![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Jane the Virgin and Happyland are two shows that I hadn't really intended to check out, neither sounding very appealing to me, but I watched the pilots out of boredom and really liked them. The main protagonists of both series-Jane in Jane the Virgin and Lucy in Happyland-are very goal-oriented young Latina women raised by their single mothers, who they are generally more mature and together than. Both mothers-Xiomara in Jane the Virgin ans Elena in Happyland-have lied to their daughters about the identities of their fathers, neither mother wanting to tell her daughter that the last contact they had with the fathers was the fathers telling them to get abortions after learning about the pregnancy, but the real identities of the fathers are revealed in the final moments of both pilots.
But that's mostly where the similarities end.
Jane the Virgin is a case of everything wrong in concept and everything right in concentration. The show is about a 23-year-old waitress named Jane who live with her mother and grandmother. She works at a hotel owned by Rafael and "jerk" (according to both) who she had a crush on when she worked at his country club several years pre-series. Since she was young, her grandmother (who only speaks Spanish, but seems to understand English fairly well) has drilled into her the importance of not having sex until marriage. While there's certainly a religious aspect to this, Jane's grandmother's primary concern seems to be that Jane not also end up a single teenaged mother, and Jane's take on it seems to be that the best way to make sure nothing like that upsets your plans for your life is just to not give it a chance to happen. (I suspect that, to some degree, Jane also sees herself as having ruined Xiomara's life, though Xiomara doesn't seem to have that view at all.) Jane has her life planned out in incredible detail, and her boyfriend, Michael, a police officer, loves her enough to go along with it.
Things get off track when her gynecologist, Luisa, having just had a very soap opera shock the night before, gets her patients mixed up and accidentally artificially inseminates Jane. The woman who was supposed to be artificially inseminated is Rafael's wife, Petra, and Rafael is Luisa's brother. Rafael is a cancer survivor, and because of chemotherapy, he's now sterile. The sperm sample Jane was inseminated with is his only sperm sample, and Petra decided to have herself inseminated to keep Rafael from divorcing her before their 5th anniversary, after which, she gets a much larger divorce settlement. Petra is also having an affair with Rafael's best friend, Roman. Michael is investigating Roman for possible connections to a major drug dealer. Jane initially seems to be leaning towards getting an abortion, but on learning that Rafael wants to have a child and being (falsely) reassured that Rafael and Petra's marriage is happy and stable, she decides to carry the baby to term, and then give it to them to raise. (Because, I mean, Rafael could apparently never consider adoption? The "BIOLOGY ONLY" thing there is my only real beef with the show so far). Jane's father, Rogelio, is the star of the telenovela the whole family is addicted to, and now that he's a moderately mature adult instead of a scared teenager, he wants to get to know his daughter. Xiomara has mixed feelings about this, but not about possibly jumping his bones again.
There's a "Sexy Latin Narrator" to help us keep track of all of this, and more. A lot more. A part of the "lot more" is Bridget Regan running around as a bisexual lawyer in excellent suits and fabulous hair. I know there are some here who will consider that to be very important information.
( lengthy-ish, but only really spoilery for the pilot )
Then we have Happyland. Happyland is about workers in a Disneyland-style theme park. The main character, Lucy, grew up in Happyland because her mother, Elena, has played Princess Adriana in the park before Lucy was born, and Lucy works at the park too. Initially, Lucy is the backstage manager for the shows, but she gets forcibly promoted to "character work" early in the series. Her best friends, Will and Harper, are also Happyland employees, and are dating, though Will sometimes forgets which girl he's supposed to be in love with. (Harper rightly interprets this as a problem with Will's priorities that he needs to figure out, and not as something to blame on Lucy, or hold against Lucy.) Lucy Has Plans for her life and doesn't intend to spend her life at Happyland like her mother, Elena. It's hard not to compare Happyland and Jane the Virgin because of the similarities in the heroine's lives and backgrounds, and because Happyland wants to do some of the same things as Jane the Virgin, but doesn't do them as well, though it's still a good-and addicting-show with plenty of soap opera elements.
( shorter, but with more spoilers for both shows )
Happyland is scheduled to have an 8 episode season, leaving 3 left to air, and 4 for me to watch. CW picked up Jane the Virgin for a full season, so it'll probably be 20-22 episodes. I'm not to sure about it as an ongoing series as opposed to a miniseries, but I have high hopes.
