"I let the music take me to the places I dream of."
— The show's theme song
Alex & Co. is a Disney Channel series produced by Disney Channel Italy. It originally ran from 2015 to 2017 and spawned an Alternate Universe movie (How to grow up despite your parents) as well as a Spin-Off, Disney Channel UK series Penny on M.A.R.S, connected to the original series via four "special episodes" introducing characters from the spin-off series, which are, however, as of July 2020, yet to be released outside Italy.
The series follows best friends Alex, Nicole, Christian, Emma and Sam as they enter high school and create a band despite their school's strict anti-arts policy with the support of their literature teacher Mr. Belli. Alpha Bitch Linda and her Girl Posse Samantha and Rebecca, as well as Sadist Teacher Mr. Strozzi are always at their tails trying to sabotage them, but the five best friends never give up.
The second season revolves around the band participating in a reality show called The Talent, competing against "The Lindas", a girl group made up of Linda, Samantha and Rebecca. The third season shows the development of their professional musical career while they're still in high school.
The series stars Leonardo Cecchi as Alex, Eleonora Gaggero as Nicole, Saul Nanni as Christian, Beatrice Vendramin as Emma and Federico Russo as Sam.
This work provides examples of:
The series as a whole
- Adults Are Useless: The protagonists' parents barely do anything to help them with their problems. Alex actually calls out his parents on paying attention only to his brother Joe and not even knowing that a record label offered Alex's band a contract.
- Aerith and Bob: Averted. All main characters have fairly common names, even generic enough to be used as Alice and Bob- style hypothetical names.
- Arc Words: "Together Forever" for Alex and Nicole. Each of them wears a bracelet with one of these words, and in the special episodes, they get new versions of them. The words are a symbol of their special relationship.
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Rebecca (and her sister Giada in season 3), Linda and Samantha respectively.
- Five-Man Band: A variation of the actual musical band type:
- The Leader: Alex is undoubtedly this, since he comes up with the idea to start a band and his name is featured prominently in the band's new name in season 2 (an aversion to Egocentric Team Naming, it is more of a sign of his friends recognising him as their leader).
- The Lancer: Emma, as co-founder of the band and the one who comes up with their first song (which is also the theme song).
- The Smart Guy: Sam, who a Scholarship Student, as well as the keyboardist of the band.
- The Big Guy: Christian, the Lovable Jock.
- The Heart: Nicole, who gets about as many solo parts as Emma and not much less than Alex.
- Foreign Language Theme: Not only the theme song, but the entire soundtrack of the show is in English (shown with Italian subtitles in the original version). There are only two excpetions: one of the songs, Unbelievable, has an Italian version that doesn't appear on the show, and The Magic of Love is a Bilingual Song with verses in both English and Italian.
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Fridge Brilliance: Most of the song lyrics include weird wording or clumsy word order. If one thinks about it, it's exactly as if they were written by teenaged non-native English speakers. - Meaningful Name: Alex's surname Leoni, a derivative of leone (lion), describes his fierce, resilient nature and his position as the leader of his friend group very well.
Season 1
- Abhorrent Admirer: While she is not abhorrent per se, Linda counts as this for Christian, since he is lowkey scared of the idea of getting close to her.
- Betty and Veronica: Nicole is the Betty (childhood friend and overall nice girl) and Emma is the Veronica (starts out as an intriguing stranger) to Alex's Archie. The interesting part is that both are equally Girl Next Door- esque, and that Emma has the blonde hair- blue eyes combo usually associated with Betty, while Nicole is a dark-eyed brunette like Veronica.
- Cannot Spit It Out: Nicole about her crush on her childhood friend Alex. Of course, the main reason is I Don't Want to Ruin Our Friendship, complemented by the fact that Alex is too busy swooning over Emma.
- Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Emma's father is this, and it's hard to defy him because he's not just any regular person.
- Nom de Mom: At first, Emma uses her late mother's maiden name, Castelli, to hide the fact that her father is Principal Ferrari.
Season 2
- Egocentric Team Naming: The band gets renamed to Alex & Co. in this season, but it is the rest of the members, not Alex, who come up with it as a tribute to their leader.
- Failed a Spot Check: Being overwhelmed with songwriting and rehearsals for The Talent, Alex falls asleep while writing an essay. In the morning, realising he's overslept, he hastily copies his brother's old essay, changing only the name at the front. He fails, however, to notice that his brother has also signed his paper at the end, and that is what gives away his cheating.
- Identically Named Group: The Lindas invoke this trope and one of the judges of The Talent lampshades it, but they are actually an aversion, since the name is actually Egocentric Team Naming.
- Team Title: The series title becomes this after the band is renamed from Sound Aloud to Alex & Co. in season 2.
- Title Drop: Naturally, lots of times after the band is renamed Alex & Co.
- Mr. Smith: One of the judges of The Talent has that exact name. It is likely a stage name, but this is never confirmed to be true or false.
- Unified Naming System: Alex & Co and The Lindas are both examples of Egocentric Team Naming, but how they are chosen is what differentiates the dynamics of the two bands. Linda has an It's All About Me mindset and forces her Girl Posse to treat her like a princess. The protagonists' name, on the other hand, shows that they recognise Alex as the leader and The Heart of their band.
Season 3
- Artifact Title: After Christian and Sam are Put on a Bus, the band falls apart - although characters still perform occasionally.
- Somebody Named "Nobody": Alex adopts the alias Nobody after his manager says that without her, he would be a nobody, as a jab at her, and goes on to become an overnight internet sensation under Nobody's mask.
Special episodes
- Bootstrapped Theme Song: The Universe Owes You One, the song Nicole writes throughout the four episodes.
- Continuity Nod: The Universe Owes You One references the theme song by paraphrasing the line "I speak the planet's mother tongue" into "We spoke the world's mother tongue" and title-drops All the While from season 1 and We Are One from season 2. It also includes Alex and Nicole's Arc Words "together forever".
- Title Drop: The title of the Bootstrapped Theme is dropped in Italian:L'universo ti deve un favore.
How to Grow Up Despite Your Parents
- Canon Foreigner: Evelyn Riley, who replaces Rebecca as Sam's Love Interest, and her parents Pat and Mary.
- Movie Bonus Song: The movie features songs from the series as well as two new ones that do not appear there.
