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

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James29
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Re: "Official" Telenovela and Series (in Spanish) Reviews and Recommendations

Postby James29 » Mon Nov 05, 2018 1:45 pm

A few days ago I finished "Guerra de Idolos." This was a story about three families. One family is the family of a huge latin pop singer. Another is the family of an elderly latin singing legend. Another is the family of a successful and corrupt businessman who is running for mayor of LA. The families mix and cross paths with everything. The good: the production quality was good. It was originally on Telemundo. There are 76 regular length episodes (I like this). It has zero content about narcos. This was great. The Spanish is good quality Mexican/American Spanish with constant conversations. That's about it for the good. The bad: the story was extremely difficult to follow. I felt like I got dropped right into the middle of a storyline where I was expected to know/remember who all 50 characters were right from the first episode. It really felt like I started watching at the beginning of season two and all the characters had been developed over a prior 70+ episodes. None of the characters grabbed me at all. I felt no interest in the struggles/successes of any of the characters.

All things considered, I'd have a hard time recommending this series to anyone. It was ok, but it it were much longer I probably would have quit it at about episode 40. It is good for practicing Spanish but if you want a good/interesting series I'd skip it. If you are a huge music industry fan this may be a good series for you, but I'd recommend El Vato first which is about a struggling musician.
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Re: "Official" Telenovela and Series (in Spanish) Reviews and Recommendations

Postby Jaleel10 » Tue Nov 13, 2018 8:45 am

Ingobernable is actually pretty good. It starts of suuuper intense and that kinda turned me off at first but I've grown to love it. Shoutout to NoManches for the recommendation

I kinda want to watch an Argentinian or an Andalusian/Caribbean series for intensive practice. I'm currently working with ''Cuéntame cómo pasó'' but I've always struggled with understanding the former 2 so If you guys know of any, please let me know. I'm currently looking at ''Malviviendo'' and ''El puntero''
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Re: "Official" Telenovela and Series (in Spanish) Reviews and Recommendations

Postby James29 » Tue Nov 13, 2018 12:53 pm

Jaleel10 wrote:Ingobernable is actually pretty good. It starts of suuuper intense and that kinda turned me off at first but I've grown to love it. Shoutout to NoManches for the recommendation

I kinda want to watch an Argentinian or an Andalusian/Caribbean series for intensive practice. I'm currently working with ''Cuéntame cómo pasó'' but I've always struggled with understanding the former 2 so If you guys know of any, please let me know. I'm currently looking at ''Malviviendo'' and ''El puntero''


Unfortunately, I'm not liking the second season of Ingobernable as much as the first.

As for your requests, I'd highly recommend the Cuban series "Cuatro Estaciones en la Habana." It is great. The only problem with it is there are not enough episodes. I'd also recommend "Celia" as another series that takes place in Cuba. It is not the greatest but it is definitely good for Caribbean Spanish. There are quite a few Argentinian series on Netflix. The only one I liked was Estocolomo. That is very good. The other ones from Argentina I've seen were creepy/weird or simply too violent.
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Re: "Official" Telenovela and Series (in Spanish) Reviews and Recommendations

Postby Jaleel10 » Tue Nov 13, 2018 2:03 pm

James29 wrote:
Unfortunately, I'm not liking the second season of Ingobernable as much as the first.



Ah, yeah. I've seen some people complaining about it. The shows rating really dropped since the first season. I'm only on season 1 atm
As for your requests, I'd highly recommend the Cuban series "Cuatro Estaciones en la Habana." It is great. The only problem with it is there are not enough episodes. I'd also recommend "Celia" as another series that takes place in Cuba. It is not the greatest but it is definitely good for Caribbean Spanish. There are quite a few Argentinian series on Netflix. The only one I liked was Estocolomo. That is very good. The other ones from Argentina I've seen were creepy/weird or simply too violent.


