TELENOVELA WATCH: Final Week of LA TEMPESTAD; LA REINA DEL SUR Returns; Thoughts on MARIDO EN ALQUILER

LA TEMPESTAD (weeknights at 9 p.m. ET) is in its last week on Univision with its finale airing this Friday. Never a particularly good telenovela, LA TEMPESTAD was a watchable middle-of-the-road entertainment with a decent serving of genuine camp, but the last few weeks haven’t even been that because of the hatchet editing performed by Univision to rush the show off the air. Two or three episodes are being chopped down to an hour, rendering the central plot incoherent; the subplots have been largely excised altogether, left on the cutting room floor are most of the scenes featuring the enormously entertaining actor René Casados as well as relationship between the Nora Salinas and Arturo Carmona characters – the most likable pairing on the show.

In the past when a prime time telenovela did poorly in the ratings, Univision would just change its time slot as they did in 2012 moving EL TALISMÁN from 8 p.m. to noon and in 2010 moving the CORAZÓN SALVAJE remake from 9 p.m. to midnight, an inconvenience to viewers, but at least they still got to see the entire novela. Previous to this year, I can only recall one other prime time telenovela Univision chopped down, LLENA DE AMOR in 2011. This year, two telenovelas have already been subject to network shortening, which makes this viewer a bit wary as to whether or not to start watching new novelas on their network for fear if the ratings are too low, we won’t get the whole story.

The problem could be easily mitigated if Univision would at least upload the complete original episodes on HULU or their UVideos website, but instead, they upload the mangled versions they air on TV leaving viewers scrambling to other unofficial online sources if they want to see the episodes in their entirety.

Ironically, the Televisa telenovelas considered, for whatever reason, not worthy of a prime time slot, CACHITO DE CIELO and LA MUJER DEL VENDAVAL, are being treated better than the nighttime fare, so far airing in their entirety in their afternoon time slots.

LA REINA DEL SUR
Telemundo is also wrangling with their prime time schedule, their indecision as to what to fill the hole left by the cancellation of DAMA Y OBRERO played out in public last month as they first aired promotions for the 2012 Brazilian telenovela AVENIDA BRASIL only to yank the promos and opt instead for a rerun. A rerun of the network’s only real phenomenon-level hit - their 2011 telenovela LA REINA DEL SUR – but a rerun nonetheless.

LA REINA DEL SUR returns this week, airing weeknights at 9 p.m. ET. Adapted from the novel by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, it’s the story of a Mexican woman swept up into the world of drug trafficking and discovering she has the intelligence and resourcefulness to not only survive that environment, but flourish in it.

I think the first half of LA REINA DEL SUR is probably the best thing Telemundo ever produced, a dark adventure story of culture clashes. I find the second half far less interesting and imaginative, bogged down by the conventions of the narco-novela genre. Even that section is far superior to the network’s other drug fantasies thanks to the rich lead performance of Kate del Castillo and the qualities brought by the Spanish actors like Alberto Jiménez and Cristina Urgel.

MARIDO EN ALQUILER
The return of LA REINA DEL SUR means MARIDO EN ALQUILER (weeknights at 8 p.m. ET) can go back to one episode a night and not a moment too soon. I have found MARIDO EN ALQUILER difficult to endure of late as the cartoonish elements have taken over. The villainess’s ridiculous Snidely Whiplash plots are met with equally puerile responses from the increasingly annoying heroine. The villainess tries to burn down the heroine’s house almost resulting in the death of her daughter. The heroine’s response: she sprays the villainess with a garden hose. An especially tired scenario has already been played out at least three times: the heroine holds some public party or event, the villainess strolls in, uninvited, makes an ass of herself, the heroine rolls up her sleeves as if to sock her, shouting ensues and the two have to be physically separated.

The escalating stupidity of the plot would be more tolerable if any of the numerous – at least nine - couplings had the least bit of chemistry, but its astonishingly lacking. There is a tossed off quality to the pairings that perhaps accounts for this lack of interest, the characters too shallowly conceived, many too poorly acted, and with too little time devoted to each of them to make them matter.

More unfortunately, after a much longer wait than usual, the lead couple portrayed by Juan Soler and Sonya Smith were finally paired together and the results were white bread bland. There is no sizzle, no excitement, they dutifully go through the motions, professional, but dead. Perhaps the insipidness of the pairing should have been predictable – both actors have a rather asexual screen quality. Sonya Smith in recent years has become ethereally beautiful and elegant – suitable for icy blondes, nuns and queens. Juan Soler in this novela is all affected boyishness and coy smiles, like an aging juvenile actor still relying on the bag of tricks that worked in his youth, he comes off like a forty-something teenager. Neither has a pulse.

The comedy has become cheaper and bawdier - single entendre jokes about the size of penises and the like. Everybody suddenly decided rolling their “r’s” is hilarious. Maritza Rodríguez and Daniela Navarro seem engaged in a perverse competition as to who can give the more wretched performance. Navarro may have actually pulled out in front thanks to her ludicrously exaggerated derrière - it upstages every scene, one can’t help but gawp at it in fascinated horror.

R.G. Morin writes a regular column for We Love Soaps, "Telenovela Watch: A weekly look at the world of telenovelas for non-Spanish speakers." For feedback or questions, you can email R.G. Morin at [email protected].