Why is telenovela format problematic in US?

[Sylph]

I have seen several telenovelas, they ranged from brilliant to brilliant awful. Often criticised for actually being one and the same story all over again, usually about a young woman who lived the first twenty years of her life in absolute misery and poverty and who after five hundred episodes finds out that she is actually a rich heiress and that another person, usually a guy, took her place, because there was a baby switch at birth... Turns out, she's also in love with him, they kiss, then they fight, all the time everyone is against them, he cheats on her, they break up, then they kiss again, they marry. The end.

Apart from presenting a distorted vision of reality, being made in the panem et circenses strategy to please the masses, it also features a heavy mix of annoying elements: the incessant crying, because everyone in the show cries all the time, there's a lot of praying, Virgencita de Guadalupe is featured prominently throughout, the acting also ranges from brilliant to awwwwful, awwwwful in equal measure, but when it's brilliant — it's brilliant, especially when the scene sucks or when it's about faking the crying or something like that, incestuousness everywhere, lots of stolen babies, the treacherous other woman, intrigue, lies, those staples of melodrama... Then there are those saccharine stories about the goodness of the human heart and all, sexual tension everywhere yet it's all so tame (and lame)... You know the drill.

But in that vaaast sea of inimitable dreck, they are also tight, often well-structured, climaxes can be great, peripeteias fantastic, the cliffhangers amazing, the villainess is at times so great you can't take your eyes off of her, everyone is conected to everyone, sometimes in the most amazing ways, the dialogue can be good (very good in confrontational scenes)...

In the end — it's a soap. However, even when thoroughly cleansed of all the horrors, it still wouldn't work in the US. At least, I think so.

Why is that? Does anyone have a theory?

[dm.]

It can be enjoyable (as much as I remember from my past days) but it's almost always just the same. You always know what to expect in the end and it's weird when you already know what is going to happen to the main characters even though you never watched it.

The ending is always the same. If the good guy/good girl end up together it's nothing special, yet everyone is happy and they expected it. However, if the writers decide to write a different ending (with the good girl settling for a different guy) then everyone hates the soap.

It's just all done. We're mostly left with re-makes. That's as much as I know. Of course, many claim Brazil is totally different in their production.

[Sylph]

But I'm not talking about that. I was referring to a soap in the US manner but with an ending in sight. The ending does not by all means have to be a happy one, it most certainly will be, but with some sort of a twist on a clichéd formula. I said when you purge it of all the dreck, it still wouldn't work. And I wonder why.

[dm.]

I didn't watch it, but didn't Port Charles do good with that format?

[Sylph]

It did feature those (in)famous 13-week story arcs (Fate, Time in a Bottle, Tainted Love, Tempted, Miracles Happen, Secrets, Superstition, Torn, Naked Eyes, Surrender, Desire, The Gift), but it was also plagued by a whole armada of different other problems, vampires among them, so it's difficult to say what exactly undid that soap: the structure or the vampires and all.

[Sylph]

Beyond soap - BBC embraces villains, plot twists and Latin style of telenovela

Corporation invests millions in South American format that has proved a worldwide hit

Owen Gibson, media correspondent


For decades they have stopped hundreds of millions of Latin American viewers in their tracks with their melodramatic tales of lost love, convoluted dynastic disputes and overwrought plot twists. Trying to get served in a bar in Brazil or a cafe in Colombia while either country is in the grip of the latest hit telenovela is futile as all eyes fix on the omnipresent television set.

Now British broadcasters are looking to the telenovela as their secret weapon in the battle to boost ratings, with the BBC investing millions in its own prime-time version. The corporation is working with big-name writers on several ideas and has commissioned the playwright Jonathan Harvey to develop a telenovela project with Talkback Thames, the independent production company behind The Bill and The Apprentice.

Since first airing in Brazil, Cuba and Mexico more than 50 years ago, telenovelas have branched out beyond Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries as far afield as China, Russia and Malaysia, and the first US incarnation of the genre is proving a hit this autumn. The dividing line can be thin, but whereas soap operas are typically open ended, designed to run until ratings or fashion dictate they must bow out, telenovelas have a predetermined story outline, running for an average of six to eight months.

"We're going to have a go at doing something in the telenovela mould," the BBC's head of fiction, Jane Tranter, confirmed. "We will know how many episodes we will do from the start. It will have a beginning, middle and an end, but we'll shoot each episode just a few days before."

In South America telenovelas are the main form of television drama and dominate the schedules with a wide range of themes and subject matter. In recent years some have become more gritty, bringing sociopolitical issues to a mass audience, while others remain pure romantic escapism, often set in the past or including musical numbers.

