The news is like a bomb. This morning, Le Figaro announces that after 17 years of existence and some 4500 episodes, More beautiful life should go out on France 3. The soap opera which tells the daily adventures of the inhabitants of the Mistral will not return for an additional season. Contacted by Puremédias, the production of the series would not have wanted to comment.
The reason for this falling by the wayside would be to be found in the unsatisfactory audiences of recent years. After having long been a safe bet on the third channel, More beautiful life was a little slow. In 2018, the soap opera, which often brought together 4 million viewers in front of their small screen, lost more than a million of its followers. And the numbers are only falling with an average of 2.6 million viewers since the start of the 2021 school year.
Launched in 2004, More beautiful life paved the way for other soap operas of the genre. First of all tomorrow belongs to us with Ingrid Chauvin on TF1, then such a big sunon France 2, and, finally, Here it all starts, still on TF1. Heavy competitors have therefore settled in the box of prime time access and have, little by little, overshadowed the series.
A springboard for many actors
Unlike the soap operas of the time which labeled their actors and although the pace of filming was intense, More beautiful life managed to give a boost to several of its key players. The most striking case is undoubtedly that of Laetitia Milot. Revealed in the series where she portrayed the character of Mélanie Rinato, the actress then temporarily left the Mistral to indulge in other activities, from her participation in Dance with the stars to the writing of novels through several notable appearances in series and TV movies (We will meet each other again, Clear-Eyed Revenge, Love at first sight in Bora Bora, Olivia, etc). Very quickly, the young woman became one of the most bankable French actresses of the moment.
Other actors have also found success after their stints in More beautiful life. We think of Dounia Coesens, currently on the bill of the Doc and the Vet alongside Michel Cymes or even Fabienne Carat who joined the team of Research section two years before the end of the series on TF1.