TELENOVELA WATCH: 'Fugitivos' Premieres Tonight on UniMás, 'Avenida Brasil' Begins Tonight in Primetime on Telemundo

FUGITIVOS premieres tonight at 9 p.m. ET on UniMás. It is a 2014 Colombian telenovela produced by CMO Producciones for Caracol. Three of the four previous CMO productions were excellent: CORREO DE INOCENTES, LA PROMESA, and LA RONCA DE ORO; and despite its shaky plotting, I also enjoyed their MADE IN CARTAGENA, aka BAZURTO, with its kinetic action set pieces. Judging by the promos, FUGITIVOS seems akin to the action of MADE IN CARTAGENA.

Emmanuel Esparza (LA POLA) stars as Julián Duarte, an innocent man sentenced to 20 years in prison for the murder of the wife of his best friend. The prison, called “La Bendita,” holds men and women separated by a wall of bars. There he meets Esperanza, played by Tatiana Vargas (RAFAEL OROZCO, EL IDOLO), who is in prison for murdering her husband to protect her daughter from him. Julián and Esperanza attempt to escape, but only Julián succeeds. Now a fugitive, he keeps a promise he made to Esperanza to deliver her diary to her daughter, Micaela, played by Laura Osma, which explains the truth behind her crime. Julián and Micaela then set off in search of evidence that will prove his innocence.

TELENOVELA WATCH: Best & Worst of 2014

(This look back at the telenovelas of 2014 is US based, covering productions that aired at least half their episodes this calendar year on a US broadcast network.)

I did not see any great telenovelas broadcast in the US this year, but there were a number of decent ones. The return of Brazilian telenovelas to our network television was a welcome change after an absence of a few years and bolstered an otherwise mediocre year. While I don't think Lado a Lado or Avenida Brasil are great telenovelas, they are substantially better than the product reaching our screens out of Mexico, Colombia and Miami.

Lado a Lado is a Brazilian telenovela produced by Globo in 2012 that reached our screens this year thanks to MundoFox. It is the story of a profound friendship forged between two women of different backgrounds who dare to live their lives in ways that conflict with the misogynistic and racist society of Rio de Janeiro in the first decade of the twentieth century. Isabel, played by Camila Pitanga, is a black woman ostracized when she becomes pregnant with a lover's child while her fiancé is missing, unbeknownst to her, locked in jail. Laura, played by Marjorie Estiano, is the daughter of a conservative ex-baroness, played by Patrícia Pillar, who wishes to work outside the home rather than settle for the confining role of housewife her social class and mother demands of her, who later faces the additional stigma associated with divorce. The performances by Pitanga and Estiano are richly detailed and moving. Camila Pitanga has the beauty and aura that make her character's international stardom when she introduces the Paris art world to samba believable, and Estiano's cheerful hoyden is the warmest, most likable soul depicted in a telenovela in a long time.

As the friendship between the two women is the central relationship in the telenovela, their love interests, by necessity, take a secondary role. Only one of the love stories really works, the pairing between Estiano and Thiago Fragoso as her patient, sympathetic husband. The chemistry between Estiano and Fragoso is very strong and their relationship is richly developed. Rather less successful is the pairing between Pitanga and Lázaro Ramos, which after an initial dinner, skips ahead a year, meaning all of its development occurs off-screen. Ramos is an excellent actor, but he is saddled with a dull role as the white-hatted, virtuous hero.

Lado a Lado relies too heavily on conniving villains setting out to ruin the lives of the heroines, perfectly reasonable devices in most telenovelas, but clashing with the loftier ambitions of this telenovela. The stereotypical villains detract and distract from the telenovela's true conflict between the heroines and the racist and misogynistic society as a whole. Better is when a conflict stems from an otherwise moral character, such as when the kind French lady employing Isabel, who arranged for her to be wed in the same church deemed worthy by the ex-baroness for her daughter's wedding, fires her after discovering the baby she is carrying wasn't fathered by her fiancé.

TELENOVELA WATCH: 'Avenida Brasil' Ends US Run; New Programs Announced at the Upfronts; Favorites for the Week

AVENIDA BRASIL, which concluded its US run this week on Telemundo, is a telenovela I admire more than love. A genuine international hit from Brazil that, even dubbed into Spanish, was usually the highest rated telenovela on the channel it aired throughout Latin America, it is a bit disappointing we were not allowed to see how it would do in prime time in the US, Telemundo opting instead to air it in the day.

Probably the best looking telenovela ever produced, my enthusiasm is diminished some by the fact it is also probably the most expensive telenovela ever produced, so what actually was achieved that others wouldn’t also achieve if given the same budget with which to work? My strongest aversion to the AVENIDA BRASIL is admittedly a personal one, but I absolutely loathe THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO of which this is at least the sixth or seventh unofficial adaptation I’ve seen in the last three years. My antipathy for revenge plots in general, always a crude, lazy story device, is exacerbated by their exceedingly overabundant presence in our culture. Is there a cop show on US TV where the tortured protagonist doesn’t have a murdered wife/father/fiancé/etc. to avenge?

TELENOVELA WATCH: QUÉ POBRES TAN RICOS Univsion Premiere; AVENIDA BRASIL Joins Telemundo Daytime Lineup

QUÉ POBRES TAN RICOS
Telenovela watchers in the US may be experiencing bouts of déjà vu of late due to the current lamentable trend at Televisa of producing Mexican adaptations of recent Colombian telenovelas. Here in the US, we got LA HIJA DEL MARIACHI (countlessly rerun), EL SECRETARIO (on Telemundo), and LOS CANARIOS (on SoiTV) well before their Mexican counterparts aired on Univision.

It’s déjà vu all over again tonight with the premiere of QUÉ POBRES TAN RICOS at 10 p.m. ET on Univision. The Colombian original, POBRES RICO, played in the US in 2012 on MundoFox. Starring Juan Pablo Raba and Paola Rey, and featuring enjoyable supporting performances from Maria Helena Doering, Carlos Torres, Diego Vásquez, and Luisa Fernanda Giraldo, POBRES RICO was a cute, amiable mediocrity. As the title suggests, it was a fairly cliché rich meets poor story. There was a single truly funny performance from Doering as the frivolous, haughty, alcoholic mother of the hero who loved her show dogs more than her kids. There was certainly nothing about POBRES RICO that clamored to be done again, but that has not deterred Televisa.

Internationally Acclaimed Telenovela AVENIDA BRASIL Comes To Telemundo on January 6

Telemundo kicks off 2014 with the premiere of AVENIDA BRASIL, a worldwide hit coming to U.S. screens for the first time on Monday, January 6 at 12 p.m. (Noon) ET. A story that has moved millions of viewers in more than 120 countries and 17 languages, AVENIDA BRASIL follows the fate of a little girl orphaned by her stepmother’s greed. Abandoned in a garbage dump, she meets the boy who will grow to be the love of her life, but the two are separated when they are adopted by different families and given new names. They never imagine that destiny will bring them back together as adults when she takes a job as a cook in the home of the archenemy who gave her up for adoption, only to reencounter her childhood love.