Celia seems perfect. Thanks, James
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Re: "Official" Telenovela and Series (in Spanish) Reviews and Recommendations

Postby kanewai » Tue Nov 13, 2018 9:09 pm

I've quit more Spanish shows than I can count. I'll find a show that looks interesting, and after half a dozen episodes I'm usually irritated by the soap-opera style plots involving ridiculously beautiful people. There's only a few that I've managed to watch all the way through.

Of those that were mentioned, I loved the first season of Isabel, and enjoyed the first season of Club de Cuervos. I didn't make it through the second season of either.

I have two more for the list. Both have Spanish closed-captions on Netflix, which helps immensely.

Gran Hotel - High drama at a fancy hotel in 1905.




El tiempo entre costuras - A seamstress flees Spain for Morocco during the Civil War, and becomes a spy.




Meanwhile, I have special hate for the series based on the life of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. After I watched it I looked her up to see how accurate the show was (I wasn't familiar with her). I found her story fascinating - and hated how the tv show ignored her real scholarship and writings and focused on silly fictional dramas.
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Re: "Official" Telenovela and Series (in Spanish) Reviews and Recommendations

Postby Jaleel10 » Wed Nov 14, 2018 6:38 am

El tiempo entre costuras isn't available on South African Netflix but I did watch and complete Gran Hotel with (Spanish captions). I really enjoyed it. The first season was fantastic, even though they struggled to churn out a good plot in the 2nd and 3rd season, that didn't heavily detract from the show's quality. It is ''rom-com'' type of drama so be prepared for some cheese, but other than that it has great production quality and great characters.
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Re: "Official" Telenovela and Series (in Spanish) Reviews and Recommendations

Postby Kraut » Mon Nov 19, 2018 5:08 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ivJGu4Sa68
SERIES para APRENDER ESPAÑOL 2018
Learn Spanish with María Español
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Re: "Official" Telenovela and Series (in Spanish) Reviews and Recommendations

Postby garyb » Tue Nov 20, 2018 9:55 am

kanewai wrote:I've quit more Spanish shows than I can count. I'll find a show that looks interesting, and after half a dozen episodes I'm usually irritated by the soap-opera style plots involving ridiculously beautiful people. There's only a few that I've managed to watch all the way through.

Of those that were mentioned, I loved the first season of Isabel, and enjoyed the first season of Club de Cuervos. I didn't make it through the second season of either.


The last point is my main issue with Spanish series! The first season, or first half of the first season, starts off strong but afterwards the plot inevitably becomes convoluted, over-dramatic, and just a bit ridiculous. Vis a vis is the typical example, Mar de plástico got silly towards the end of the first season and I've not even bothered with the second, and I loved La casa de papel as much as everyone else here but at the same time my expectations for the new season they're producing are not very high.
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Re: "Official" Telenovela and Series (in Spanish) Reviews and Recommendations

Postby Jaleel10 » Tue Nov 27, 2018 2:24 pm

I've found a great Argentinian tv series called ''Los Simuladores''. I think it's the highest rated (IMDB) Spanish language tv show in history :o

I couldn't find subtitles so I'm kinda yoloing it at the moment. I can follow the plot for the most part and if there's a word or phrase I really struggle with, I'll record it in VLC and send it to my friend. I might rewatch the series because it's really f'ing great. I feel like I'm kinda spoiling the experience with my shoddy comprehension skills xD
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Re: "Official" Telenovela and Series (in Spanish) Reviews and Recommendations

Postby jonm » Tue Nov 27, 2018 7:42 pm

Jaleel10 wrote:I've found a great Argentinian tv series called ''Los Simuladores''...

This sounds like a good series, and I see they remade it in Mexico, Spain, and Chile. Could be fun to use the different versions to work on different varieties of Spanish.

By the way, this is a film rather than a series, but I highly recommend Nueve Reinas, also about con artists in Argentina. It's got good, satisfying twists that hold up on a rewatch.
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