered Skam "the best show on TV", highlighting the second season's handling of sexual assault. She praised the series for avoiding "shocking, gratuitous rape scenes", instead focusing on a single hand gesture by abuser Nico as a sign of predatory behavior. However, Leszkiewicz criticized the show for taking the "escape route", in which Noora finds the courage to speak to another girl who was at the party, who insists that, while Noora and Nico were in bed together, no sexual intercourse took place. Leszkiewicz commented that "So many women go through what Noora went through in Skam. Most of them don’t get offered the same escape route. Instead, they have to live with the shame and confusion of an "ambiguous" assault."[72] The same month, Elite Daily's Dylan Kickham wrote that the international fanbase for Skam on social media was "much larger than I ever would have predicted", with major fangroups on Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr. He credited the third season's storyline of homosexuality, calling it "incredibly intimate and profound", particularly praising a scene featuring a conversation about flamboyant attitudes between main character Isak and supporting character Eskild. While acknowledging highlights of the past two seasons, Kickham explained that "season three stands above the rest by shining a light on aspects of sexuality that are very rarely depicted in mainstream media", praising Eskild's "magnificent and timely take on the toxic "masc-for-masc" discrimination within the gay community" in response to Isak's homophobic comments. "It’s these small, incisive moments that show just how much Skam understands and cares about the issues it portrays", explained Kickham.[73]

In March 2017, voters of E! Online's poll regarding "Top Couple 2017" declared characters Isak and Even, main stars of the show's third season, the winners.[74] Verdens Gang wrote in April that Skam had become popular in China, where publicly discussing homosexuality is illegal. It reported that almost four million Chinese people had watched the third season through piracy and a total of six million had watched all episodes so far translated to Chinese. The report also stated that NRK has no plans to stop piracy in China, and NRK P3 editorial chief Håkon Moslet told Verdens Gang that "It was Isak and Even that captured a young Chinese audience. There's a lot of censorship in China, and they are role models and have a relationship that Chinese people have a need to see."[75]

Anna Leszkiewicz wrote three more articles on Skam and its impact between April and December 2017. In the first report, she credited the series for having tackled multiple difficult topics with the use of universal emotions like loneliness rather than issue-based strategies.[61] In the second, she specifically focused on the series' ending, noting that it originally had nine characters designed to each lead a season, and quoted fans with the sentiment that "It seems like such an abrupt decision. It doesn’t serve the storyline at all." Acknowledging the pressure of the show's global popularity as potentially a key element to end Skam, Leszkiewicz highlighted some fans' disapproval of the storylines presented towards the ending; season four's main character Sana, a member of the Muslim religion who had been under-represented in the series, had a shorter amount of focus in her season than other main characters had at their respective times; the final moments of the series focused on short stories by characters not given their own season, one of which told the story of a minor character without significant relevancy to the series; and a lackluster conversation about Islamophobia between Sana and her white, non-Muslim friend Isak. Leszkiewicz quoted disgruntled fans, one of which said that "Sana has been disrespected and disregarded and erased and sidelined and that is fucking gross. She deserved better".[76] Finally, in her last report, she focused on Skam's legacy as an American adaption was in production. NRK P3 editorial chief Håkon Moslet told her that "There was a lot of piracy", acknowledging that the show's global popularity was the result of fans illegally distributing content through Google Drive, though adding "But we didn’t mind". Producer and project manager Marianne Furevold explained that "We were given a lot of time to do so much research, and I think that’s a huge part of the success that we see today with Skam", referencing extensive in-depth interviews, attending schools and youth clubs, and immersing into teenagers' online lives, something that she did not think would have been possible with a commercial network. In regards to ending the series after its fourth season, while its popularity peaked, Moslet told Leszkiewicz that writer Julie Andem spent an enormous amount of time developing the series; "It was kind of an extreme sport to make, this series, especially for her. It was her life, 24/7, for two and a half years. It was enough, I think. And she wanted to end on a high. So that’s the reason. I think it was the right thing". Andem had posted on Instagram that she "wouldn’t have been able to make a season five as good as it deserved to be", though she had also written that she didn't want to give away the producing job of the American version, opting to take on the responsibility of that adaptation. That decision itself disgruntled fans, who "found her decision to leave the Norwegian series just to take on another huge commitment with the American show disappointing". Moslet praised the series' diverse set of characters, concluding with the statement that "At a time of confusion and intolerance, it seems more important than ever" for content creators to embrace diversity and reject intolerant attitudes.[77]

