Gooische Vrouwen is a Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 drama series, created by Linda de Mol

Linda de Mol

Linda Margaretha de Mol , known as Linda de Mol, is a Dutch actress and television presenter in the Netherlands and in Germany. She is the sister of Endemol founder John de Mol...

 for her brother John's Tien

Talpa

Talpa may refer to:* Talpa, a genus of mole* Talpa, a village in Taos County, New Mexico* Talpa, a village in Texas* Talpa de Allende, a city in Jalisco, Mexico* Talpa, a commune in Teleorman County, Romania...

 channel. Favourably compared to Desperate Housewives

Desperate Housewives

Desperate Housewives is an American television comedy-drama series created by Marc Cherry and produced by ABC Studios and Cherry Productions. Executive producer Cherry serves as Showrunner. Other executive producers since the fourth season include Marc Cherry, Bob Daily, George W...

and Sex in the City, the series chronicles the lives of four upper-class women residing in Het Gooi (the Dutch equivalent of Beverly Hills) and ran from 2005 to 2009. It was the biggest success on the otherwise ill-fated Tien, and after the closure of Tien the series continued on RTL

RTL Television

Rtl.de' redirects here. For other uses, see RTL.RTL Television , or simply RTL, is a German commercial television station distributed via cable and satellite along with DVB-T , in larger population centres...

. Gooische Vrouwen has since been sold to Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 (for which version Linda De Mol dubbed her own voice), Belgium

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 and France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

.

Season 1

(October 30 - December 18, 2005)

• Sonja 'Cheryl' van Veen (Linda de Mol) is married to singer Martin 'Morero' Hogenbirk; hot on the heels of his no. 1-hit Echte Liefde (a song about real love being indestructible) they relocate from Amsterdam
  Amsterdam
  Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
  
   to Het Gooi where Anouk Verschuur (Susan Visser), Willemijn Lodewijcks (Annet Malherbe) and Claire van Kampen (Tjitske Reidinga) become their neighbours. Claire initially keeps her distance because of Martin's past as a market salesman. She argues with her husband Anton who consequently feeds himself drunk before jumping into the dry swimming-pool; he dies on the spot. Claire, who works as a sollicitor, blames the Moreiros, but her daughter Merel thinks that she's responsible and wanders off into the arms of Willemijn' son Roderick. Anouk and Willemijn blame themselves for, respectively, encouraging Anton to let himself go and dimming the lights at the swimming-pool.

• To make matters worse, Claire discovers that Anton had a gay affair wilst losing all the money from their trust-fund. The others have their fair share of man-problems as well; Willemijn doesn't get what she wants from her husband Evert who now only dances with himself during his morning shower. It soon transpires that he fancies Anouk who divorced from her pilot husband Tom (with whom she has a daughter Vlinder); not for reasons of freedom and creativity (as Tom always thought), not for Evert (who ends up a crying man) but solely to have sex with every other man (including the police-inspector researching Anton's death). Cheryl hires Holtrop PI to check if Martin really cheats on her with his backing-singer Wendy. Claire also approaches Holtrop to track down the bastard whom Anton slept with. The results were not satisfying, so she takes matters in her own hands; Holtrop prevents her from doing so (after driving down Cheryl's dog Engelbert), thus saving his boyfriend from a bullet or two.

• Anouk and Willemijn are the joint employers of Thai-born au pair Tippiwan; Roderick fancies her and proves that he's not the "small boy" she holds him for. However, she prefers Dr. Rossi, a psychiatrist who claims to be wasting his time in "this reservation" for people with insignificant problems. Cheryl advertises diet-pills but Willemijn reckons that she doesn't need them; Martin uses the launch to hit back at press-speculations that he doesn't want a child. Willemijn visits a tarot-reader who tells her that someone is out there to steal something that's hers; after finding out who she offers money to punish Anouk voodoo-style; a move she soon regrets. Anouk bumps into a so-called friend (who lies about his deserted wife) at a singles-bar; he feeds her drunk and takes her to his residence where he locks her in upon leaving for his work. Anouk tries to escape through the balcony and breaks her arm, despite the efforts of the missus.

• Merel has a Moroccan
  Morocco
  Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
  
   boyfriend (Amir); Claire refuses to accept him and shows them both the door. "That was the girl next door" she lies when Robert comes in. Cheryl learns from Martin's phone-calls to Wendy ("On my birthday"); instead of "chopping off his balls and shove them down his throat" (as she once vowed) she has Wendy fired and replaced. Willemijn stages an auction in aid of the tennis-club; Anouk bids for a date with club-member Emanuelle but loses to Tom.