A classic example of the genre is the hugely popular Yo Soy Betty, La Fea (I am Betty, the Ugly), which originated in Colombia but has been sold to broadcasters in 70 countries around the world. Most recently the US version, Ugly Betty, has become the surprise hit of the autumn season for ABC, the American network that is also home to the series Lost and Desperate Housewives. The Hollywood actor Salma Hayek - who began her career in telenovelas in her native Mexico - is the executive producer of the US version, having acquired the rights to the series and overseen its adaptation. It tells the story of a frumpy secretary who clambers to the top of the fashion world through her wit, charm and intelligence.

In the US version she has to survive the slings and arrows of the bitchy New York fashion scene while working as the PA to the editor of fictional fashion bible Mode. A subplot concerns the fate of the previous editor Fey Sommers, killed in a suspicious hit-and-run accident.

Ugly Betty is already pulling in more than 16 million viewers for ABC and delivering its best drama debut since 1995. News Corp's new TV channel MyNetworkTV plans to have at least two telenovelas as a key plank of its schedule.

Many telenovelas, particularly those from Spanish-speaking countries, share similar plotlines. A popular tale is for a poor, beautiful girl to meet a rich and handsome man. He leaves his devious and manipulative upper-class girlfriend for her in an effort to spite his rich family, but gradually falls in love with the heroine. Aided by members of his own family, the scheming ex tries a series of tricks to split them up. Eventually, after hours of twists, turns and convoluted plot somersaults, sometimes spanning years, the bad guys meet a gruesome end and the happy couple get married and have a baby.

The first truly global example of the genre was 1979 Mexican series Los Ricos Tambien Lloran, or The Rich Cry Too, which was watched by an estimated 100 million viewers in Russia alone. Pravda reported that in the Caucasus warring Georgian and Abkhazian soldiers arranged a tacit truce at the hours the show aired so they could watch it.

Ms Tranter said she had been drawn to the genre after the success of Bleak House, the BBC's Bafta-winning Charles Dickens adaptation, which was pacily shot and scheduled in the style of a soap in twice-weekly half-hour episodes.

BBC1 would make another Dickens adaptation, she said, but first wanted to have a go at "something a bit cheekier".

If the BBC can come up with a hit it would add an important element to its drama slate. While it has enjoyed a string of hits including Life on Mars, Doctor Who, Jane Eyre, Spooks, and Hustle, the BBC believes a long-running drama serial would be a valuable weapon in the ratings war and help draw an audience on nights when EastEnders and its hospital dramas are off air. Ms Tranter said the BBC might simply take an existing telenovela and reshoot it for a British audience, as ABC did with Ugly Betty, or get writers who understand the genre to come up with new ideas. "We'll flirt around with it and have some fun with it," she said.

The corporation's first stab at the genre would result in between 12 and 20 hours of television, which might run as half-hour or 60-minute episodes. "They all share a certain quality," Ms Tranter said. "They've all got that brio and spirit. They don't take themselves too seriously and yet emotionally they're quite tough. When it's joy, it's real joy and when it's pain, it's real pain."

But she promised that any BBC telenovela would stay true to the spirit of the genre and not tip into irony or kitsch. "They aren't the stuff of UK television culture so you have to understand what it is before you start breaking the rules. If we take some of the things that are very strong in it and have permission to have a bit of fun, we'll probably get something really good out of it."

Plotlines

From Cuna de Lobos, a hugely popular 1986 Mexican telenovela

Carlos, head of an international pharmaceuticals giant, tells his wife, Catalina, he knows her secret and plans to expose her. She has long claimed she was blinded in one eye by his eldest son from a previous marriage in an effort destroy the boy's confidence and allow his younger brother Alejandro, her son with Carlos, to thrive. She poisons and kills Carlos.

However, in his will Carlos has decreed that whichever of his sons produces a son first will control the company. Alejandro's wife, Vilma, is infertile so he secretly "marries" a second woman, Leonora, and has a son, Edgar. Alejandro and Catalina take the child and dump Leonora in an asylum. Alejandro returns to Vilma and they pass the child off as their own.

Leonora escapes from the asylum, marries elder brother Juan Carlos and undertakes a series of byzantine schemes to unmask Alejandro, recover her child and punish Catalina.

The evil mother retaliates, protecting her scheme through a series of murders. Eventually, after many twists and turns, the story arrives at a happy and just conclusion.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/oct/18/broadcasting.bbc

[leevo64]

I think the reason it hasn't worked in the US is because the quality is usually really poor. The failed MyNetworkTV soaps were just abysmal and had horrendous production values all around, including the two biggies, acting and writing. I think the US audience is a lot different than the South American audience in that there's more of a self-aware, post-modern attitude that doesn't lend itself to hokey over-the-top romance plots. I think the genre could work if brand new limited run soaps were developed in the US and not adapted from already existing ones.

