"Official" Telenovela and Series (in Spanish) Reviews and Recommendations

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Jaleel10
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Re: "Official" Telenovela and Series (in Spanish) Reviews and Recommendations

Postby Jaleel10 » Tue Feb 19, 2019 9:58 am

Siempre Bruja

A Colombian Netflix Original. A series about a young slave girl (during Spain's dominance over the Americas) that fell in love with a young Spaniard . The twist? She is a witch and the entire village wants her burned. With the help of a fellow witch she manages to escape being burned at the stake by travelling to the future. Now she awkwardly tries to manage herself in the year 2019, adapting to the modern Colombian lifestyle and culture while also trying to return to the past to be reunited with her love

Shitty summary aside it's a pretty good series and I am soooo glad that supernatural series are coming to the Latin American world. I really liked it, the characters were great, the story was a bit predictable but still, it was very enjoyable. Shoutout to Netflix for always producing great Spanish-speaking content
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Re: "Official" Telenovela and Series (in Spanish) Reviews and Recommendations

Postby James29 » Wed Apr 10, 2019 12:13 pm

La Doña: I just finished this telenovela this morning. This was definitely the best telenovela I have watched. I am excluding short series as it is hard to compare this 120 episode telenovela to an action packed 8 or 10 episode series. Anyway, what I liked about this telenovela:

The writing was, by far, the best of any telenovela. It was very well weaved together. The story line was interesting and developed methodically incorporating a number of relevant and interesting sub plots. I never got confused with "who is this guy again?" type of things. They never threw too much at you.

The general plot is about a hugely successful real estate developer in Mexico City named Altagracia (La Doña). She is ruthless. But, you quickly learn that she has an inner rage that controls and dominates her. When she was a young teenager in Veracruz she watched her parents and boyfriend get killed by a gang and then the gang raped her. She is a very conflicted character. You feel for her because of what happened to her when she was an innocent young woman but she sets out on a life of crime for vengeance! She hates men. One by one she hunts down the gang members and kills them.

As all of this is developing there is a too good to be true "super hero", handsome, smart lawyer who has dedicated his life to helping abused women. Also, Altagracia became pregnant from the rape and she gave birth to a girl who she abandoned. Her daughter, now 20-ish years old, moves from Veracruz to Mexico City to help her adoptive father get medical treatment. Of course, everyone's paths cross and worlds collide in a spectacular way! There is a basic love triangle between these three main characters the entire way.

Other than the writing and plot, I commend the acting. It was very realistic and there was nothing I'd classify as bad acting that I often see in telenovelas. The Spanish was very easy for me to understand. When the young 20-ish girls would chit chat and use slang I'd occasionally have a hard time understanding one of them. There was nothing "stupid" like an evil twin or some ridiculous side plot that we often see in telenovelas. There was a mini-subplot where one character had visions of the future and could talk with her dead sister but that was not really a problem as it was necessary for developing the story in a certain way and was well-done.

The best thing about the show was that there was nothing to do with narcotraficantes. No narcos! Nada!

What did I not like so much? Really nothing. Some very minor things were the fact that there were a couple too many "one in a million" coincidences. One or two is ok, but when it starts happening too often it is too much. This was not a problem, but was noticeable in the course of about 10 episodes near the beginning where there were just way too many coincidences. The other thing that annoyed me a bit was that La Doña's daughter and the child of one the rapists were about the same age. That would have been impossible under the way the story developed around that rapist and his wife and family. It was no big deal but it just annoyed me.

Anyway, I highly recommend this telenovela.
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Re: "Official" Telenovela and Series (in Spanish) Reviews and Recommendations

Postby James29 » Mon Oct 14, 2019 5:17 pm

I finished "La Reina del Flow" a couple of days ago. It is on Netflix and was produced in Colombia. It takes place in Medellin and they speak with a strong paisa accent. I generally liked the novela but would not rave about it. The general story line is unique and was well done. A group of poor young teens dream of making music. One is a singer (Charly) one is producer type (Juancho) and one is the song writer (Yeimy). Charly is Yeimy's first boyfriend and she writes amazing songs inspired by her feelings for him. They get a big break and go to NYC to produce an album but Charly tries to smuggle drugs into the US in Yeimy's suitcase for his drug dealing uncle. She gets caught and spends 16 years in prison. Charly "steals" all of her songs and becomes a HUGE latin american singing heartthrob. Charly does not know but he got Yeimy pregnant and she delivers the baby in jail. The baby is taken back to Colombia to be raised by Charly's adoptive parents as Charly's little brother. After 16 years in jail Jeimy is given an opportunity by the DEA to go back to Colombia and work to catch Charly's drug dealing uncle. She goes back and poses as a music producer and all sorts of worlds collide.

I did not like the first several episodes when the characters were teenagers. The acting was poor and I almost quit. It gets much better when they get to the "regular" characters.

I found it completely unbelievable that NOBODY recognized Yeimy after 16 years. Supposedly she was killed in prison, but I just could not find it realistic. The whole plot is based on nobody recognizing her. If you can accept this fatal flaw (I just accepted it) it is not a big deal.

The Spanish is fine but VERY heavily accented. If you want to practice understanding verb conjugations with vos this would be good. Lots of Colombian slang... parcero (or some form of the word) is in just about every sentence.

Charly was neither a villain nor a hero. He was just kind of pathetic. It seemed like they were trying to make him out as a villain and just did not pull it off... maybe, however, he was supposed to be a pathetic alcoholic.

I liked the actors/characters but none of them really grabbed me.

I liked that it was not about drug dealing. There was a necessary side plot with drugs but it was not too much of the story at all.

