TELENOVELA WATCH: LA MADAME, SECRETOS DEL PARAISO & QUE BONITO AMOR Finale. Plus, Univision Afternoon Novelas & CORAZON INDOMABLE

Alicia Machado stars in LA MADAME.
Photo Credit: Felipe Cuevas/Univision.com

LA MADAME (Mondays-Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET on UniMás) is surprisingly cheeky and funny given its potentially exploitative subject: the lives of high-end escorts. Danger and violence often crop up, but the tone remains largely fanciful. The episodes are a hybrid of serial and stand-alone storytelling. Each episode begins and ends with scenes lasting a total of about ten minutes from the overarching, serialized frame story: the Madame (Alicia Machado) running Colombia’s most exclusive and expensive escort service is kept prisoner in the house of a gangster (Roberto Mateos) who orders her to tell him about each of the girls who works for her. In between the opening and concluding scenes of the frame story is a long central flashback detailing the exploits of one of the Madame’s girls. There is a new girl featured every night with a new guest cast suggesting an anthology series, except the guest lady of the night invariably gets into some predicament that requires the Madame to come to her assistance, accompanied by her bumbling assistant Pacho (Julio Sánchez Cóccaro).

TELENOVELA WATCH: LA MADAME Premieres On UniMas; Thoughts on SANTA DIABLA & LA TEMPESTAD

Photo Credit: Univision Communications Inc.

LA MADAME
There were two ripped-from-the-headlines series produced in Colombia this year promising the salacious details of the lives of high-end escorts and their relations with the rich and famous, powerful politicians and dangerous criminals: LA PREPAGO and LA MADAME. Perhaps call girls will outpace capos as Colombian exports to US screens this year.

The first to reach the US is LA MADAME which airs at 10 p.m. ET on UniMás. Produced by RTI for Televisa, it is the prostitute project officially inspired by Madame Rochy’s memoir LAS PREPAGO where she described hobnobbing with the most powerful men in Colombia and named several celebrities who allegedly worked for her.