TELENOVELA WATCH: 'Qué Pobres Tan Ricos' Finale Tonight, 'La Malquerida' Premiere on Monday, Finale 'De Que Te Quiero, Te Quiero' Next Week

QUÉ POBRES TAN RICOS ends its US run tonight with a special Sunday finale starting at 8 p.m. ET on Univision. The rich/poor culture clash comedy comes limping to the finish line after seeing its ratings drop this final week, a rare occurrence for telenovelas. Even bad telenovelas typically see their ratings rise in their final weeks for obvious reasons - people want to see the resolutions. QUÉ POBRES TAN RICOS is not a bad telenovela, it is middle-of-the-road, but it has always suffered from a lack of story momentum, its plot lurches episodically with many minor desultory comedic subplots, and you never really feel much is at stake.

What I liked most in QUÉ POBRES TAN RICOS were a trio of double acts: Sylvia Pasquel and Diego de Erice, Mark Tacher and Tiaré Scanda (whose presence is very much missed in the final weeks), and Ingrid Martz and Raquel Pankowsky who are both ludicrously, cartoonishly over the top and I loved every second of them. The other performances I liked in this novela were from Manual “Flaco” Ibáñez, Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez, the young couple played by Jonathan Becerra and Natasha Dupeyrón, Arturo Peniche, Gabriela Zamora, Abril Rivera, and late arriver Cecilia Gabriela.


LA MALQUERIDA premieres
LA MALQUERIDA replaces QUÉ POBRES TAN RICOS on Univision’s schedule on Monday at 10 p.m. ET. This Mexican telenovela from Televisa produced by José Alberto Castro (LA QUE NO PODÍA AMAR; TERESA) is inspired by unusually lofty source material – a 1913 play of the same name by Nobel Prize-winning author Jacinto Benavente that also spawned a famous 1949 movie adaptation from Emilio Fernández.

TELENOVELA WATCH: 'Reina de Coazones' Premiere Plus Thoughts on 'Manual para ser feliz' and Favorites for the Week

Reina de Coazones premieres tonight.

REINA DE CORAZONES premieres tonight on Telemundo at 8 p.m. ET. This is the latest Miami telenovela from Telemundo. It sadly has nothing to do with the bizarre late 1990s Venezuelan telenovela of the same name that starred Emma Rabbe and Roberto Mateos. No, this REINA comes courtesy of writer Marcela Citterio, whose last three telenovelas – AURORA, CORAZÓN VALIENTE, and CHICA VAMPIRO – are each contenders for the worst telenovela made the year they were produced.

The story from the press materials: Reina is a humble seamstress “who must overcome the barriers of amnesia to find true love. The story unfolds around mystery, espionage, conspiracy, intrigue, crime and romance, the super-production is set in Las Vegas, Nevada - Sin City - where casinos and nightlife play a leading role in the action.”

REINA DE CORAZONES stars Eugenio Siller in his third leading role at Telemundo. He’s batting .500 at the network after starring in the successful, fine UNA MAID EN MANHATTAN in 2011 and the aforementioned abysmal AURORA in 2010. The lead actress is Paola Núñez in her first role for Telemundo following a string of telenovelas for Azteca in Mexico, most recently the flop DESTINO from last year. The antagonists are played by Telemundo favorite Catherine Siachoque, last seen in LA CASA DE LA LADO, and Juan Soler, his second role for the network after a disappointing fey performance in MARIDO EN ALQUILER last year. Televisa veteran actress Laura Flores moves over to Telemundo in her first full role after a cameo in EN OTRA PIEL. Rounding out the cast are by this point overly familiar Miami Telemundo faces like Henry Zakka (PASIÓN PROHIBIDA), Paulo Quevedo (MARIDO EN ALQUILER), Pablo Azar (MARIDO EN ALQUILER), Wanda D’Isidoro (SANTA DIABLA), Rosalinda Rodríguez (DAMA Y OBRERO) and Paloma Márquez (EL ROSTRO DE LA VENGANZA).

Univision Ranked as the No. 3 Broadcast Network Last Week Among Adults 18-34 in Primetime, Out-Performing FOX and CBS

Lo Que La Vida Me Robó averaged 4 million viewers last week.

For the wek of April 28-May 4, 2014, Univision ranked as the #3 broadcast network in all primetime among Adults 18-34, out-delivering FOX and CBS. Telenovela Lo Que La Vida Me Robó led the way with an average of 4 million viewers.

· On Monday night, Univision ranked as the #3 broadcast network among Adults 18-34 and #4 among Adults 18-49, out-delivering FOX in each demographic. Univision’s entire primetime lineup ranked among the top 15 programs for both Adults 18-49 and Adults 18-34.

