Telenovela Star Slaps Univision Journalist on Red Carpet (Video)

Telenovela star Eduardo Yáñez (ex-Facundo, Amores con trampa; ex-José, True Love et al) slapped Univision personality Paco Fuentes, after Fuentes reportedly asked a question about Yanez's son, according to CBS2 Los Angeles.

Fellow entertainment reporter Lupita Herrera was at the event and had just spoken with Yanez moments before the actor slapped the Univision reporter. She told CBS2 that Yanez has a reputation for getting combative with journalists.

Fuentes and Yanez were reportedly chatting peacefully just moments before the slap.

Watch the slap below.

'The Double Life of Estela Carrillo' Premieres May 8 on Univision

Univision is inviting viewers to discover the secrets of a determined single mother who comes to the United States and fights to give her daughter a better life in La Doble Vida De Estela Carrillo (The Double Life of Estela Carrillo). Set in Los Angeles, it is an original story by the acclaimed producer Rosy Ocampo starring Ariadne Díaz as Estela Carrillo, alongside David Zepeda, África Zavala and Danilo Carrera.

In this modern story, a desperate Estela obtains false documents only to find herself trapped in a web of lies and intrigue surrounding the fake identity she has adopted. In the meantime, she also pursues her lifelong dream of becoming a Regional Mexican music singer.

“We’re excited for our audience to partake in the dual life of Estela as she navigates obstacles that are familiar to so many, in the pursuit of her dreams,” said Lourdes Diaz, President of Entertainment, Univision Communications Inc. “This thrilling story will have all on their edge of their seats, rooting for Estela and even singing along with her.”

La Doble Vida De Estela Carrillo premieres May 8 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Univision.

'Vino el Amor' Set to Premiere October 25 on Univision

Irina Baeva as Luciana and Gabriel Soto as David in Univision’s new
telenovela Vino El Amor.

Telenovela Vino el Amor (Then Came Love) will premiere October 25 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Univision.

Featuring the majestic vineyards of Napa Valley, California, Vino el Amor brings to light the life of an immigrant family seeking not only their American Dream of success, but also the happiness of the family and the possibility of finding true love.

The story follows the life of David (Gabriel Soto), the owner of a winery who is depressed after having lost his wife in a highly suspicious accident, so much that he begins to neglect his children and the vineyard he loves so much. His mother-in-law Lilian, played by Azela Robinson, tries to take advantage of the situation and steal David’s fortune, but her plans are disrupted by the unexpected arrival of Luciana (Irina Baeva). A cheerful and spontaneous young woman who grew up on the vineyard with her father many years ago, she returns to turn David’s life upside down. Through their love-hate relationship, Luciana breathes new life into David and rekindles his love for life…and for his Napa Valley vineyard.

Produced by Jose Castro, who has produced several award-winning novelas including Pasion y Poder, which recently won the 2015 Premio TVyNovela’s award for Best Novela of the Year. The stellar cast also includes Cynthia Klitbo, Mar Contreras, Moises Arizmendi, Kimberly Dos Ramos, Sofia Castro, Christian de la Campa, Alejandro Avila, Laura Carmine, and José Eduardo Derbez as León.

'Amo Despertar Contigo' to Premiere August 30 on Univision

Amo Despertar Contigo premieres August 30 on Univision.

The Univision Network has announced its latest telenovela, Amo Despertar Contigo (Waking Up with You), a romantic comedy by renowned Mexican producer Pedro Damian starring Daniel Arenas and Ela Velden, which is set to premiere on Tuesday, August 30th at 8 p.m. ET/PT. Houston, Mexico City and the beautiful beaches of Sayulita serve as the setting for the series.

