When you think of Selena Quintanilla, you think of an incredible talent that was taken from this world far too soon. She was producing chart-topping hit after hit leading up to her death in 1995. She’s been referred to as Queen of Tejano music and The Mexican Madonna. Her birthday became known as Selena Day in Texas and of course, she had a movie made about her that was released in 1997. Jennifer Lopez played her after Salma Hayek declined the role citing it was too early to create a movie about Selena. The movie turned out to be quite a success and 23 years later, Netflix has decided to bring it back as a two-part series.
This time around, Selena is played by Christian Serratos (The Walking Dead). The show begins in Chicago in 1994 with Selena and her family discussing their first English album. After that opening scene, we rewind to the very beginning of her life in a hospital in 1971. Here we start to see the foundation of a very loving family and ambition being built. We find out what the name Selena means and then we fast forward to when Selena is 7 years-old and she catches the attention of her father, Abraham Quintanilla (Ricardo Chavira). He sees the talent in her and soon forms a band with Selena and his other children and they begin to play at weddings and other events.
For those of us who were fans of Selena or the movie made about her in 1997, we know the story and what happens next and pretty much what happened for the rest of her very short life. The issue here is that the movie was just north of 2 hours and we (for the most part) felt that it was well done. This time around, in just the first part of this series we get 9 episodes that are somewhere between 35-40 minutes each. There just isn’t enough substance to go around to keep the audience attached. The episodes are slow and while there are some fun moments throughout the first of the two-part series, it’s just not enough. I found myself wondering when they were going to get to some major parts of the story.
It’s hard to pinpoint what the major issue is with this series, but for the most part, it is not the actors and actresses involved. I’ve seen Christian Serratos getting some unnecessary flack for her portrayal, but I have to disagree. I think she did a good job here and showed some of that charisma we saw in Selena herself. A lot of the story surrounds her father’s handling of the band and what he felt was the right and wrong ways of doing things. The other kids do a decent job of portraying their respected characters – but it’s hard to care about everything they are going through because everything is so drawn out.
You have to remember that when you see a music biopic, they typically get to the goods as they have only a limited time to capture the attention of the audience and make them feel what was being felt when everything was actually going on. When you are dealing with a series, it is the total opposite and the creators find themselves trying to stretch things out and that’s where Selena: The Series goes wrong. Only time will tell if they did (they’ve already wrapped up filming it) anything to fix the pacing issues in the 2nd part.
The Verdict