TELENOVELA WATCH: 'La Guerrera,' 'Uepa! Un Escenario Para Amar' Premiere, 'Fugitivos' Finale

LA GUERRERA, the Spanish dubbed international edit of the 2012 Brazilian telenovela SALVE JORGE, premieres tonight at 9 p.m. ET on MundoFox. Created by Glória Perez (O CLONE, INDIA), LA GUERRERA is about a single mother who falls victim to sex traffickers in Turkey.

LA GUERRERA stars Nanda Costa (CUENTO ENCANTADO) and Rodrigo Lombardi (INDIA), and features Cláudia Raia (LA FAVORITA), Giovanna Antonelli (O CLONE) and Carolina Dieckmann (COBRAS & LAGARTOS).

It is difficult to recommend a telenovela airing on MundoFox in prime time given the network’s egregious editing of past telenovelas including their last two Brazilian productions: LADO A LADO and RASTROS DE MENTIRAS (AMOR À VIDA), the latter being virtually unwatchable. To the network’s credit, they have followed up their butchered prime time airings with more complete reruns in the afternoons shortly after the prime time versions concluded; but I remain wary to dip into a new prime time telenovela on the network.


UEPA! UN ESCENARIO PARA AMAR
Also premiering today is UEPA! UN ESCENARIO PARA AMAR at 3 p.m. ET on Azteca. It is a remake of the 2001 Azteca telenovela COMO EN EL CINE, about a young woman living a double life – passing herself off as a psychologist while actually dancing at a bar nights to pay for the prestigious boarding school her younger sister attends.

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: 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: DAMA Y OBRERO and COMANDO ELITE Premiere Tonight

A pair of telenovelas premiere tonight. On Telemundo, DAMA Y OBRERO takes over the 8 p.m. ET slot. A Miami-produced adaptation of a 2012 Chilean telenovela of the same name, it stars José Luis Reséndez, Ana Layevska and Fabián Ríos – a bit of sameness in the trio as all actors who have worked together before – Layevska and Reséndez in LA MADRASTRA, Layevska and Ríos in EL FANTASMA DE ELENA and MI CORAZÓN INSISTE, Reséndez and Ríos in last year’s CORAZÓN VALIENTE, but never all in the same project. In any event, it should be gratifying to finally see Ana Layevska, a delightfully inventive actress, once again in a leading role after watching her steal her previous three telenovelas at the network playing two antagonists and a supporting role.

SOAP INDUSTRY: Telenovelas and The Economist

Looks like The Economist has cottoned onto a trend We Love Soaps has been reporting for years. In this week's issue, there's a Business section article that surveys the landscape of programming targeted for Spanish-speaking Americans.

In other words, there's an article about telenovelas in The Economist this week. Four fun facts:

- Not just for "hispanohablantes". "As they grow up, second- and third-generation Hispanics may want to watch ABC, instead of ABISMO DE PASIÓN. More than a fifth of Hispanic Americans now speak only English at home. Networks are responding by providing English subtitles for programs in Spanish."

- Scripted and non-scripted soaps are everything.

TELENOVELA WATCH: MundoFox Launches Aug. 13; Plus, Nine Telenovelas Coming Up Including AMOR BRAVÍO and EL SECRETARIO

The upcoming week is chock-full of premieres including that of a whole new network bringing seven new telenovelas to the US; also the debut of Televisa’s AMOR BRAVÍO on Univision and Caracol’s EL SECRETARIO on Telemundo.

MUNDOFOX

MundoFox, a new Spanish-language broadcast network, a joint venture between Fox and Colombian broadcaster, RCN, officially goes live on August 13th, though their test signal has been going out for the past two weeks.

TELENOVELA WATCH: OJO POR OJO and UN REFUGIO PARA EL AMOR Coming This Week; Plus, The Upfronts!

OJO POR OJO
The Telemundo telenovela OJO POR OJO (weeknights at 11 p.m. ET on mun2) finally makes its long-awaited U.S. debut on Monday, May 21st.

In the late summer of 2010, Telemundo first began airing television advertisements for this telenovela featuring three of the network’s biggest stars: Miguel Varoni and Gaby Espino, who were coming off the hit MÁS SABE EL DIABLO from earlier in the year, and Carmen Villalobos from SIN SENOS NO HAY PARAÍSO. The telenovela’s webpage and twitter account went live and all signs pointed toward an October premiere. And then, silence. The ads stopped running, the website and twitter account ceased to be updated, and the telenovela was shelved, at least in the U.S. – it aired in some Central and South American countries.