Netflix’s Cable Girls as Re-invention of a Nostalgic Past

For its first original Spanish series, Netflix chose a female-oriented melodrama focusing on four very different women working as switchboard operators in 1928 Madrid, Spain, struggling with universal themes such as love, sacrifice, pain, betrayal, and the fight for freedom in a patriarchal society. Cable Girls’ first season premiered on Netflix in over 190 countries on 28 April 2017; the second season aired on 25 December 2017, the third season came out on September 2018 and a fourth season is scheduled. As with their other original TV series, Netflix released the entire season all at once every time to allow fans to binge-watch the period-drama series in every country that has video on demand (VOD) platforms. The series’ title carries an implicit reference to a past in which information flowed through the cables of a central switchboard through people which at the time allowed telephone communication; the title is also reminiscent of films made between the 1920s and early 1930s when the cable technique was almost outdated. However, these films were among the first to show female workers, their work environment, fashion and feminine complicity, and they captured social changes. This chapter analyses Netflix’s success strategy in producing a series aimed at new European markets which blends the old and new media in a captivating period drama mixing elements of the past, such as costumes, decor and historical details with modern pop music in a form of entertainment that encompasses storytelling and nostalgic representations