Always a Witch

Siempre Bruja is more of a teen telenovela than anything else. It's beautifully filmed in Cartagena, Colombia. I did enjoy the colorful landscapes and old Spanish fortress city. But teen dramas aren't really my thing. But I can see how many young people would liking this film a lot. I was hoping it had more of a comedic edge like Bewitch or a darker comedy instead of a Beverly Hills 90210 melodrama feel to it. It certainly makes me want to travel and visit this old city, its newer modern cityscape and experience the music, dance, colonial history and the street food vendors!

One of the reasons why I really love Netflix so much is that they bringing more international programming like this to the United States and to the rest of the world. I love their originals, but I also love this culture sharing that Netflix provides that Over-The-Air television has always failed to provide in the past. Hopefully this streaming company might do more than just entertain us, but break the American bubble of isolation and make our country a more internationally and culturally aware people.

Solid production values for this first ever Columbian TV series I've watched. Initial episode was totally entertaining from the stake 'burning' to Carmen's arrival at a carnival atmosphere beach side celebration. characters and story held my interest. Look forward to further episodes with this charming, Colombian witch!

Gosh this looked like it would be magical. A black witch in 1600s Columbia (mind blown) casts a spell to avoid being burned at the stake and ends up in 2019 Columbia with the promise that if she gets an emerald to a witch there, that witch will end her back in time to before her love was killed in the 1600s. So Carmen does so and ends up in 2019. All is well but for the fact that soon after arriving and finding the witch to send her back, that witch disappears and is presumed dead. How does she get back now?

There are several problems with this series that might not bug you but bugged me. (1) for some reason, everyone on the show has the dialog dubbed. This makes everyone sound ridiculous. You will have an obviously latino man speaking like a white car commercial from the 1970s. It is horrible; (2) There is way too much talking about the baddie. They must say his name a zillion times but a lot of the story doesn't seem to advance the ball toward finding him; (3) there is just a modern day problem with this show... Carmen is a slave in 1600 and is in *love* with the slave master's son. It is hard for anyone in modern day to root for them to get together in the 1600s. You kind of want Carmen to stay where she is.

I do want to give them credit for doing a good job with someone from the 1600s coming to 2019. Carmen has problems adjusting but they are not over done. She learns fast and makes friends. I would put this in the watch for later queue.

While the acting isn't stellar, it's not a bad show, but the voice-overs are kind of annoying. It is set in Cartegena for crying out loud. The actors shouldn't have American accents.Carmen slid into modern speak too easily--not with technological stuff, thank God, but the way she speaks is not from her era. I feel she should have struggled more with that.

Pretty good series. I was able to binge it in a whole night. Series is great for teenager/young adult audience. The main actress was good. The character came out clueless sometimes but she is playing a young teenager. The actor who plays Esteban is so dreamy. He is my new tv character crush. I actually can't wait to watch some of his other work. If another season came up, I would love it just because of him.