• Evert wants to divorce from Willemijn and insists that they have a good talk like two grown-ups; before doing so they fight like two four-year-olds. Anouk on the other hand wants Tom back, but does he want her back after sleeping with Cheryl ? Cheryl is pregnant; she knows who the father is but lies about it.

• Looking for a man to save her from bankruptcy, Claire gets torn between Robert (who's got the cash) and Max (a humble waiter); the latter helps her recoup some of the money by gambling at the casino. Unfortunately the first batch disappears from the drawer; Claire blames Amir and threatens to call the police. The real verdict is Tippiwan who also pretends to have Roderick's baby; she's willing to disappear to Bangkok
  Bangkok
  Bangkok is the capital and largest urban area city in Thailand. It is known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon or simply Krung Thep , meaning "city of angels." The full name of Bangkok is Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom...
  
   without anyone finding out. But who knocked down Claire at the swimming-pool ?

Season 2

(September 3 - November 7, 2006)

• Having split with Evert, Willemijn turns over a new leaf although she still wears a wedding-ring. Her hopes of reconciliation are shattered when Evert introduces his new girlfriend Diana, whom he met at the golf-track. Willemijn tries to rule Diana out the strategic way, to adverse results.

• Claire survived and is at the revalidation centre; she's heartbroken to find out that Merel knocked her down with a baseball bat and wants to keep it under wraps. Merel calls from the police-station, unsuccessfully begging for another chance. When she comes home as a reformed girl she's not welcome; her "You're my mother" is responded to with "Unfortunately".

• Anouk turns 40 and insists on becoming a better mother; a goal she doesn't achieve by serving alcohol-fuelled fruit-bowl at her daughter Vlinder's birthday-party and choosing the sole male candidate in a search for a new au pair. She gets another chance when Claire asks her to look after Merel. This time things do seem to go right; Anouk even swears off the blokes till Merel takes her to a night-club where an attractive bartender serves the drinks. Merel returns to Claire where she's practically grounded and Anouk restores some common-sense after an encounter with a guy who appears to be the teenage-son of an old friend.

• Martin attempts to go international by releasing the English-language single One More Try; the fans refuse to listen and thanks to strong radio-boycotts it even misses the bubbling-under charts.

• Tippiwan takes great delight in creaming off Martin's ill-hidden saving money. Martin finds out and is on the verge of calling the police when Tips confronts him with his affair with Lucy. Her next move; killing and burying the taxman and faking a miscarriage.

• It doesn't end there though; Martin writes two versions of a song for his soon-to-be-born child and asks the au pair for advice. Tippiwan stirs things up by hinting that Martin might not be the father.

• Cheryl is brought to hospital to give birth to a son; she yet has to settle for a name (Calvin
  Calvin Klein
  Calvin Richard Klein is an American fashion designer who launched the company that would later become Calvin Klein Inc. in 1968. In addition to clothing, Klein has also given his name to a range of perfumes, watches, and jewelry....
  
   or Dior
  Christian Dior
  Christian Dior , was a French fashion designer, best known as the founder of one of the world's top fashion houses, also called Christian Dior.-Life:...
  
  ). Everyone turns up at to see the newborn (including Tom who nearly betrays himself as the possible father), only Martin missed the call. He's been at a hotel-room with Lucy and hurries his way to the hospital; Lucy joins him to accuse him of using her for a quick one. Martin's loss of focus results in a car-crash.

Season 3

(September 16 - November 11, 2007)

• Martin survived the accident, Lucy didn't; Cheryl shows him the door, although she agrees to baptize their son Remy
  Sans Famille
  Sans Famille is an 1878 French novel by Hector Malot. Most recent English translation is "Alone in the World" by AJ de Bruyn, 2007.-First Volume:...
  
  . With the real father still unknown a DNA
  DNA
  Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
  
  -test is called for. Anouk begins to get suspicious and confronts Cheryl during their visit to the beauty-salon. However, she soon sets eyes at Willemijn's handsome therapist Stag Hartman. He is married and has a daughter to pick up from school, but that doesn't stop Anouk from tracking down his phone-number and arranging an at-home session. Stag manages to get to the core of her problems; he sees a lonely little girl moving on from one man to another searching for the love and attention she never had.

• Meanwhile Claire is reunited with Ernst, the wheelchairbound man she met at the revalidation-centre. Ernst has improved a lot during their time apart but his sexual ability still leaves a lot to be desired; thus he orders a boxfull of Viagra. However, when Ernst starts behaving like Merel's stepfather Claire decides that he should go.

