{"id":4018,"date":"2014-10-21T11:02:20","date_gmt":"2014-10-21T16:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/?p=4018"},"modified":"2014-10-21T11:02:20","modified_gmt":"2014-10-21T16:02:20","slug":"tv-review-jane-the-virgin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/?p=4018","title":{"rendered":"TV Review: Jane the Virgin"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Let me start by saying that this is not the sort of thing I normally watch. I do enjoy romance in books, but rarely in TV or movies, and my impression when I saw this recommended by TV Guide was that I’d watch the first episode, dismiss it as crap, and move on with my life. Why bother watching that first episode? I don’t know … probably something about the ludicrous idea of a virgin getting accidentally artificially inseminated. I mean, it sounded so awful I almost couldn’t help but look — like a sex scandal on the news. Wow, almost *exactly* like that!<\/p>\n

So I just finished the second episode. It’s great!<\/p>\n

All right, so it’s got a corny setup, but to give credit where it’s due, they’ve owned the setup. The most likely thing to go wrong with a setup like this is that the show writers and producers treat it like the joke it sort of is. But a strange thing happens when you embrace it and make it a real thing … you can’t stop watching!<\/p>\n

The best thing about this show, oddly enough, is the narrator. When he first started talking I thought this was going to be terrible, but it’s not. The story is being “told” by a Hispanic man with a warm, sexy voice who introduces the characters to you and who sometimes tells you what’s going on inside their heads. This adds a bit more depth to the story than you usually get, and as you get used to the concept, it’s kind of fun too. A lot of the comedy is in the narration. <\/p>\n

This show is a comedy — not the laugh-until-your-sides-hurt variety, but it is definitely amusing. The convoluted cast of characters all add something to the mix, and Jane herself is very likable. I even get why she was a 22-year-old virgin (which was something I wasn’t sure I would buy). <\/p>\n

Give the pilot episode a chance. Seriously. It’s corny in the right places, serious in the right places, well acted, amusing, and utterly bizarre. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let me start by saying that this is not the sort of thing I normally watch. I do enjoy romance in books, but rarely in TV or movies, and my impression when I saw this recommended by TV Guide was that I’d watch the first episode, dismiss it as crap, and move on with my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[498],"tags":[82,69,550,551,553,547,554,552,555,18,549,548],"class_list":["post-4018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-amsden","tag-christine-amsden","tag-critic","tag-cw","tag-fall-tv","tag-jane-the-virgin","tag-new-fall-tv","tag-new-shows","tag-recommended-shows","tag-review","tag-series-review","tag-tv-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4018"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4019,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4018\/revisions\/4019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christineamsden.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}