In December 2017, Tumblr released its list of the most talked-about shows of the year on its platform, with Skam topping the chart as number one, outranking hugely successful American series, such as Game of Thrones, Stranger Things, and The Walking Dead.[78]

In December 2016, Simon Fuller's XIX Entertainment production company signed a deal with NRK to produce an American version of the series, then-titled Shame.[85][86] Development of the series continued in the following months, with a title change to SKAM Austin, casting calls taking place,[87] and the announcement that Austin would air on Facebook's "Facebook Watch" original video platform[88][89] and on the original's series network, NRK. It premiered in April 2018[90] and has been renewed for a second season.[91]

In April 2017, the Danish theatre Aveny-T was reported to have acquired exclusive rights to produce a stage version of Skam. Four different performances will be made, one for each season, with the first show having taken place in Copenhagen on 15 September 2017,[92][93] and the remaining three performances produced once a year through the year 2020.[94]

In September 2017, French entertainment website AlloCiné reported on the imminent production of a French remake of the series.[95]

In October 2017, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter reported that local adaptations of Skam would be produced in five European countries; Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. NRK CEO Thor Gjermund Eriksen said in a statement that "We are very excited about the tremendous interest that Skam/Shame has generated outside of Norway. The creators of Skam aimed to help 16-year-old-girls strengthen their self-esteem through dismantling taboos, making them aware of interpersonal mechanisms and showing them the benefits of confronting their fears. This is a vision we are proud to bring to other countries".[96] Variety notes that each local production will be required to do its own local research into the dilemmas and dreams of its teenagers, rather than copying the original Norwegian production.[97] In October 2018, Belgium began airing its own adaptation.[98] On April 3, 2019, the educational Swedish broadcasting channel, UR began broadcasting the first seasons of Druck (as Skam Deutschland), Skam España, and Skam France.[99]

Having achieved success, multiple remakes have been renewed for additional seasons, progressing in development at different speeds.[100]

In September 2018, Julie Andem announced on her Instagram account that, in coordination with Norwegian book publishing company Armada Forlag, four Skam books, one for each season of the series, would be released to the public, including original, unedited manuscripts, featuring scenes that were never filmed, lines that were later cut, as well as Andem's personal comments and thoughts. The first book, focusing on season one, was made available for purchase on the day of the announcement, on Monday, 3 September 2018. In the press release from Armada Forlag, Andem said that "Releasing these unedited scripts, including typos and nerd comments, is right at the edge of my comfort zone", while adding that "I hope people think it's fun to read the scripts, and that maybe someone gets inspired to write themselves". Jonas Forsang, chairman of Armada Forlag, said that "This is not just TV-history, this is major literature". Norwegian press company Aftenposten noted at the time that the timeline for the release of the three remaining books was unclear.[101]

A few days later, Andem signed a book contract with Swedish publishing company Salomonsson Agency, which included rights for the agency to distribute the Skam books outside of Norway. CEO Julia Angelin told Verdens Gang that "We are incredibly proud to be working with the genius Julie Andem. She has changed the entire Scandinavian culture", and added that "It will be incredibly fun to build her career as an author with this unique project. We have only seen the beginning". The report from Verdens Gang also stated that the first book had been sold "at record tempo" since its release just three days earlier, and that all four Skam books will be released before the 2018 Christmas holiday period. Andem told the publication that "The Skam fans are, as I've expressed before, "the coolest fanbase on earth". And they are always very enthusiastic and thankful. That is nice and moving".[102] A later update to the same article clarified that the book had "already" been distributed to Finland and Sweden, without details of further distribution.[102] Website Books From Norway, which provides English-language information on Norwegian literature, states that rights for international book release have also been sold to Denmark through the Høst & Søn agency, Italy through the Giunti agency, Poland through the Rebis agency, and Russia through the Popcorn Books agency, though the website doesn't specify release dates.[103]