If The Good Wife, Then Spanish Soaps

I'm a fair-weather consumer of entertainment. I prefer attractive, stylish casts. I like romance, some intrigue, humor and decent writing. A realistic plot matters somewhat, but mostly I just want a happy ending.

Real life is hard enough just now, particularly with perpetual lock-down in London. To unwind, I can't take more stress or disappointment. I want the good guys to win.

The perfect show for me is "The Good Wife".

Each episode, a stylish lawyer, Alicia Florrick, battles in court, and usually wins. There's romance, intrigue and humor, and other good-looking likeable, well-dressed characters. The writing is good, the plots believable. Sometimes Alicia gets the guy.

Here's what happens when I apply my formula:

Stylish Cast + Romance + Intrigue + Humor + Good Writing + Happy Ending = Spanish Soaps

I discovered "Velvet" on Netflix and never looked back. Since then, I've binge-watched one Spanish TV series after another. I'm going to tell you about three.

Let's start with "Velvet":

The story is about a seamstress, Ana, who grows up in a Madrid department store/fashion house back when staff in Spain apparently lived at the store. Her best friend is the wealthy store owner's son, Alberto. Ana and Alberto grow up together, only to realize that as adults they are, in the eyes of the rest of the world, worlds apart.

Alberto is a rich society boy; Ana is the niece of the store's manager. Of course, they fall in love, and this love is doomed. Or is it?

"Velvet" is set in the '60s. The fashion styles are classic and colorful. It's essentially a soap opera full of misunderstandings that lead to heartbreak. It's totally addictive.

I tell myself I watch "Velvet" partly to practice my Spanish, but that's not it at all. The men are elegant in a stylish European way, and also hot in a hunky universal way. The plots aren't entirely believable, but the cast is charming, and really, it's just the kind of escapism I crave at the end of another long Covid shelter-in-place kind of day.

After "Velvet", I discovered "Gran Hotel".

"Gran Hotel" is a period drama set at a luxury family-run hotel in the early 1900s. Julio, a handsome working class 20-something, shows up to discover that his sister, a hotel maid, is missing. He lies his way into a job at the hotel, and begins investigating the mysterious circumstances of her disappearance.

It's not long before he finds Alicia, the beautiful blond heiress to the hotel family. She's being forced by her mean mother to marry the hotel's manager, a man she doesn't love. Pretty soon, Alicia falls for Julio and helps him investigate what happened to his sister.

Here again, the lovers are up against class prejudice, and so must love in secret. The clothes are fabulous. As are the many lovable characters on the show who do incredibly stupid things following simple misunderstandings.

Also like "Velvet", "Gran Hotel" is highly addictive, even as the plot grows more and more ludicrous. We get murder, adultery, a cholera outbreak and a bomb that goes off at the hotel, killing many.

I wouldn't be caught dead watching an American soap opera, but somehow the Spanish equivalent is less cringe-worthy and more binge-worthy.

And, finally, this leads me to "Cable Girls".

Of the three, "Cable Girls" is the least believable, and the most poorly written, but I found it more addictive than the other two. It's set in the 1920s and 1930s, in Madrid, at an early telephone company at which young women work as "cable girls", i.e., connecting calls through a central switchboard.

The main character is Lidia, who like Julio in "Gran Hotel", lies her way into a job. She soon discovers that her boss is none other than her old boyfriend, Francisco (coincidentally, the same actor who played Julio in "Gran Hotel"). Lidia swiftly ends up in a love triangle with her old flame, Francisco, who is married to the phone company family's daughter. And Carlos, the male heir of the family, who runs the business with Francisco.

Lidia becomes friends with other cable girls, each representing different elements of society. There's Ángeles, a young mother whose husband (a philandering telephone company employee) wants her to stay at home with their child. Then there's Carlota, who is trying to escape her overbearing society family by working; and Marga, a country girl who has just moved to the big city. There's also Sara/Óscar, a transgender character who is equally hot as a male or a female.

The telephone company matriarch, Doña Carmen Cifuentes (played by Concha Velasco, the same mean mother from "Gran Hotel") is a wonderful villain. She plays both evil mother roles so viciously, she makes Alexis Carrington on Dynasty seem more like a mildly meddlesome socialite.

The show goes off the rails in its final season. I won't tell you what happens, but it involves the Spanish Civil War, the evil matriarch becoming a prison camp warden, and then things get really out of hand.

There are plenty of other addictive Spanish soaps to choose from including "Elite" (rich and poor kids at a private school) or "High Seas" (rich and poor people on a cruise ship). They feature hot casts and follow the same formula. 

I'm convinced there's a computer algorithm used by Spanish studios into which is inputted: "star-crossed lovers", "class clash", "villainous matriarch", "sex", "mysterious death" and "any location and era" and out pop new ideas for TV shows.

Still, you can always count on beautiful people, elegant clothes, romance, intrigue, and--more often than not--a happy ending. What's not to love?