Amo Despertar Contigo follows the story of Pablo Herminio (Daniel Arenas), a bodyguard for Antonia Santamaria (Aura Cristina Geithner), a wealthy flower-industry mogul, and his attraction to Maia Alcalá (Ela Velden), the beautiful daughter of Antonia’s business rival and former fiancé, Othon Alcalá (Enoc Leaño). Pablo is happy with his job as a bodyguard until he meets Maia at a floral conference. But their budding romance turns out to be anything but a bed of roses as a long-standing rivalry between Antonia and Othon threatens to uproot any chance of the young couple finding happiness together.

Produced by Pedro Damian (Muchacha Italiana Viene a Casarse, Rebeldes, Clase 406, RBD: La Familia), this Televisa production also marks the return of Christian Chavez (RBD) to the small screen. The cast also includes Alejandro Calva, Arturo García Tenorio, Armando Silvestre, Leticia Huijara, Rodrigo Murray Ana Cioccheti, and Sara Corrales.

The series marks Ela Velden’s first lead role in a telenovela following her successful performance in Televisa’s Muchacha Italiana Viene a Casarse which received a Premios TVyNovelas 2016 award as Best New Artist for her supporting role as the main character’s sister, Giana Bianchi.

Amo Despertar Contigo's theme song is a brand new version of Carlos Vives’ hit song “Volví a Nacer” featuring urban superstar Maluma, which was launched this month to celebrate the premiere of the telenovela.

Telemundo Continues Ratings Winning Streak

Telemundo ranks as the #1 Spanish-language network during Monday-Friday primetime among adults 18-49 continuing its historic winning streak in Spanish-language television for a fifth consecutive week, according to Nielsen. Fueled by the success of its new primetime series – Silvana Sin Lana at 8 p.m., Sin Senos Sí Hay Paraíso at 9 p.m. and Señora Acero 3, La Coyote at 10 p.m., Telemundo delivered 810,000 adults 18-49 and 383,000 adults 18-34.

For the week of August 15, and during Monday-Friday 8-11 p.m. primetime across all broadcast and cable networks regardless of language, Telemundo ranked as the #2 network among adults 18-34 beating ABC, CBS, FOX and Univision. The network also ranked #3 among adults 18-49 regardless of language, beating ABC, FOX and Univision.

For over a year, Telemundo has been the #1 Spanish-language network at 10pm, driven by the Telemundo Super Series™-- El Senor de Los Cielos and Señora Acero, among adults 18-49 and adults 18-34.

Source: Nielsen, NPM, L+SD. A18-34 (000) and A18-49 (000). 5 WKS (7/18/16-8/19/16). #1 SLTV net rank based on M-F 7-11pm. Regardless of language ranker based on M-F 8p-11p. Strict dayparts used.

New Telenovela 'Un Camino Hacia El Destino' To Premiere February 23 on Univision

Paulina Goto as Luisa Fernanda and Horacio Pancheri as Carlos in
Univision’s Un Camino Hacia El Destino.

Un Camino Hacia el Destino (The Path to Destiny) will premiere Tuesday, February 23, at 7 p.m. ET/PT 6 p.m. CT on Univision, featuring up and coming young Televisa stars Horacio Pancheri and Paulina Goto.

This new telenovela follows the twists and turns in the dramatic life of widower Don Fernando Altamirano (Gustavo Rojo) and his daughters, Amelia and Mariana. Amelia (Lissete Morelos), who is in love with Luis (René Strickler), becomes pregnant at 18, but Luis marries Marissa (Ana Patricia Rojo), a wealthy widow and mother of Carlos (Horacio Pancheri). Pedro, the gardener, is in love with Amelia and marries her and takes the daughter, Luisa Fernanda (Paulina Goto), as his own. She grows to become a talented violinist who inherited her stepfather’s good heart and love of nature. Luisa Fernanda dreams to play with the National Symphony Orchestra. As time passes, Carlos and Luisa’s paths cross and they fall in love, but their road ahead is strewn with potholes and detours to get by, and lies to uncover, before finding out if happiness is their final destiny.

Un Camino Hacia el Destino is produced by Nathalie Lartilleux for Televisa starring: Jorge Aravena, Lisette Morelos, René Strickler, Gustavo Rojo, Ana Patricia Rojo, Manuel Landeta, Patricia Reyes Spíndola, Harry Geithner, Rocío Banquells, and Agustín Arana.

