The lives of affluent teenagers tend to be entertaining fodder used in plenty of shows, as their privilege, inexperience, and spending power allow them to go into some crazy situations. High Tides is one of those shows, set in the Belgian seaside town of Knokke, where working class Daan bumps into and captures the attention of rich high school couple Louise and Alex. The show definitely goes into a lot of the familiar soapy melodrama, with drugs, alcohol, and terrible parents driving them to teenage antics, but it does so through stunning visuals and a talented cast that makes the inane plot decent enough to watch. The show is nothing new, but for viewers into soapy teenage dramas, High Tides might be up your alley.

High Tides isn’t particularly new– it has the same soapy drama that plenty of other shows imagine affluent teenagers have, with the drinking, struggles with parents, and mental health issues. What’s interesting about High Tides is that out of the three main characters, Daan is decidedly not as privileged as the others, in both race and class. Louise and Alex aren’t the generic spoiled rich kids either, with Louise dealing with the rarely portrayed bipolar disorder, and Alex dealing with his clearly unstable parents. As the show delves into the drama that later unfolds in the summer, it would have been interesting to see if they’ll delve also into its nuances, but so far, the first few episodes hint at a fairly standard soapy approach we’re familiar with.