Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Dirty Lines’ On Netflix, A Dramedy About The People Who Made A Popular Phone Sex Line In 1980s Amsterdam

It’s interesting how kitschy stories about sex and gender revolutions in the ’70s and ’80s has become its own genre, with a particular tone and balance between comedy and drama. It seems that GLOW started the trend, with Mrs. America and Minx continuing it. Now, the trend has expanded to Europe, with a new Netflix series about the first phone sex line in The Netherlands.

DIRTY LINES: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Zooming in on a riverside industrial site at night, a voiceover says “It was in Amsterdam, in 1989. And this is Frank Stigter. He’s about to drive his Ferrari Testarossa into the water.”

The Gist: Frank (Minne Koole) and his brother Ramon (Chris Peters) founded Teledutch, the first phone sex line in the Netherlands. Both are exceedingly wealthy because of the line’s popularity. The woman doing the narration is Marly Saolmon (Joy Delima), who is one of the top voices; we see her in the booth doing her thing, while admitting she’s a prude. We also see her as at Club RoXY on New Year’s Eve, with DJ Mischa Brandt (Joes Brauers) getting head while he works the turntables; his girlfriend (and Marly’s best friend) Janna (Julia Akkermans) is in the audience. Times seem pretty good. So why does Frank want to drive his new Ferrari into the river?

We go back three years. Marly is a college student who still lives with her relatively conservative parents, right outside Amsterdam. Janna offers Marly a room in her flat, and even tells her how she can work to pay the rent; she knows of a gig recording sex line tapes for a new company called Teledutch.

Frank and Ramon are already seeing success with their sex line, and in a news interview, Frank tries to put a showman’s face on their enterprise, much to his brother’s dismay. Frank is a guy who has had entrepreneurial ideas for years, but thinks the idea of having men call in to masturbate to a sexy voice talking dirty might be his best; he was inspired by the crappy VHS he had to watch while leaving a sample at a fertility clinic. The bartender at the restaurant the Stigters went to every day didn’t think so; he says it’s a “shit idea” when he’s asked to invest in an offshoot Frank calls the “orgy line.”

During the TV reporters’ visit, Frank not only shows the cameras the orgy line recording, but makes a point of saying that most of the money goes to the country’s telecom authority, which benefits taxpayers. “The Netherlands jerks itself rich,” he says straight into the camera.

Marly, tired of her parents’ rules and her mother insisting that she shouldn’t live in the “dirty city,” she goes to Teledutch and records a tape. She’s so stilted, though, that the recording is deemed unusable. But when Frank is taking the reporters around, she happens to be in the recording booth when the cameras are there. She shows up in the report that makes it to air, shaming her mother so much that she kicks Marly out of the house. But the line gets so jammed with callers that it more or less takes down the country’s entire phone system.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Dirty Lines has the same mix of drama and comedy that we’ve seen in other ’70s and ’80s set dramedies like GLOW and Minx.

Our Take: Dirty Lines, created by Pieter Bart Korthuis based on Fred Saueressig’s book 06-Cowboys, takes the right tone when it comes to telling the fictionalized story of the Netherlands’ first phone sex line. But at the same time, it isn’t just about people having fake orgasms in recording booths, or even Frank’s over-the-top way to promote the business. Like the two shows we mentioned above, Korthuis combines some pretty funny moments with personal stories that have a lot of potential to take this show into some interesting dramatic territory.

For instance, Frank and his wife Anoek (Abbey Hoes) are trying to have children, but Frank’s dreams about Teledutch will get in the way. How does Marly, an admitted prude, become the company’s top-notch erotic voice? There’s also the story about how Mischa and Janna, who meet when Mischa explores the old sex theater space behind the store where Janna works, not only develop their relationship but how the RoXY goes from an abandoned sex theater to a popular club.

But the episode thrives in its smaller moments, like the pre-house dance club tradition of women not looking like they’re having fun, getting hit on by awkward guys in striped shirts, or the fact that Ramon requested everyone bring him CDs for his birthday. Anoek talks all the way through the babymaking sex she has with Frank. Ramon can’t have sex with his wife without looking at a clothing ad with shirtless male models. A hot new professor takes over the sexology class Janna and Marly are taking. All of this background is not only funny, but it informs how the characters will evolve and react going forward.

Delima’s performance as Marly ties it all together, because her presence is so magnetic. She does a fine job of playing a prude who doesn’t want to be one, and it’ll be interesting to see how Marly changes over the three years this season will likely take place.

Sex and Skin: It’s a show about a phone sex line, so there’s naturally a lot of sex in the first episode.

Parting Shot: Anoek calls the fertility clinic about the results of the testing on Frank’s sperm, and finds out that he was there, but never left a sample.

Sleeper Star: Julia Akkermans is funny as Janna, mainly as she tries to wrangle Marly into being less of a prude.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Dirty Lines does a good job of taking on a not-so-serious topic with a good mix of comedy and personal drama.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.