POR ELLA…SOY EVA (weeknights at 8 p.m. ET on Univision) premiered this week, a Televisa comedy telenovela that breaks up the similarly toned, mostly dramatic telenovelas currently on Univision’s primetime schedule. I confess, I’m generally not a fan of Televisa’s comedies, and through three episodes of POR ELLA, that hasn’t really changed. ROSA DIAMANTE and PABLO ESCOBAR: EL PATRÓN DEL MAL premiered this week on Telemundo, two productions that could not be farther apart on the telenovela spectrum: the former, an assortment of fairly traditional telenovela story elements such as an abandoned newborn, wicked matriarch, corporate power struggle, and deep family secrets; and the latter, a big-budget docudrama about the rise and fall of a notorious cocaine trafficker. About the only thing the two shows have in common is they both offer a welcome respite from Telemundo’s Miami studio productions which have dominated the network’s schedule this year, with ROSA filmed entirely in Mexico and PABLO mostly filmed in Colombia. TELEMUNDO PREMIERES ROSA DIAMANTE & PABLO ESCOBAR UN REFUGIO PARA EL AMOR (weeknights at 7 p.m. ET on Univision) continues to zip along at a breakneck pace as this week Rodrigo (Gabriel Soto) and Luciana (Zuria Vega) married in a civil service. It was a clever move by the writers, giving the audience a week of romance, a great deal of it familiar telenovela tropes like the make out session in a stream, though tossing in an odd little excursion assisting a woman in childbirth. The pair are still planning a big church wedding, which in a Mexican telenovela, is the wedding that counts. As Luciana says, they are wed by laws of man, soon, they will be wed in the eyes of God. Of course, with church weddings typically serving as the climax of the telenovela, and with Rodrigo’s jilted fiancée Gala (Jessica Coch) and her mother Julie (Frances Ondiviela) digging dirt on Luciana, it seems doubtful that church wedding will go as Rodrigo and Luciana intend.
A couple weeks ago, RELACIONES PELIGROSAS (weeknights at 10 p.m. ET on Telemundo) announced it was in its final episodes (últimos capítulos). Since then, rather than moving toward tying up loose ends, a rash of new subplots have been launched: Ana’s pregnancy with two possible fathers: her current squeeze Santiago or her ex-husband Gilberto; Gilberto’s attempted seduction of Teresa for her money; Teresa becoming guardian to an unwilling Elizabeth after her parents’ murders; Joaco framed for murder; JP’s brother hiring Monica to seduce JP; Patty’s mother and ex-fiancé Augusto (both completely new characters) coming out of nowhere to pressure her into marrying Augusto, who is apparently rich and at death’s door, but really just wants revenge for Patty humiliating him by leaving him at the altar. UN REFUGIO PARA EL AMOR (weekdays at 7 p.m. ET) is in its first couple weeks on Univision. Joining ABISMO DE PASIÓN and LA QUE NO PODÍA AMAR, it makes for a fairly homogeneous primetime lineup of telenovelas for the network: all three are traditional, melodramatic romances, all three are remakes, all three are conventionally told, and, at least judging from the opening weeks of UN REFUGIO PARA EL AMOR, all three are largely successful due to the strength of their casts and production values which manage to gild the clichés in the stories they tell. The first week of OJO POR OJO (Mondays-Thursdays at 11 p.m. ET on mun2) was the most compelling from a Telemundo production this year, begging the question: Why is this telenovela airing on the cable
network mun2 instead of the more widely available main network? 
The Thursday night Nielsen ratings are in. Below is a roundup of May 17 ratings reports: EMPERATRIZ (weekdays at 1 p.m. ET, no English friendly options), a 2011 telenovela starring Gabriela Spanic, makes its U.S. premiere this Monday, May 14th on Azteca America. On Thursday, May 3rd, Telemundo premiered a new web-telenovela called MIA MUNDO. As with most of the network’s online forays, the production looks to be high on corporate marketing (the series is sponsored by Chevy and Verizon), and low on drama. The series is mostly in English, but awkwardly transitions into Spanish every few lines, a kind of reversal of the Spanglish that the network has been experimenting with in their telenovelas where characters’ Spanish dialogue is peppered with English phrases.
What's new in the world of soaps? Serialized scripted content is everywhere in 2012, The Year of the Soap, and we have your guide to the new programs airing on Monday, March 19, 2012. Daytime TV, primetime, broadcast, cable, web series, we've got it all.| 12:30 p.m. | THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS (CBS) | |
| 1 p.m. | DAYS OF OUR LIVES (NBC) | |
| EL TALISMAN (Univision) | ||
| 1:30 p.m. | THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL (CBS) | |
| 2 p.m. | INDIE SOAP BEAT (We Love Soaps) | |
| (Series Premiere) | ||
| 3 p.m. | GENERAL HOSPITAL (ABC) | |
| 8 p.m. | PRETTY LITTLE LIARS (ABC Family) | |
| (Season Finale) | ||
| UNA MAID EN MANHATTAN (Telemundo) | ||
| 9 p.m. | ALCATRAZ (FOX) | |
| ABISMO DE PASION (Univision) | ||
| CORAZON VALIENTE (Telemundo) | ||
| BEING HUMAN (Syfy) | ||
| WWE MONDAY NIGHT RAW (USA) | ||
| 10 p.m. | SMASH (NBC) | |
| RELACIONES PELIGROSAS (Telemundo) | ||
| LA QUE NO PODIA AMAR (Univision) | ||
| LOST GIRL (Syfy) |