Of Swords and Parasols

Last night, I sort-of watched my first Spanish-language telenovela, Corazon Salvaje (1993 version-there appear to be several).  I say "Sort of" because I watched what Netflix has available to rent, which is a little under 5 hours long and pretty blatantly "scenes from" and nowhere near the whole thing.  Not having seen the whole thing, I imagine it's along the lines of someone going through 3 or so seasons of television and cutting out everything but scenes between the main romantic pairing and including some other scenes for context.  I gather that this is the case with most telenovelas that have official US subtitles?  At least, that appears to be the case at Netflix.  (There are some that are long, but I suspect they're less condensed as opposed to the full series.)

Is there a way to watch the full series with English subtitles?  (I fare better with Spanish than, say, Cantonese or Mandarin, which I have yet to develop an ear for outside of the most common wuxia terms, but not well enough to not need subs.)  I know there are some full series on youtube, but while I can handle Netflix streaming most of the time, I can't take more than a few minutes of youtube streaming.


Mind you, I'm not saying the "scenes from" version was bad:  there were some references  to cut scenes and the cutting was really obvious, but it was pretty easy to follow what they kept of the plot and I was entertained, despite an aggravating Madonna/Whore complex (especially since I thought Aimee was pretty sympathetic until they decided she had to be obsessed with jealousy or whatever).  The cutting also results in basically All The Drama Ever in a fairly condensed package, so there's an entertaining "what will they come up with next-OH THAT!" that never really lets up.  My favorite bit of Drama was probably "I will impersonate a nun so that I can visit my husband-who appears to be just fine despite getting shot in the head a few days ago-in jail and make out with him through the bars."  It was rather priceless.  I hope that's a common trope.)

Feel free to use this post to recommend telenovelas that I can watch to me (preferably with girls and without fridging) whether I can watch the full thing or have to do "scenes from" versions I can get from Netflix, as long as the plot can still be followed.