Blog Post #1 (La Reina del Sur)

For the class, I am watching La Reina del Sur, which can be classified as a contemporary narconovela. La Reina del Sur is a Spanish telenovela, but it starts off in Mexico. However, a few episodes later, the setting changes to Spain. Before looking into the telenovela, I was confused and thought that La Reina del Sur was a Mexican telenovela since it started off in Mexico and the main character, Teresa Mendoza, is Mexican in the telenovela. I was even more confused because I remembered learning in class that the cast of Mexican telenovelas are almost always exclusively from Mexico. As a result, I was first surprised that when in Spain, actual Spanish actors were used rather than Mexican actors. However, I then found out that La Reina del Sur is produced by telemundo, which usually represents multiple nationalities in its cast. Moreover, I also discovered that La Reina del Sur was made into an American television series called Queen of the South. I have watched a few episodes of Queen of the South in the past and I can definitely tell the difference between a telenovela and an actual television series. Unlike Queen of the South, La Reina del Sur definitely ends in cliffhangers every episode. It is also much more dramatic and action-packed in each episode compared to the the American television series. Another difference is that Queen of the South is trying to stretch out the plot-line as much as possible so that it can have multiple seasons. On the other hand, La Reina del Sur does not have any seasons and is instead composed of simply 63 episodes. So for, I am 6 episodes into the telenovela but I have been enjoying it greatly. There is always so much drama and action that I can not seem to miss a second of it, and I easily get hooked and want to binge-watch. I look forward to finding out what else will happen with Teresa Mendoza and her current love interest from Spain.