There were 92 episodes and I used the audio description feature which triples the amount of Spanish.

All things considered, this was a solid novela. I'd more or less recommend it but not strongly. maybe 3.5 stars out of 5.
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Re: "Official" Telenovela and Series (in Spanish) Reviews and Recommendations

Postby James29 » Sun Feb 23, 2020 7:15 pm

I finished Silvana Sin Lana last week. Great show. 121 episodes. The basic story is about two families. A woman (Silvana/Chivis) is the mother in an ultra rich Miami family. She has three daughters. She does not know, but her husband earned his riches in financial scams. He abandons the family when the authorities close in on him. Chivis is left with nothing as everything gets taken from them under court order. She has to move into a duplex in a lower class neighborhood with her three girls. On the other side of the duplex are Manuel and his four kids, including three boys who just happen to be the same ages as Chivis' girls. Manuel also has an older daughter. The show is about the ongoing relationships between all of the people. There are three love triangles where people bounce around from episode to episode.

I really liked this show. It is very different than most novelas. There are exactly zero seconds that deal with narco. It is a very wholesome show. It is classified as a comedy so it feels very different than most novelas. There is no violence (other than one guy gets punched once in a bar) and no humor in poor taste. I also seem to prefer novelas that take place in the US for some reason. There was nothing I disliked about this show at all. I sometimes try to avoid novelas this long as they often drag in the middle or get into "stupid" side plots. None of that here. It was all very well written and entertaining the whole time. There is a group of three "friends" who work with Manuel who are a bit silly/slapstick/ridiculous but it is fine. The acting is solid and the conversations and plot are easy to follow. There is a ton of dialogue (non-stop) and I'd have to say it is great for learning. The Spanish is what I would call "neutral" as I could not note anything particular about it. Even the old man from Spain sounds very neutral. The cultural references seem mostly Mexican. The lead actors are Colombian and Puerto Rican but they sounded very neutral to me.

All things considered this was an excellent novela and I'd highly recommend it.
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Re: "Official" Telenovela and Series (in Spanish) Reviews and Recommendations

Postby thevagrant88 » Thu May 21, 2020 12:19 pm

So glad I found this thread! To be honest I am not a television person at all, but I read iguanamon's post about how he advanced in his Portuguese using novelas so I decided to give it a shot. I'm combing through here now and getting my netflix cued up.
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Re: "Official" Telenovela and Series (in Spanish) Reviews and Recommendations

Postby jmar257 » Thu May 21, 2020 12:38 pm

I've really enjoyed Club de Cuervos and am in the middle of season 3. I watched a few episodes of Money Heist, had more trouble understanding it than Club de Cuervos, but I'm going to go back to it after I finish and see. Watching both with Spanish audio and subs.
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Re: "Official" Telenovela and Series (in Spanish) Reviews and Recommendations

Postby Doitsujin » Thu May 21, 2020 7:07 pm

I've just found out by chance that RTVE has released season 4 of the Scifi series El Ministerio del tiempo, and for some odd reason the 3 episodes that have been released so far can also be watched by viewers outside of Spain.

I've also found a Greasemonkey/Tampermonkey script that will display a download link for RTVE VTT subtitles. (VTT subtitles are supported by VLC and other media players; they can also be converted to SRT subtitles with Subtitle Edit.)
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Re: "Official" Telenovela and Series (in Spanish) Reviews and Recommendations

Postby chove » Fri May 22, 2020 1:21 am

Doitsujin wrote:I've just found out by chance that RTVE has released season 4 of the Scifi series El Ministerio del tiempo, and for some odd reason the 3 episodes that have been released so far can also be watched by viewers outside of Spain.


The first three seasons are available there too, I think the lack of geoblock is to do with Coronavirus?
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Re: "Official" Telenovela and Series (in Spanish) Reviews and Recommendations

Postby xyan » Sat Mar 20, 2021 10:19 am

James29 wrote:I finished Silvana Sin Lana last week. Great show. 121 episodes. The basic story is about two families. A woman (Silvana/Chivis) is the mother in an ultra rich Miami family. She has three daughters. She does not know, but her husband earned his riches in financial scams. He abandons the family when the authorities close in on him. Chivis is left with nothing as everything gets taken from them under court order. She has to move into a duplex in a lower class neighborhood with her three girls. On the other side of the duplex are Manuel and his four kids, including three boys who just happen to be the same ages as Chivis' girls. Manuel also has an older daughter. The show is about the ongoing relationships between all of the people. There are three love triangles where people bounce around from episode to episode.

I really liked this show. It is very different than most novelas. There are exactly zero seconds that deal with narco. It is a very wholesome show. It is classified as a comedy so it feels very different than most novelas. There is no violence (other than one guy gets punched once in a bar) and no humor in poor taste. I also seem to prefer novelas that take place in the US for some reason. There was nothing I disliked about this show at all. I sometimes try to avoid novelas this long as they often drag in the middle or get into "stupid" side plots. None of that here. It was all very well written and entertaining the whole time. There is a group of three "friends" who work with Manuel who are a bit silly/slapstick/ridiculous but it is fine. The acting is solid and the conversations and plot are easy to follow. There is a ton of dialogue (non-stop) and I'd have to say it is great for learning. The Spanish is what I would call "neutral" as I could not note anything particular about it. Even the old man from Spain sounds very neutral. The cultural references seem mostly Mexican. The lead actors are Colombian and Puerto Rican but they sounded very neutral to me.

All things considered this was an excellent novela and I'd highly recommend it.


If you liked Silvana Sin Lana you should also try La Casa de al Lado.
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