I Cesaroni - The Return: The Seventh Season Tonight on Canale 5

A letter hung on the wishing tree at Termini station: this missive by a child is responsible for the comeback of I Cesaroni on the small screen, at least according to the historical face Claudio Amendola, who also sits behind the camera for the occasion. The wish of a young viewer, whether true or fictionalized, thus brought one of the most beloved Italian series by the general public back to television, almost twelve years after its last season.

The Garbatella family thus reappears on Canale 5 from April 13 with twelve episodes over six evenings, exactly two decades after the first episode. And it does so at a time when television revival has become a lucrative as well as sentimental strategy – just think of the return of Beverly Hills 90210 on Sky, or that of Malcolm on Disney+ – riding that nostalgia effect which, after the eighties and nineties, is now set to reinvigorate productions from the new millennium as well. 

Who's back... and who's not

A new season that starts from a tragic premise, even in reality. Antonello Fassari, the unforgettable Cesare Cesaroni, passed away in April 2025, just as filming was about to begin. The entire seventh season is dedicated to him, with the nostalgic breath thus tinged with further nuances, finding itself grappling with the irreversible absence of someone who embodied some of those characters now familiar in many Italian homes.

To tell the truth, there are many absences, although fortunately in this case the missing actors are alive and well. Key figures such as Elena Sofia Ricci, Alessandra Mastronardi, Micol Olivieri, Max Tortora are missing: after all, even in the best real families, conflicts and divisions are commonplace, let alone in fictional ones.

The character of Giulio, played by Amendola himself, is still at the center of everything, with the historic Garbatella wine shop threatened by economic difficulties and the decision of his brother Augusto, a confirmed Maurizio Mattioli, to sell his shares. Marco lives with his new partner Virginia, while the arrival of Marta, his daughter with Eva who grew up in New York, risks changing everything, even in school dynamics, with teen-movie suggestions timidly emerging in the first two episodes. New entries include Ricky Memphis and Lucia Ocone, who bring new situations, and guest-star Paolo Bonolis in the gratuitous role of himself.

The changing times

What I Cesaroni represented in the Italian television landscape of the 2000s is difficult to measure, especially considering that the series was born as an adaptation of the Spanish Los Serrano, from which it progressively distanced itself more and more, acquiring its own characteristic physiognomy, strongly contextualized to the Roman setting.

Garbatella became the natural set for a good-natured and complicated Italian identity, and in this seventh season Amendola tries to update the format to current times, but ends up paying for a certain reluctance to effectively address the changes of a country and a society that have profoundly changed, for better or worse. The risk of trivializing certain themes, especially those in school – which seem to come from an outdated imaginary – and of cyclically continuing between sentimental discussions and family issues that seem to disregard the advancing world, make this appetizer less lucid and aware than potentially desirable. 

Certainly, I Cesaroni - The Return faces a double difficulty: speaking to historical fans while also trying to attract new ones, in a serial and media landscape that is very different and subject to the logic of the streaming market: will its popular soul be enough to justify its return, or was it better to leave the memory as it was? To posterity and the next episodes, the difficult verdict.