El secretario(The Secretary) is a Colombian telenovela produced and broadcast by Caracol Televisión from August 22, 2011 to March 30, 2012.
Plot
30-year-old Emilio Romero (Juan Pablo Espinosa) was living in New York City working as a pizza delivery guy, despite his background in finances. He finds out through a Facebook-like social network that he has a 6-year-old daughter in Bogotá, and decides to come back to Colombia, but he is broke. One of his clients (Hernán Méndez), who turns out to be a Gangster, pays his plane tickets with the condition of taking a suitcase full of clothes. When arriving to Bogotá, customs police find the suitcase has a double bottom packed with thousands of dollars. Romero co-operates with justice and is released under parole. He meets his daughter Valentina (Hillary Vergara), who lives with her mother and Emilio's ex-girlfriend Lorena (Helga Díaz) and her stepfather Franklin Sotomayor (Fernando Solórzano).
With no money in his pockets, Emilio managed to find a place to live: an apartment whose former tenant (Fabio Camero) is to be evicted. There he meets Gertrudis Dudis Buenahora (Margalida Castro), his new neighbour. Emilio also accepts (reluctantly at first, as he had applied to be an accounting assistant) a job as a secretary at Industrias Copito, a toilet paper company. His immediate bosses are Mario Segura (Fabián Mendoza), the operations manager and the owner's half-brother, and Antonia Fontalvo (Stephanie Cayo), the workaholiccommercial manager and fiancée of Félix Segura (Martín Karpan), the company's owner. Félix has a clandestine affaire with Paola Zorrilla (Andrea López), Antonia's best friend.
As the only male secretary of the company, Emilio is mocked by the other secretaries and his male coworkers. Mario hates him because Antonia hired a male secretary in order to keep Mario's sexual instincts away from his former secretary, Yensi (Alexandra Serrano). Though loyal, optimistic, kind, and efficient, Emilio is clumsy and gets easily into trouble, specially with Félix; nevertheless, Antonia constantly defends him and stands by his side.
David Noreña as Camilo Rojas, a representative of a real estate company (ep. 81)
Maya (Stephanie Cayo's dog) as Gina's pet (ep. 85)
Enrique Poveda as the driver of a van where Emilio gets kidnapped (ep. 90, 95, 96, 97)
Hernando Reyes as a member of the Attorney General's Office, the leader of the rescue operation for Emilio (ep. 95, 96)
Germán Patiño as Lucio, boyfriend of Mario's mother (ep. 134-144)
Music
The theme song is Solo tú, by in-house composers Fabo Romero and Jimmy Pulido López; the latter performs the song. Music by Afro-Colombianelectronica band Systema Solar (Mi kolombia, Sin oficio, En los huesos) is featured in many episodes. In episode 12, most secretaries and the administrative area humiliate Emilio by performing a choreography with Daniela Romo's 1983 hit Pobre secretaria, which Emilio and Antonia sing in karaoke in episode 52. In episode 45, many Copito employees perform a choreography with Bomba Estéreo's 2008 hit Fuego. Vallenato singer Pipe Peláez appears on episode 72 singing a cappellaCuando quieras quiero; in the same episode Mario dances Kool and the Gang's Ladies Night. In episode 98, Tú by Stephanie Cayo is featured. Other songs already used by Caracol TV in other telenovelas, such as Ensamble's Otra vez (ep. 5), Adriana Bottina's Ya mi soledad (ep. 76) and Lucas Troo's Sin tu fe (ep. 29), are also featured.
Reception
After watching the first episode, television critic Javier Santamaría stated that the telenovela is similar to other Caracol TV series such as Nuevo rico nuevo pobre and Clase ejecutiva and that it does not have anything "special;" he criticizes Argentine actor Martín Karpan but praises Espinosa for his "commitment and energy."[3] Days later, his perception of the telenovela improved, praising its incidental music and stating that, since it is a comedy, it is "unavoidable" to see "caricatured characters."[4]
Ómar Rincón, writing for El Tiempo, slams Karpan, Mendoza, and López calling their characters "un-bear-able," and says that at Industrias Copito "no one works, everyone yells." Rincón praises the plot, "it sounds plausible, it's sweet and creates empathy [with it]," and actors Espinosa and Cayo.[5]
At gossip website lafiscalia.com, pinksauce praises its opening sequence, its scenes taped in New York, and the visual effects, but found some inconsistencies from the legal point of view on Emilio's return to Colombia, and criticizes Espinosa, Mendoza, Karpan, and Cayo, as well as the costume design and the make-up.[6] Diana C., from telenovela portal todotnv.com, claims that the love story with unresolved sexual tension between Emilio and Antonia is "weak," though praises the "cuteness" brought by Emilio's daughter, and the fact that Cayo and Karpan don't hide their native accents (Peruvian and Argentinian, respectively); she praises most main actors, except López.[7]
Ratings improved during its first week and, after having started in fifth place among the programmes broadcast in prime time,[8] it finished third after the fourth episode.[9] On 22 September 2011, it climbed to second place and became the most watched telenovela in Colombia that day.[10]