Mexican singer and actress Paulina Goto, who plays a principal role as Luisa Fernanda, also sings the theme song of the telenovela composed by Mauricio L. Arriaga / J. Eduardo Murguía titled “El Camino a Donde Voy.”

'Pasion y Poder' Premieres Tonight on Univision

Pasion y Poder premieres tonight on Univsion.

Univision Network's new primetime telenovela, Pasión y Poder (Passion and Power) premieres Tuesday, November 3 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. The show chronicles the love stories and fight for power of two feuding families. A rivalry that originated in each men's youth, when Eladio Gómez Luna (Fernando Colunga) and Arturo Montenegro (Jorge Salinas) both fell in love with the beautiful Julia Vallado (Susana Gonzalez). Julia and Arturo were set to wed when the bride-to-be learns that her fiancé has cheated on her and impregnated another woman during a boozy night out. Heartbroken, Julia marries Eladio out of spite.

Years later, Julia is a very unhappy woman and is suffering at the hands of her cruel husband. Her only consolation is her son David (José Pablo Minor). Meanwhile, Arturo decides to marry Nina (Marlene Favela), an attractive but frivolous and ambitious woman with whom he has three children: Erick (Alejandro Nones), Daniela (Irina Baeva), and Regina (Michelle Renaud).

Julia and Eladio’s son, David Gómez Luna, is the complete antithesis of his father. As fate would have it, he and Regina are both working in the same place and it was love at first sight despite knowing their fathers’ hatred towards each other.

Julia and Arturo struggle to give their love a second chance and must surmount the obstacles in their way. Each of them will have to make a decision and fight for what controls their lives…Passion and Power.

Pasión y Poder marks the debut of El Gordo y La Flaca's Danilo Carrera in a Televisa production. Carrera will be playing Colunga's illegitimate son, Franco Herrera.

TELENOVELA WATCH: 'Antes Muerta Que Lichita' and 'Señora Acero' Premiere Tonight, Plus a Summer Roundup

Antes Muerta Que Lichita premieres September 22 on Univision.
Photo Credit: Televisa

Is the telenovela in decline? There has not been a single hit telenovela in the US this year. Only two years ago, AMORES VERDADEROS averaged 4.5 million viewers a night; this year, only two telenovelas, MI CORAZÓN ES TUYO and HASTA EL FIN DEL MUNDO, have averaged even 3 million viewers and they concluded way back in May. A pair of telenovelas that concluded Monday, AMORES CON TRAMPA and EL SEÑOR DE LOS CIELOS, failed to garner the usual final weeks ratings bump, limping to the finish line. The telenovelas replacing them: an apparent BETTY LA FEA rehash and the second season of maybe the worst narco-novela ever made are hardly propitious.

ANTES MUERTA QUE LICHITA (weeknights at 8 p.m. ET on Univision)
Telenovelas based on original scripts are all but extinct at Televisa. The largest producer of Spanish language telenovelas in the world averages a paltry one original telenovela a year, or about a one to seven ratio of original to remake/adaptation. This depressing reality is aggravated when their newest original telenovela, ANTES MUERTA QUE LICHITA, on the surface, looks so derivative of YO SOY BETTY, LA FEA, the most adapted, remade, and ripped-off telenovela of the past decade: an ugly duckling heroine in a bustling office setting. Even the vibrant colors of the sets shown in the promos for LICHITA recall the Tashlinesque interiors of the ABC version UGLY BETTY.

What ANTES MUERTA QUE LICHITA has in its favor is it is from a clever producer, Rosy Ocampo, all but ensuring LICHITA will be more palatable than the last two comedies Univision has aired in this time slot: the occasionally bearable MI CORAZÓN ES TUYO and the wretched AMORES CON TRAMPA. The worlds Ocampo creates in her comedies are stylized and cartoonish, but the acting is kept reasonably grounded. The vulgarity and mugging that plague Televisa comedies is usually kept in check in Ocampo productions, and she relies far less on dumb sound and visual effects.

