MyNetworkTv's Telenovela Experiment (2006-2007)

On 3/25/2026 at 8:43 AM, te. said:

After only having watched Fashion House in full when it aired and a little bit of Desire, I decided to go backwards and check out the last soaps - Saints & Sinners and American Heiress. And I'll say it's a shame they didn't air first, especially Saints & Sinners because it really seems like they started finding their groove even if it was too little too late. Fashion House was too bogged down by flashbacks and was very delayed in getting the action going since Morgan didn't appear until a few weeks in; these just get straight to the point and there's been no long flashbacks in each episode.

They're actually very easily digestible and maybe if these had aired first (or Fashion House had been seriously reworked), they might've found some traction.

MyNetworkTV was learning from the mistakes and the 3rd set of shows were stronger. It was a relatively new format for English language production companies. It took a while to find the groove. By the third set, they had eliminated most of the flashback sand a good amount of the recap episodes. I think they realized the importance of story. I also think the last set were written by headwriters who had written for the other novelas on the network and had a better understanding of where they wanted to go.

I think the source material for "Fashion House" may have been just no exciting enough.

13 hours ago, Chris B said:

I'm a big fan of the Scream franchise and was surprised to see Nora Zuckerman and her sister and writing partner Lillia were hired to write the next installment. This was surprising because neither of them has an horror experience. I decided to do some research on their past credits and turns out Nora got her start as a writer/producer on Desire!

Initial, the writing on the shows was non-union because the network and production company were designating the writers "translators." This went on I think through the production of "Fashion House" because Tony Tripoli, who played on of the designers, had a blog and said he was asked to write a script or two and hated the process. So it was a good way to do something which others might have avoided. Later, all the writers were unionized as I recall.

2 hours ago, Soaplovers said:

From what I understood, when they were editing/adapting the source material for Fashion House.. they ended up running short on time so the episodes were padded with flashbacks.

Wicked Wicked Wicked Game was my favorite of the telenovelas... Tatum O'neal was bat [!@#$%^&*] crazy in a good way and the way she handled Debbie Dunning (Tool Time Girl from Home Improvement) was intense.

Saints & Sinners was pretty good when I viewed it... although a lot of characters were killed off on all these shows. Whatever happened to just leaving town LOL

I wouldn't be surprised if they were short on material. It also remember them saying they initially did the flashbacks because they knew most wouldn't watch every night and they wanted them to stay up to date. "Fashion House" didn't have enough story, whereas "Desire" had too many characters and plots from what I vaguely remember.

I also think part of the issue in the beginning was the choice of stories. Some of the shows were rather obscure while others were also being adapted either right before or during/after the show. I think "Amar Sin Limites" was telling the same story as "Watch Over Me" at the same time. "La Heredera" may have aired a few years before "American Heiress."

Novelas tend to kill off a lot of characters from my limited experience. As I vaguely recall, the "action" novelas fell under the "Secret Obsessions" banner and tend to have a high body count.