TELENOVELA WATCH: Surprise Hit 'La Viuda Negra', Final Episodes of 'Siempre Mi Amore', New MundoFox Series

The success of La Viuda Negra (weeknights at 10 p.m. ET on UniMás) is the surprise of the year so far in the world of telenovelas. This heavily fictionalized telling of the life of the “Queen of Cocaine” Griselda Blanco, a Colombian production from RTI, Caracol and Televisa, has tripled the ratings of the previous novela on the network, La Selección, and topped Telemundo’s time-slot competitor, the narco-novela Camelia La Texana, nine weeks in a row with the gap widening in recent weeks. A few weeks, La Viuda Negra has outdrawn the entire Telemundo lineup of telenovelas, a feat no UniMás series has accomplished since Rosario Tijeras in 2010 back when the network was named Telefutura.

Is La Viuda Negra any good? The direction and editing is the standard customary to Colombian produced narco-novelas, which is to say a better than we’ve seen thus far from Argos/Telemundo. The scripts are a hodgepodge of the now standard narco-clichés with smidgens of fact from Griselda Blanco’s actual life popping up now and again. But make no mistake, this is a drug fantasy, as ludicrous at times as Telemundo’s El Señor de los Cielos or Fox’s El Capo series.

TELENOVELA WATCH: Thoughts on Seven Novelas - DE QUE TE QUIERO, TE QUIERO; QUÉ POBRES TAN RICOS; POR SIEMPRE MI AMOR; LA IMPOSTORA; EN OTRA PIEL; LA PROMESA; and INFAMES

DE QUE TE QUIERO, TE QUIERO (weeknights at 7 p.m. ET on Univision), a breezy Televisa adaptation of the 1999 Venezuelan telenovela CARITA PINTADA, managed to annoy me so much with its plot contrivances in the opening episodes that I wonder if it can recover. The whole central misunderstanding between the protagonists exists merely because neither character is able to say the right thing at the right time, to make the obvious revelation. The heroine somehow never manages to reveal the crime she believes the hero committed – attempting to rape her; and the hero somehow never manages to reveal he has a twin brother. That the hero can’t figure out his twin brother must have done something to the girl to make her so frightened of him defies all sense. The telenovela also features several scenes of fairly appalling taste including the meet cute of the protagonists which features the hero in blackface, a scene ridiculing an obese couple in a restaurant, and an ersatz ZZ Top guitar riff accompanying each entrance of the “sexy” cop played by Cecilia Galliano. That said, the cast is appealing and mix well, the protagonists are fresh and capable so far, and Marisol del Olmo’s arrival into the story are enough to keep me watching a bit longer.


QUÉ POBRES TAN RICOS
QUÉ POBRES TAN RICOS (weeknights at 10 p.m. ET on Univision) is a why-bother Mexican adaptation by Televisa of the why-bother Colombian comedy telenovela POBRES RICO. It is an amiable, if forgettable hour about a rich family forced to hide out in a property they own and share it with the poor family already living there after the eldest son is framed for embezzlement.

So far, QUÉ POBRES TAN RICOS largely follows POBRES RICO, but at a far slower pace, taking literally twice as many episodes to traverse the same plot points. There is so little story momentum that you forget what the story even is. Most episodes feature a self-contained B story, a little comedic excursion that is usually more interesting than the telenovela’s central plot, and it is these comedic subplots that keep the telenovela afloat.

Premiere Week of Univision Novela QUÉ POBRES TAN RICOS Beats CBS, NBC and ABC in Among Adults 18-34

Premiering last week, Univision's 10 p.m. novela QUÉ POBRES TAN RICOS (The Poor, Rich Family) helped Univision rank as the #1 broadcast network for the hour (M-F) among Adults 18-34 and #3 among Adults 18-49. The novela averaged 3.2 Million Total Viewers 2+, 1.7 Million Adults 18-49, and 778,000 Adults 18-34.

Univision's 8 p.m. novela POR SIEMPRE MI AMOR (Forever Yours) helped Univision rank as the #3 broadcast network for the hour (M-F) among Adults 18-34. The novela saw increases over the prior week among Total Viewers 2+ (3.2 Million, +21%), Adults 18-49 (1.5 Million, +21%), and Adults 18-34 (743,000, +26%).

The network's 9 p.m. novela LO QUE VIDA ME ROBO (What Life Took From Me) helped Univision rank as the #2 broadcast network for the hour (M-F) among Adults 18-34 and #3 among Adults 18-49. The novela saw increases over the prior week among Total Viewers 2+ (4.1 Million, +12%), Adults 18-49 (2.0 Million, +9%), and Adults 18-34 (980,000, +13%).

For the entire week (M-SU), Univision ranked #4 or higher versus the English-language broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, or FOX) on four nights among both Adults 18-49 and Adults 18-34.
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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.