Telenovela 'Antes Muerta Que Lichita' Premieres Tonight on Univision

Antes Muerta Que Lichita premieres September 22 on Univision.
Photo Credit: Televisa

Univision Network brings viewers an original telenovela about self-empowerment with Antes Muerta Que Lichita (I’d Rather Be Dead than Ordinary), premiering Tuesday, September 22 at 8 p.m. ET/PT.

Lichita (Maite Perroni) is a hardworking young woman who has been struggling to advance professionally in an advertising agency. After working there for eight years, she feels underappreciated and invisible. When the handsome Roberto (Arath de la Torre) arrives at the agency, he steals her heart and her ideas, using them for his own advancement at an important business presentation. This finally prompts Lichita to make changes and she decides to no longer be a victim at work. Instead, she will transform herself into the powerful Alicia. But the climb to the top is never easy and along the way she is faced with difficult decisions that puts her character to the test. Meanwhile, her mother, who raised her on her own is faced with similar struggles on the road to entrepreneurship. Ultimately, Lichita finds herself at a crossroads between her values and the road to success.

Watch the English-narrated trailer below:

'Muchacha Italiana Viene a Casarse' Premieres August 25 on Univision, Stars Livia Brito

Livia Brito stars in Muchacha Italiana Viene a Casarse. 

Univision Network's latest telenovela Muchacha Italiana Viene a Casarse (Italian Girl Comes to Wed) takes viewers to Italy in one of this year’s most romantic love stories about a beautiful and heroic Italian girl who accepts a marriage proposal far from her native land in order to save her dying sister, knowing that this decision will change her life forever. Muchacha Italiana Viene a Casarse premieres Tuesday, August 25 at 7 p.m. ET/PT (6 p.m. CT).

The story unfolds in a little town in Italy where Fiorella, played by Livia Brito, briefly meets the love of her life Pedro Angeles (Jose Ron) for the first time. But tragedy unfolds as Fiorella loses her father (Ricardo Blume) and becomes her sister’s caretaker. Upon his death, an old friend of his in Mexico, an important restaurateur named Vitorrio Dragone (Enrique Rocha), asks Fiorella for her hand in marriage and promises to take on expenses for her sister’s medical care. As he is considerably older than his young bride, Vittorio sends her a photo of him as a young man. Out of necessity and encouraged by the prospect of marrying a good man, Fiorella accepts.

The drama continues as the two sisters travel to Mexico and after many failed attempts, they get lost and do not get to meet Vittorio. After unfortunate events, they finally arrive at the ranch of the prominent Angeles family where Fiorella meets again the man of her dreams Pedro Angeles, who also falls in love with her. This is also where she meets his ambitious family who is embroiled in maintaining their wealth, built on crime and mystery.

Although there are vast differences in social classes between them, the two lovers are determined to fight any obstacles in their way. However, Vittorio, who never ceased his search for the beautiful Fiorella, is still determined to marry her. Tune in to see the story of these two young lovers who will stop at nothing to find their happily ever after.

Watch the Muchacha Italiana Viene a Casarse trailer below with an English language voice over.

TELENOVELA WATCH: 'Yo No Creo En Los Hombres' Premeires Tonight on Univision

Yo No Creo En Los Hombres premieres tonight at 10 p.m. ET on Univision. Despite being another Televisa remake from a story by Caridad Bravo Adams dating from the middle of the last century, Yo No Creo En Los Hombres was the highest acclaimed Mexican telenovela of 2014 by Mexican critics, the winner of seven Premios TvyNovelas, and hailed as a return to form for producer Giselle González and writer Aída Guijardo (Para Volver a Amar, Alma De Hierro) following the misfire comedy Cachito de Cielo in 2012.

