Tell us something about yourself.
My name is Nienke de Boode, I am 26 years old and I study at a Dutch university. My biggest hobby is, obviously, watching TV shows, preferably with my cat on my lap. In addition, I also like to do fun things with friends, and I like to be creative. Writing about TV shows is a nice combination of my different hobbies.
How did you get to know MySeries and what made you decide to sign up as a reviewer?
It has been more than eleven years since I created my account, but from what I can remember there was an article in some magazine about this website. I like to keep track of things, so checking off what I have seen makes the completionist in me very happy. Later, I came across a news item stating that the site was looking for reviewers. I always liked writing, so I started doing that. That was ten years and a hundred reviews ago.
What was your first review and why did you choose that series?
My first review was actually quite random, about a miniseries about Houdini (only available in Dutch). I have no idea why I chose that show, I had probably just seen it then. I personally don't think the review is very good. But hey, I was young then, and it's been a long time since ;).
What was the most fun review for you to write?
All of them of course! Just kidding, although I usually try to make my reviews a bit funny too. Puns or some humor often make reviews more fun to read. But it also depends on whether it fits the series; serious reviews often fit better with serious shows. Yet, it is generally more fun to write a funny review, than a serious one. An example of a review in which I also included some jokes from the series is Staged. The series constantly discusses the order of the credits, and I also included it a bit in the review, for example. In this way, I also hope to make a review fun for someone who has already seen the show.
Which review was the most difficult to put into words/most annoying to write?
It sometimes happens to me that a review is suddenly surprisingly difficult to write. I recently took much more time than anticipated to review the second season of Interview with the Vampire. Great series, so why was writing the review so difficult? Not sure, but since I started writing my own reviews in English - most reviews are translated by Mike Mekking/Karzal, but I translate my own reviews because I like it - I notice that I sometimes struggle with the nuances between English and Dutch. In (American) English, for example, it is much more common to use extreme words like ‘fantastic’, ‘amazing’, ‘horrible’, or ‘horrific’, while in Dutch it is often a bit simpler. Just: ‘good’, or ‘not that good’ and ‘not strong’ instead of ‘great’ or ‘horrible’. I can sometimes get stuck on those kinds of differences, especially when reviewing a series that I really like, like Interview with the Vampire. In Dutch, it can quickly be ‘too much’.
With which review did you reach the magical limit of 100 reviews?
The review of the first two episodes of NCIS: Origins, which was also published exactly ten years after I started writing. That is, of course, no coincidence; when I knew that I was close to my hundredth review, I became a bit nostalgic and delved into my old reviews. I noticed that my first review was published on October 20, 2014 and I thought it would be fun to also publish the hundredth on the same date. I ultimately chose NCIS: Origins because NCIS has been the gateway into watching series for me; it's a show I've been following since the beginning of my series days. And it just so happened to be that the first episode of Origins aired just before my anniversary.
Which review would you have liked to write yourself but another reviewer beat you to it?
Sometimes someone else writes a review before I can. Last time that happened was with the first season of Kaos, but it has happened more often. Sometimes I still write the review; for the remake of Avatar: The Last Airbender, I was the second writer, for example. At other times, I don’t write it anymore. It depends a bit on whether I feel like it, have time, and still have something (hopefully) interesting to say.
Have you ever written a review on request?
For MySeries, I got the opportunity to go to the Dutch premiere of the first episode of The Last of Us. That was really cool. At the time, it was not yet clear that the series would be such a success, but the first episode turned out to be incredibly good. I still have the goodies from that day somewhere in my apartment.
What is the lowest rating you have given in a review?
The lowest rating is a 4.5, for Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders (only available in Dutch). Where I really like the original Criminal Minds, Beyond Borders was a weak copy, relying heavily on racist and stereotypical tropes. It is still a mystery to me how it got two seasons.
I have also given a 5 twice. The first time was for the series Crossbones (only available in Dutch). I don’t remember anything about that series, but apparently I thought it was really bad. The other one was quite recent, for the second season of CSI: Vegas. That was a big disappointment after a relatively strong first season.
What is the nicest reaction you have ever received to a review?
Most reactions are quite nice, and it is always good to see that people read the reviews and have an opinion about them. I really liked it when someone commented a few years later on my review of Even tot Hier, saying that they completely agreed and also thought it was a really nice series. It is nice to see that older reviews are still being read.
Do you also like reading reviews from other MijnSerie reviewers?
Yes, definitely! Besides that I think you can always learn something as a reviewer from reading other reviews, I also find it useful in my search for new series to watch. A grade on MySeries or IMDB often doesn’t say everything. What I find much more important is the ‘vibe’ of a series. A review can help get that across, so I do read most reviews from others.
Did you go through a lot of changes between your first and 100th review?
I think so, both in how I write the reviews and on a personal level. I was sixteen years old when I started and still in high school. I'm a lot older now and studying at university. I've also had periods where I had less time to write, and even a period where I didn't write at all, from September 2017 to the end of 2019. But eventually I picked it up again because I really enjoyed it.
I think you can see those changes in my life in my reviews. I've become a lot more mature, and I've watched more series which help compare. In particular, I found rating series really difficult, and I think I've gotten better at it, although it's still quite hard to 'compress' a series to a single grade. And what I love, you might hate. We all find different things important.
Stop or continue?
Continue of course! I'm already working on number 101 (as a big fan of the 101 Dalmatians, perhaps an even more important milestone) and I don't plan on quiting anytime soon.
Do you want to tell the readers of your reviews something, or do you have something to add that you couldn't fit in these questions?
Thanks for reading my reviews and responding to them, don't stop! And by all means give your own opinion about series. You can do that via comments or of course by becoming a reviewer ;).
