Parents' Guide to Every Minute Counts

The character-driven fictional drama centers around the real 1985 Mexico City earthquake and the subsequent catastrophic damage suffered in the Cuahtémoc borough of Tlatelcolco. With the help of flashbacks and archive footage of post-earthquake damage, Every Minute Counts tells the stories of specific character to reveal who they are and mistakes they made before the earthquake struck. It also shows how the chaos and horror of the quake's aftermath transforms them in some way. The series contextualizes these changes within some of the actual events that took place after the quake, including the heroic efforts to rescue newborn babies trapped in a collapsed hospital maternity ward (a.k.a. the "miracle babies"), the near-complete collapse of the modular Nuevo León building that rendered over 120 people dead or missing, and the mobilization of citizen brigades who rescued people when the government failed to respond.

Some of the more infamous accounts that emerged after the earthquake are also addressed here, including garment factory owners moving textiles and machinery out of the rubble and leaving hundreds of women to suffocate, and the decades of government corruption that led to unenforced building codes. As the narratives unfold and the inevitable calamities mount, the lives of characters intersect formulaically, adding more interest to the ongoing melodrama. But the events that drive them to cross paths can be emotionally exhausting to watch. Nonetheless, Every Minute Counts offers viewers a well-produced series that reminds us of how every minute of our lives, and how we choose to live them, matters.