From the press materials: “Yo No Creo En Los Hombres is the award-winning tale of women who have lost all hope and trust in men. The pain and low self-esteem caused by members of the opposite sex leads these women to seek vengeance by any means possible. The story centers on a hardworking and beautiful young woman who suffers deeply at the hands of all the important male figures in her life and also at the hands of a malicious family that torments her.

TELENOVELA WATCH: 'La Vecina' Premieres Today on Univision

La Vecina premieres this afternoon at 3 p.m. ET on Univision. It is a Mexican telenovela from Televisa produced by Lucero Suárez who is once again mining late 1990s-early 2000s foreign telenovelas for material. After a pair of adaptations of Venezuelan telenovelas: Trapos íntimos (2002) into Amorcito Corazón (2011) and Carita Pintada (1999) into De Que Te Quiero, Te Quiero (2013), Suárez now turns to the 2003 Colombian telenovela La Costeña y el Cachaco, which was rerun in the US six years ago on the channel formerly known as Telefutura.

La costeña y el Cachaco seems an odd choice for foreign adaptation and I’m curious to see how the quite specific culture clash depicted in that Colombian coastal comedy about a sophisticated, uptight urbanite moving to a Caribbean port town and meeting a free-spirited Barranquilla girl will be transposed to Mexican location and culture. Colombian coastal comedies are almost a distinct telenovela genre in themselves and it is hard to imagine the color and character will not be lost in the transposition.

TELENOVELA WATCH: 'La Sombra del Pasado' Premieres Tonight; Plus, 'Que te perdone Dios,' 'Tiro de Gracia,' 'Dueños del Paraíso' and 'Quién Mató a Patricia Soler?'

La Sombra del Pasado premieres tonight at 7 p.m. ET on Univision taking the place of the mercifully departed La Gata. A Mexican telenovela from Televisa, La Sombra del Pasado is a remake of the 2001 telenovela El Manantial. It is produced by MaPat L. de Zatarain who is coming off the enjoyable La mujer del Vendaval.

La Sombra del Pasado is a hacienda telenovela about neighboring ranches and an affair between the owner of one of the ranches with his neighbor’s wife that leads to a death and a deep hatred between the two families. A love then grows between the son and daughter of the feuding families.

Michelle Renaud and Pablo Lyle play the protagonists, both in their first leading roles. Renaud was the appealing pianist cousin of Ariadne Diaz’s heroine in La mujer del Vendaval and Lyle was the juvenile lead of Por Siempre Mi Amor. In that telenovela, Lyle was paired opposite Thelma Madrigal, who plays the third side of the central triangle in La Sombra and also featured in La mujer del Vendaval as the hero’s spoiled sister.

TELENOVELA WATCH: Drug-Themed Series 'Duenos del Paraiso,' 'Tiro de Gracia' and 'La Esquina del Diablo'

Kate del Castillo, José María Torre and Jorge Zabaleta star in
Telemundo super series Dueños del Paraíso.

Dueños del Paraíso
A trio of narco-novelas premiered in the US last week headlined by the highly anticipated Dueños del Paraíso (weeknights at 10 p.m. ET) on Telemundo. A co-production by Telemundo and the Chilean TVN, but mostly produced in Miami, Dueños del Paraíso marked the return of Mexican actress Kate del Castillo to Spanish language television, her first telenovela since La Reina del Sur in 2011, the only genuine hit in Telemundo’s history and, for its first half at least, the best production to come from the network. Any hopes for another La Reina del Sur dissipate in the opening minutes of Dueños del Paraíso – it’s a clunker: boring and clichéd with contrived, lazy plotting and amateurish direction.

Dueños del Paraíso opens with the heroine’s voice over saying, “There are no good guys or bad guys, no heroes or villains,” already a lie as the next hour proceeds through melodramatic devices to tell the audience exactly who the “good guys” and “bad guys” are going to be in this story.

