Lampsi

 

Lampsi or Η Λάμψη... (in English: The Shine)...  holds the title for the longest-running soap opera in Greek television and is one of the most popular shows in both Greece and Bulgaria. It aired almost daily for over 14 years on the Greek TV channel ANT1.

The show kicked off on September 16, 1991, and wrapped up with its final episode on July 29, 2005.

Over its 14-year run, a total of 3,457 episodes were aired. The series featured 190 stories, which required 150,000 pages of dialogue, involved 1,500 actors, seven directors, and a multitude of technicians.

Nikos Foskolos penned the script, while the episodes were directed by Nikos Foskolos, Spyros Foskolos, and five other directors.

Currently ANT1 is uploading the entire series in their streaming platform. Some of the episodes are already on youtube. 

Personally, this was the soap, together with Bold, that defined the genre... in my childhood. The streets were legit empty when the show was on, that's how my grandmother described it. She was the biggest Lampsi fan on this planet...

Now re-watching some of the early episodes I'm shocked at how great the production, writing and everything looks. Yes, it has it's melodrama, but it's not bad. Quite the contrary.

If I'm not mistaken I remember reading that when the first 2 seasons were airing in Greece it had record viewing - more than half the audience of any tv channel watching... was watching Lampsi. They only planned to have 1-2 seasons, but the overwhelming success led them to make more seasons.

 

 

The themes of the soap are classic storylines - love and betrayal, lies, revenge, money, power, social-climbing, opportunists, cheating wives and husbands... scandals and some thriller-crime stuff here and there. In the beginning we have a lot of drama concerning cheating husbands... especially. It's very addicting. 

Here we have something like... the Greek Dani Dupree or Tatyana Drakos... finding her cheating husband. 😂

 

Thanks. Never heard of this show.

It's finally finding its way on streaming/online! That's great! I have always wanted to watch the early years properly - and maybe the years I did see too lol

There's no denying it is a classic, and I think it would've kept going if newer, more quality soaps hadn't come along, changing the game and taking the audience. At some point in its run, it gave into its melodramatic style and became too rigid in its simple soap opera execution.

They were whole stories Foskolos copied (like the Krystle/Rita storyline), presumably having run out of ideas after over a decade of a daily serial lol

I enjoyed it for what it was. Y&R and B&B were huge, ahem, inspirations for him. 

He tried to modernize it when competition from other soaps beat him but it was too late.

That being said, the final episode was nothing short of brilliant and proved to me Foskolos never lost grip of his creation, even if the execution sometimes faltered.

On 7/23/2025 at 3:05 PM, YRBB said:

It's finally finding its way on streaming/online! That's great! I have always wanted to watch the early years properly - and maybe the years I did see too lol

There's no denying it is a classic, and I think it would've kept going if newer, more quality soaps hadn't come along, changing the game and taking the audience. At some point in its run, it gave into its melodramatic style and became too rigid in its simple soap opera execution.

They were whole stories Foskolos copied (like the Krystle/Rita storyline), presumably having run out of ideas after over a decade of a daily serial lol

I enjoyed it for what it was. Y&R and B&B were huge, ahem, inspirations for him. 

He tried to modernize it when competition from other soaps beat him but it was too late.

That being said, the final episode was nothing short of brilliant and proved to me Foskolos never lost grip of his creation, even if the execution sometimes faltered.

I just saw this post. I'm so happy I'm not alone in my excitement. I remember watching the show as a child, but the storylines are blurry. I hope I can rewatch it from the beginning.