General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

A Private Affair

A Private Affair (Spanish: Un asunto privado) is a Spanish comedy-crime drama television series produced by Bambú Producciones for Amazon Prime Video, in which Marina Quiroga, a daring upper-class young woman with a detective's soul, sets out to catch the serial killer terrorizing her town with the help of her faithful butler Héctor¹. It premiered on September 16, 2022, with eight episodes of roughly 45 to 50 minutes, and consists of one season²^•³.

Key fact	Detail
Original title	Un asunto privado⁴
Creators	Teresa Fernández-Valdés, Ramón Campos, and Gema R. Neira¹
Production	Bambú Producciones, an original production for Amazon Prime Video⁵
Premiere	September 16, 2022; 8 episodes, about 45 minutes each²^•⁶
Setting	Late-1940s Galicia, Spain, centered on Vigo³
Lead cast	Aura Garrido as Marina Quiroga; Jean Reno as Héctor; Ángela Molina as Doña Asunción⁴
Reception	IMDb 6.6/10 from about 2,600 users; Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer 48% (1 review)⁷^•²

Spoilers

Premise and characters

The series is set at the end of the 1940s, when a wave of murders of prostitutes is committed by a serial killer in Vigo. Marina Quiroga, an intrepid woman of high society who dreams of becoming a police detective like her father, decides to investigate the crimes herself, aided by her butler and loyal friend Héctor, a sensitive and observant man³^•⁸. The two form an atypical pair for their historical moment⁵.

Marina's obstacles are built into her family and society. Her mother, Doña Asunción (Ángela Molina), tries to marry her off; her brother Arturo (Pablo Molinero) is the city's police chief and tries to stop her investigating; and the era's prejudices against women bar her from the police force she wants to join³^•⁸. The supporting cast includes Gorka Otxoa as Pablo Zarco, Álex García as Andrés Castaño, and Tito Valverde as Ramírez⁵.

Story structure

The season-long case concerns "El asesino de la flor de lis" (the fleur-de-lis killer). According to Fernández-Valdés, each episode closes a small story that brings the protagonists closer to the killer, while the overarching case remains open from beginning to end and is resolved within the first season¹¹. The eight episodes carry titles including "Fleur de lis", "Bella Lolita", "The Blue House", "The Last Train", "The Last Girl", "The Demon of Vengeance", and "Family Secrets", all released on September 16, 2022⁶.

Production

Amazon Prime Video announced the series in July 2019 as Bambú Producciones' first project for the platform, created by Teresa Fernández-Valdés, Ramón Campos, and Gema R. Neira⁹. Showrunner Fernández-Valdés described it as a mixture of thriller, comedy, action, and love, led not by a romance but by the protagonist's vocation for police work⁹. She said the team wanted to revive the classic thriller of Agatha Christie or Sherlock Holmes mixed with action and humor, calling the show the closest Bambú had come to James Bond¹⁰^•¹¹.

Filming and locations. The series was shot between 2020 and 2021 in locations in Vigo and Pontevedra, including the Plaza de Compostela and the Casco Vello of Vigo, the Cíes Islands, and the Balneario de Mondariz, with each space dressed for several weeks to evoke the mid-twentieth century¹². Fernández-Valdés said the decision to move the production to Galicia was made because of the pandemic, to isolate from the big city, which forced a rewrite of the series¹³. David Pinillos, María Ripoll, and Daniel Aranyó directed².

Tone and historical treatment

Although set in Francoist Spain, the series deliberately avoids political commentary. Fernández-Valdés stated that it is an adventure series inspired by James Bond and Indiana Jones, and that the makers do not attempt a historical portrait or engage with the context of the era¹⁰. Jean Reno, who plays Héctor, said he accepted the project for its social and feminist charge, describing it as fundamentally about the freedom of women in a period when they had none⁸.

Reception

On IMDb the series holds a rating of 6.6/10 from about 2,600 users, with per-episode ratings rising from 6.8 for the premiere to 8.2 for the finale⁷. On Rotten Tomatoes the season's Tomatometer stands at 48% from a single critic review, while the audience Popcornmeter reflects 50+ ratings averaging 3.2 out of 5². The critic Randy Meeks of Espinof gave it 3/5, writing that it "vibrates with its own unique voice when it embraces the spirit of a paperback novel"². Spanish critics noted the Bambú house style: the review site Espinof judged that the series fulfills the expectations of the producer's existing audience while adding better-shot action and a larger budget than previous Bambú series¹⁴.

The series is available on Prime Video with audio in Spanish and several dubbed languages, and is rated 15 in the United Kingdom and TV-MA on Rotten Tomatoes' US listing¹⁵^•¹. It ended after its single season¹⁶.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › International serial drama and telenovelas › Telenovelas and Latin American/Iberian serials › Spanish serial dramas

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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