Anastasia Cardona, the heroine portrayed by Kate del Castillo, is given an absolving sob story in the opening scene when her long-absent mother arrives at her birthday party (really, an old woman is able to waltz uninvited into the birthday party of a drug lord’s wife) and it’s revealed she was a prostitute who abandoned Anastasia. Talk about lazy writing – there is nothing organic or believable in the scene, no reason we should care about these women whose names we’ve literally just learned a few minutes earlier, no reason except one is played by Kate del Castillo who we know is the star and needs to be fed constant opportunities to remind everyone she’s an actress. Anastasia Cardona isn’t a character, she’s an actress reel.

TELENOVELA WATCH: Best & Worst of 2014

(This look back at the telenovelas of 2014 is US based, covering productions that aired at least half their episodes this calendar year on a US broadcast network.)

I did not see any great telenovelas broadcast in the US this year, but there were a number of decent ones. The return of Brazilian telenovelas to our network television was a welcome change after an absence of a few years and bolstered an otherwise mediocre year. While I don't think Lado a Lado or Avenida Brasil are great telenovelas, they are substantially better than the product reaching our screens out of Mexico, Colombia and Miami.

Lado a Lado is a Brazilian telenovela produced by Globo in 2012 that reached our screens this year thanks to MundoFox. It is the story of a profound friendship forged between two women of different backgrounds who dare to live their lives in ways that conflict with the misogynistic and racist society of Rio de Janeiro in the first decade of the twentieth century. Isabel, played by Camila Pitanga, is a black woman ostracized when she becomes pregnant with a lover's child while her fiancé is missing, unbeknownst to her, locked in jail. Laura, played by Marjorie Estiano, is the daughter of a conservative ex-baroness, played by Patrícia Pillar, who wishes to work outside the home rather than settle for the confining role of housewife her social class and mother demands of her, who later faces the additional stigma associated with divorce. The performances by Pitanga and Estiano are richly detailed and moving. Camila Pitanga has the beauty and aura that make her character's international stardom when she introduces the Paris art world to samba believable, and Estiano's cheerful hoyden is the warmest, most likable soul depicted in a telenovela in a long time.

As the friendship between the two women is the central relationship in the telenovela, their love interests, by necessity, take a secondary role. Only one of the love stories really works, the pairing between Estiano and Thiago Fragoso as her patient, sympathetic husband. The chemistry between Estiano and Fragoso is very strong and their relationship is richly developed. Rather less successful is the pairing between Pitanga and Lázaro Ramos, which after an initial dinner, skips ahead a year, meaning all of its development occurs off-screen. Ramos is an excellent actor, but he is saddled with a dull role as the white-hatted, virtuous hero.

Lado a Lado relies too heavily on conniving villains setting out to ruin the lives of the heroines, perfectly reasonable devices in most telenovelas, but clashing with the loftier ambitions of this telenovela. The stereotypical villains detract and distract from the telenovela's true conflict between the heroines and the racist and misogynistic society as a whole. Better is when a conflict stems from an otherwise moral character, such as when the kind French lady employing Isabel, who arranged for her to be wed in the same church deemed worthy by the ex-baroness for her daughter's wedding, fires her after discovering the baby she is carrying wasn't fathered by her fiancé.

TELENOVELA WATCH: 'Manual Para Ser Feliz' Final Week; Thoughts on 'Hasta El Fin Del Mundo' and 'La Malquerida'

Manual Para Ser Feliz (weekdays at 3 p.m. ET) is entering its final full week on MundoFox. This quirky and charming Colombian telenovela really grew on me. There is a shaggy dog quality to its characters, not just the misfits working in the office, but the leading lady fashion designer and her cousin and even the villains that I just found very appealing. It is a modest production that never seems to be reaching for its effects. There is very little plot and almost no actual jokes – the interest and humor comes in observing the little details in the characters’ lives and their day-to-day interactions with each other. In a telenovela format which deals almost exclusively in larger-than-life dramas, there is a cheeky perversity in how Manual Para Ser Feliz focuses on the small and mundane.


