'Totalmente Diva' Premieres June 13 on UniMás

Totalmente Diva, a romantic and uplifting telenovela with a contemporary plot for the enjoyment of the whole family, premieres Tuesday, June 13 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on UniMás.

Totalmente Diva tells the story of Eliza (Marina Ruy Barbosa), a humble girl who must overcome many obstacles to win a beauty pageant in order to turn her life around and help her family. At the same time, the young girl will have to decide who her true love is: Arthur (Fábio Assunção), the owner of a modeling agency who wants to transform her into a professional model and win the “Totalmente Diva” pageant, or Jonatas (Felipe Simas), a young street vendor who helps Eliza survive in the big city. Will Eliza’s plans to become a total diva prevent her from finding true love? It’s totally possible!

Featuring breathtaking landscapes in Brazil, Australia and Uruguay, Totalmente Diva will air Monday through Friday.

'Velvet' Set to Premiere October 4 on UniMás

Miguel Ángel Silvestre as Alberto Márquez and Paula Echeverría as
Ana Ribera in Velvet series on UniMás.

Galerías Velvet, a high-end fashion house in 1950s/1960s Spain, is the setting for this stylish story of powerful young love that has captivated audiences in Spain and around the world. An exceptionally lavish production featuring art deco inspired sets and authentic period soundtrack, Velvet will make its debut Tuesday, October 4 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on UniMás.

From the creators of Spain's hit period drama "Grand Hotel," Velvet is a production of Ramón Campos and Teresa Fernández-Valdés from Bambú Producciones for Antena 3. The cast also includes, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón (Doña Blanca), Manuela Velasco (Cristina Otegui), Marta Hazas (Clara Montesinos), Javier Rey (Mateo Ruiz), Cecilia Freire (Rita Montesinos) Adrián Lastra (Pedro Infantes), Asier Etxeandía (Raúl de la Riva), and Max Iglesias (Maximiliano Expósito).

Alberto (played by striking galán Miguel Ángel Silvestre of Sense8) and Ana (Paula Echeverría) meet as children, after Ana’s mother dies and she is forced to move to the big city to live with the only family she has left, her uncle Don Emilio (José Sacristán), the head of staff at Galerías Velvet. As the heir to the fashion empire Alberto’s budding love for Ana was forbidden by Don Rafael, Alberto’s father, and he is sent to study abroad.

When Alberto returns to take over the family business and get the love of his life back, jealous relatives and other outside forces keep interfering. In a world of haute-couture dresses and cutthroat competition, Alberto and Ana have to fight not only for their long-awaited life together, but for the very life of Galerías Velvet itself - even if it means Alberto entering into a loveless marriage of convenience. While Alberto rebels against the expectations made of him, Ana dreams of becoming a designer and struggles to assert herself as a creative personality. And both must defy the outdated conventions of a society resistant to change.

Velvet episodes will air Monday through Friday during the 9 p.m. ET/PT timeslot.

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).