I also watched this week's Sleepy Hollow and greatly enjoyed it, despite the fact that the show is in danger of having a White Dudes problem. I don't have much to say about it, but suspect I'll be much more opinionated about the next episode. I need to catch up with How to Get Away With Murder and Madam Secretary, but they both take themselves more seriously than my current frame of mind wants. (I'll get over it.)
But that's mostly where the similarities end.
Jane the Virgin is a case of everything wrong in concept and everything right in concentration. The show is about a 23-year-old waitress named Jane who live with her mother and grandmother. She works at a hotel owned by Rafael and "jerk" (according to both) who she had a crush on when she worked at his country club several years pre-series. Since she was young, her grandmother (who only speaks Spanish, but seems to understand English fairly well) has drilled into her the importance of not having sex until marriage. While there's certainly a religious aspect to this, Jane's grandmother's primary concern seems to be that Jane not also end up a single teenaged mother, and Jane's take on it seems to be that the best way to make sure nothing like that upsets your plans for your life is just to not give it a chance to happen. (I suspect that, to some degree, Jane also sees herself as having ruined Xiomara's life, though Xiomara doesn't seem to have that view at all.) Jane has her life planned out in incredible detail, and her boyfriend, Michael, a police officer, loves her enough to go along with it.
Things get off track when her gynecologist, Luisa, having just had a very soap opera shock the night before, gets her patients mixed up and accidentally artificially inseminates Jane. The woman who was supposed to be artificially inseminated is Rafael's wife, Petra, and Rafael is Luisa's brother. Rafael is a cancer survivor, and because of chemotherapy, he's now sterile. The sperm sample Jane was inseminated with is his only sperm sample, and Petra decided to have herself inseminated to keep Rafael from divorcing her before their 5th anniversary, after which, she gets a much larger divorce settlement. Petra is also having an affair with Rafael's best friend, Roman. Michael is investigating Roman for possible connections to a major drug dealer. Jane initially seems to be leaning towards getting an abortion, but on learning that Rafael wants to have a child and being (falsely) reassured that Rafael and Petra's marriage is happy and stable, she decides to carry the baby to term, and then give it to them to raise. (Because, I mean, Rafael could apparently never consider adoption? The "BIOLOGY ONLY" thing there is my only real beef with the show so far). Jane's father, Rogelio, is the star of the telenovela the whole family is addicted to, and now that he's a moderately mature adult instead of a scared teenager, he wants to get to know his daughter. Xiomara has mixed feelings about this, but not about possibly jumping his bones again.
There's a "Sexy Latin Narrator" to help us keep track of all of this, and more. A lot more. A part of the "lot more" is Bridget Regan running around as a bisexual lawyer in excellent suits and fabulous hair. I know there are some here who will consider that to be very important information.
( lengthy-ish, but only really spoilery for the pilot )
Then we have Happyland. Happyland is about workers in a Disneyland-style theme park. The main character, Lucy, grew up in Happyland because her mother, Elena, has played Princess Adriana in the park before Lucy was born, and Lucy works at the park too. Initially, Lucy is the backstage manager for the shows, but she gets forcibly promoted to "character work" early in the series. Her best friends, Will and Harper, are also Happyland employees, and are dating, though Will sometimes forgets which girl he's supposed to be in love with. (Harper rightly interprets this as a problem with Will's priorities that he needs to figure out, and not as something to blame on Lucy, or hold against Lucy.) Lucy Has Plans for her life and doesn't intend to spend her life at Happyland like her mother, Elena. It's hard not to compare Happyland and Jane the Virgin because of the similarities in the heroine's lives and backgrounds, and because Happyland wants to do some of the same things as Jane the Virgin, but doesn't do them as well, though it's still a good-and addicting-show with plenty of soap opera elements.
( shorter, but with more spoilers for both shows )
Happyland is scheduled to have an 8 episode season, leaving 3 left to air, and 4 for me to watch. CW picked up Jane the Virgin for a full season, so it'll probably be 20-22 episodes. I'm not to sure about it as an ongoing series as opposed to a miniseries, but I have high hopes.
I also watched this week's Sleepy Hollow and greatly enjoyed it, despite the fact that the show is in danger of having a White Dudes problem. I don't have much to say about it, but suspect I'll be much more opinionated about the next episode. I need to catch up with How to Get Away With Murder and Madam Secretary, but they both take themselves more seriously than my current frame of mind wants. (I'll get over it.)