[All My Shadows]

I don't think telenovelas have really had a chance to succeed here, honestly. If you don't even consider the quality of the MNTV shows (some people thought they were great fun, some people thought they were hideous), they had epic fail written all over them. Let's experiment with something completely new to US primetime and put it on the least-watched network. Watch the audience pile in for that! Everyone's going to talk about how awesome Fashion House and Desire are! They'e gonna be the hot new guilty pleasures!

No.

[Rakesh]

I loved Fashion House!

[ReddFoxx]

The problem is, US Viewers are used to a particular idea of a soap and telenovelas are obviously different. Knowing that a show will wrap up in a few months or so sort of takes some of the suspense out of it, when a show has an open ended run, there is a lot more suspense and curiosity.

[CassieFan]

I always loved watching telenovelas. When I was like 10-12 I used to watch only Mexican telenovelas. They were so trashy and campy that I loved to watch it. I always rooted for villains because they were great....cartoonish, but great.

Now in my 20's I watch Brazilian novelas. They are great because they have excellent actors and actresses, the plots are interesting, the scenography and costumes wonderful.... and the scenery

Now I can't stand Mexican telenovelas. They are all the same. And that is sad. Something that worked in 80's or 90's doesn't work in the 21'st century IMO. Most of them have the same plot. Poor girl, rich guy in love. His family doesn't approve the relationship because the girl is poor. Than, the main female villiain decides to break them apart. After 50-60 episodes, the family realizes there was a baby mix up 20 years ago. The poor girl is their daughter, the rich guy is not their son. Now, he's poor and she's rich...That's the biggest shock level Mexican telenovelas get....It's just silly and dumb...

Brazilian novelas have interesting plots. In "Belissima" the world of fashion was represented and the Greek culture too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65rfOk3krGs

In "Paginas da Vida" (Pages of Life) the main plot was about a young woman Fernanda who got pregnant and rejected by her boyfriend Leo. She returns to Brazil from Amsterdam and her mother is devastated by the news....one year goes by and Fernanda is killed in a tragic car accident, but before her death she gives birth to twins.. a girl and boy...Grandmother rejects the girl when the doctors tell her she has Down's syndrom, but she keeps the boy. The story was just wonderfully played and written. Here is promo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDUREI24-uQ

In "Caminho das Indias" (Indian Ways), the three main plots are the Indian culture, schizophrenia and psychopathy. So, when you watch the show, you even learn something from it.

Why the format is not working in USA? I really don't know. Maybe if some larger network decides to put some telenovela on air, we could see if it becomes a hit or a flop.

[Faulkner]

I think American advertiser-based TV has a lot of problems with shorter formats in general because they like to present proven, long-term brands to advertisers.

[Cat]

Why is telenovela format problematic in US?

Because the US is a youth-oriented culture that fears death! Death is viewed as a terrible trauma and the ending of anything is something to be mourned.

Telenovelas, with their mapped-out beginning and endings, would be too traumatic! At least with beloved TV shows, we know they will most likely return in the fall (or they live on in box sets). Even then, people pine over the summer in need of their Lost-fix or whatever it is.

People want to invest in shows and their characters. The question right now may not be "Why are soaps dying?" but "How have they lasted so long?" Maybe because people turn again and again to something they believe could last forever. Telenovelas kill that illusion. Why bother investing in something which will be gone in three months?

On another note, I co-sign what CassieFan said about Brazilian telenovelas. They are beautifully staged, sensually produced and glossily filmed -- and they don't shy away from sexuality or other issues that our Big 4 TV networks seem to have a problem with.

[Sylph]

Regarding that whole death thing...

What if I said This show will die eventually, I don't know when, but it will. I mean it will last somewhere between 3 and 5 years, for example, but I don't know whether it will be exactly 3 or 4 or 5?

[marceline]

Interesting question. And I think the points made above about advertisers are certainly valid. I don't think anybody has truly tired a telenovela format. PC was a soap kind of trying the format but in the end it was still basically an regular ongoing soap. MyNetwork TV was just nasty and cheap. I think it could work. Maybe if the ending wasn't the ENDING but the arc was structured as more of a "season" with the possiblity of continuing the story or spinning it off. People are certainly used to that. Isn't that what Night Shift was?

I know Heroes has employed that with it's "volumes." Whether or not its been a good idea is up to each person to decide for themselves. I will say that one of the benefits of the volume structure was that when Heroes really started to suck you knew that volume would end and maybe the next one could redeem the show.