• Willemijn has moved house and does her children's head in (Roderick threatens to move in with Evert). Cheryl asks her to become Remy's godmother and finally tells Anouk the truth about her and Tom. In true pot-kettle-scenario Anouk calls her a slag and insists that Willemijn stays away from the baptization. Willemijn refuses to take sides and invites Anouk and Cheryl for a peace-restoring cheese-fondue where she admits to her own sexual fantasies. At the big day Martin bursts to tears, finally regretting his actions. The next day he gets back in the saddle after receiving the forged test results.

• The Fab Four stage a charity-auction to build an orphanage in Thailand, but are they doing it for the right reasons ? Willemijn forgets her appointment with Dr. Rossi who turns down her suggestion to donate ten free sessions. The event is a success, but no thanks to Claire keeping one cheque for herself and selling a painting mistakably donated by Anouk.

• Willemijn loses her cool because everyone either wants a piece of her or lets her down. She reluctantly looks after Claire who rented her home and gets livid when finding out that it's her that Evert postponed his Daddy-day for. Claire insists that it was just a business-meeting but Willemijn calls her a smug-faced golddigger and sends her packing; Claire moves in with Anouk where she gets reprimanded for her re-arrangement schemes. Attending a grand cru-event Willemijn makes a show of herself by drinking too much wine (rather than just tasting it), humiliating an off-duty Dr. Rossi and hijacking the jazz-singer's performance. Claire, Anouk and Cheryl have to come and drag her home.

• Martin is up to his two-timing tricks again; Greet, his 65-year-old Mum finds out, when he throws out her shoe of the car-window en route to a birthday-dinner and confronts him at the gents ("If you do one more thing like this to Cheryl and I'll assure you that Remy will grow up as an only child").

• French
  France
  The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
  
   nudist singer Jean-Louis rents Claire's home and ends up writing a song about her. Cheryl disregards the foursome's no-go-policy and invites Jean-Louis for a swim; Tippiwan leaks her self-made pictures to the regional newspaper. Martin consequently moves out but a divorce and a full-custody battle are neatly prevented. Meanwhile Anouk gets truck by allergy; on order to recover she needs to get rid of all bad energy, Claire included, and after her recovery she also cuts out hamburgers and child-labour-produced bras.

• Willemijn invites her mother for Easter but gets confronted with her underachievements; when socialising with Henriette Van Veen (aka Henkie) it is assumed that she might be gay. Willemijn turns down Henriette who refuses to settle for plain friendship. The discovery of online-dating reunites her with Evert (aka Desperado).

• Cheryl causes a car-crash and faces the wrath of the influential Cecile van Buuren after calling her an "ugly bitch"; doors that used to be open are now closing one by one. Claire, released on bail after "doing a Winona Ryder
  Shoplifting
  Shoplifting is theft of goods from a retail establishment. It is one of the most common property crimes dealt with by police and courts....
  
  " rallies round by arranging a party and with a free performance from Martin. For her own troubles Claire receives unsavoury text messages and a reminder to pay 5000 Euro
  Euro
  The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...
  
  s, otherwise the pictures will be exposed; she appears to be blackmailed by Tippiwan.

• But Tippers starts looking over her shoulder once the four women seek contact with the ghostly world; Anouk hires a medium to cleanse the swimming pool and is convinced that she's got a sixth sense to develop, till Vlinder beats her in solving the mysterious anagram waippnit. Claire remains sceptical till Annechien tells her to come clean with Anton (of whom she met a divorcing gay lookalike). Continuing on her 'make the world a better place'-trip, Anouk volunteers as a Dutch teacher to a political refugee.

• Greet sets up a boobytrap for Tippiwan (whose inability to speak Dutch is all pretend); she consequently gets thrown over the edge of the stairs into eternity. While this happens, Cheryl is busy making love with her garage-owning ex-boyfriend; upon her return she comforts Martin but breaks his heart further by telling him the truth about Remy. Tippiwan gets thrown out (despite threats to talk to the press) and seeks revenge; she flees the country taking Remy with her and sending a timebomb to the foursome. As they open it at Willemijn's wedding-reprisal the last five seconds are ticking off.

Season 4

(September 7 - November 3, 2008)

• Tippiwan gets arrested at the airport, but whilst doing time she writes an all-revealing book. Cheryl, Anouk and Claire (Willemijn got lost in explosion) waste no time in deleting all copies from the bookshops to burn them; it makes no sense as Tippiwan's effort gets reviewed on television. At her perfume-launch Cheryl neatly avoids questions about the revelations, but backstage she catches Martin snogging another woman.

• Joost, Anouk's violent lover, isn't happy either; a few years earlier he was a writer of great promise, now he's branded a has-been. Besides he forces Anouk to choose between him and Vlinder; he lures her into an open-air bath and attempts to drown her. Anouk survives and sends Joost packing; however, changing the locks makes no impression but Evert's new girlfriend Roelien comes to the rescue and Joost is handed over to the police.