Hasta El Fin Del Mundo
There is an unfortunate déjà vu for telenovela watchers who keep abreast of international productions. The Mexican produced Hasta El Fin Del Mundo is the third version of this story I’ve encountered in a couple years after Dulce Amor, the Argentine original, and a current Chilean version called El Amor lo Manejo Yo. In the first few weeks, the two new versions are almost scene-for-scene retreads of the original.

For those coming to the story fresh, Hasta El Fin Del Mundo (weeknights at 9 p.m. ET on Univision) is a respectable version. It is similar in structure to another often produced Argentine telenovela, Amor en Custodia, which was most recently remade as Amores Verdaderos, only instead of a wealthy mother and daughter romancing their bodyguards, Dulce Amor and Hasta El Fin Del Mundo feature a pair of wealthy sisters falling for their chauffeurs.

Pedro Fernández is an atypical leading man. He is not believable as the neighborhood lothario and his acting is filled with too many ah-shucks mannerisms; but there is an earnestness and charm that helps sell the budding romance with the leading lady played by Marjorie de Sousa. He is a likable performer and the fact he isn't a run-of-the-mill telenovela dreamboat only means the producers, writers and actors have to work harder to build a convincing relationship between the protagonists based on something more substantial than the stereotypical telenovela instant romances attained by merely gazing into each other’s eyes.

TELENOVELA WATCH: 'La Gata' Premieres Tonight on Univision

La Gata premieres tonight at 7 p.m. ET on Univision. A Mexican production from Televisa, this is the latest version of a stalwart telenovela storyline originally written by Inés Rodena in the late 1960s. La Gata is produced by Nathalie Lartilleux whose previous telenovela, the similar Corazón Indomable, was a hit last year in both Mexico and the US.

The plot of La Gata is as rudimentary as telenovelas get: rich boy meets poor girl, falls in love, his family disapproves and strives to separate the lovers.

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: 'Lo Que La Vida Me Robó' Finale Airs Tonight on Univision; 'Hasta el Fin del Mundo' Premieres Monday

After over 190 episodes, Lo Que La Vida Me Robó reaches its finale tonight on Univision at 9 p.m. ET. The only real hit so far this year in Mexico and the US, Lo Que La Vida Me Robó is a deserved success – it’s a good telenovela, the best Mexican telenovela to air in the US since Vivir a Destiempo and the best from Televisa to air here since the first half of Mentir Para Vivir. (The qualifier "to air in the US" is necessary as a number of Televisa telenovelas, including El Color de la Pasión and Quiero Amarte, have yet to make their US debuts.)

At over 190 episodes, my brain tells me that the telenovela is too long, but Lo Que La Vida Me Robó rarely felt too long. It had sufficient variety of story and locale to constantly feel like it was moving forward or something new was developing, helped enormously by its subplots and secondary characters. Too many telenovelas artificially extend their length through the repetition of a couple plot points played over and over. The fairly pleasant De Que Te Quiero, Te Quiero (weeknights at 7 p.m. ET on Univision) is overlong and feels it because it relies too heavily on the back and forth break ups of its two lead couples to an extent they all look foolish. (The other usual telenovela lengtheners – the protagonist in prison or the protagonist medical crisis – were also avoided in the final weeks.)

One unfortunate trend the final weeks of Lo Que La Vida Me Robó did suffer from is in striving for a “big finish” the story became a succession of cliffhangers, almost all involving physical peril that could only be achieved through characters acting illogically and stupidly. Most ridiculous was when the lead protagonists, with two psychopaths threatening them and their family, inexplicably decide to get away for a romantic weekend isolated at their ranch with predictable results.

Tied into the overused cliffhanger element of these final weeks was the seeming omnipotence of the telenovela’s chief villain played by Sergio Sendel which became increasingly tiresome and silly. Daniela Castro as the other lead villain, the scheming mother of the heroine, often veers over the top, but it is a genuine camp performance, funny and horrific at the same time, and it fits that character and this telenovela.

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?