• Cheryl has given Martin one last chance, but then she gets abducted by an obsessed fan eager to take her place. Martin goes along with the gag and manages to release Cheryl.

• The press are happy to link Claire's name to words as 'fraud' and 'deceit'; her answering machine is full of business cancellations and if it wasn't for Roelien she also would've been suspended from her job. Claire is taken to police-station and court; she ends up with a broken heart and a drinking problem.

• Roelien is pregnant and wrongly assumes that Evert doesn't wanna know.

• Anouk announces her relocation to Dubai, but this is as much a shock to her as to the others. In the end she decides to stay. Anouk questions Tom's new love-interest (who bears more than a resemblance to her) and unsuccessfully takes Claire to an AA-meeting.

• Cheryl and Martin renew their vows. Evert, keen to marry Roelien, isn't impressed, he speaks of a charade.

• Tippiwan escapes from prison to pay her nemeses a visit in disguise. She ignores the train-a-coming-sign and gets stuck on the rails waiting for her seemingly inescapable fate.

Season 5

(September 4 - October 23, 2009)

• Claire is introduced to Merel's new boyfriend Winand; once again she disapproves because he is black and seems to cause further alienation. Babysitting at Cheryl's should keep her mind off things but instead she neglects a bathing Remy in favour of her alcohol abuse; Cheryl is livid when she finds out. Following a crisis-meeting Claire is given an ultimatum; either she checks into rehab or she'll be disowned. Despite her "rehab is for losers"-remark Claire realises that life without the others may be no fun either and attends AA-meetings; she has a conversation with her mother who abandoned her at the age of five, and she's fancied by a fellow alcoholic. However, she also manages to be kept at arm's length ("So I get the silent treatment, eh").

• Cheryl hires Evert's former employee Ilona as no.1 choice over hundreds of pretty girls eager to work for Martin. This has an adverse effect as Martin seems to take a keen interest in her. Meanwhile Evert has a vasectomy and keeps this to himself; Cheryl pressures him into telling Roelien the truth before she does it. After coming clean Evert decides to undo his snip, but Roelien isn't convinced that he actually wants children.

• Vlinder bunks off school because she's been bullied. Anouk bribes a schoolboy into dancing with Vlinder at a party she's invited for, which he denies (they danced together anyway).

• Martin keeps ejecting the neighbours' cat; at the umpteenth time Cheryl says "next time I'll kill him". Eventually the cat is found dead; Cheryl and Martin contribute to the funeral in Tuscany
  Tuscany
  Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....
  
  . The murder appears to be the job of Tippiwan who works incognito as the neighbours' housemaid; at the supermarket she relocates Cheryl's trolley with Remy in it an later she sneaks into the Moreros' place. Auntie Cor's instructed "not to lose sight (of Remy) for a moment" and doesn't buy Tippiwan's story of taking Remy out to play with her daughter. Tips tries to stab Cor but instead she's overpowered and gets stabbed herself.

Offshoots

• The younger days of the four women are chronicled in a prequel-novel.

• The success of Gooische Vrouwen inspired RTL
  RTL Television
  Rtl.de' redirects here. For other uses, see RTL.RTL Television , or simply RTL, is a German commercial television station distributed via cable and satellite along with DVB-T , in larger population centres...
  
   to make a real-life soap about the younger generation (De Echte Gooische Meisjes). For the second season, the cash-to-burners temporarily moved to Amsterdam
  Amsterdam
  Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
  
   where they were trained to deal with spending cuts. One of the girls went on to tape a solo-documentary about her trip to Peru
  Peru
  Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
  
  .

• A farewell-movie (Gooische Vrouwen; De Film) will be premiered on March 8, 2011.

Trivia

• Cystine Carreon (Tippiwan) made a 2000-appearance in RTL
  RTL Television
  Rtl.de' redirects here. For other uses, see RTL.RTL Television , or simply RTL, is a German commercial television station distributed via cable and satellite along with DVB-T , in larger population centres...
  
   soap Good Times, Bad Times; she played a stage-actress dying of AIDS. Interviewed for TV-guide AVRO Televizier
  Avro
  Avro was a British aircraft manufacturer, with numerous landmark designs such as the Avro 504 trainer in the First World War, the Avro Lancaster, one of the pre-eminent bombers of the Second World War, and the delta wing Avro Vulcan, a stalwart of the Cold War.-Early history:One of the world's...
  
  in 2008, Carreon expressed her concern that Tippiwan (who gave au pairs a bad name) will still haunt her in 20 years time.

• In the early 1990s Susan Visser played a hard-to-get waitress (Dirkje) in comedy-series De Vlaamsche Pot.