Botineras
Botineras | |
---|---|
Clockwise from top left: Laura Posse / Mia (Romina Gaetani), Cristian "Chiqui" Flores (Nicolás Cabré), Nino Paredes (Gonzalo Valenzuela), Marga Molinari (Isabel Macedo), Giselle López (Florencia Peña), Tato Marín (Damián de Santo) | |
Genre | Police procedural |
Created by | Sebastian Ortega |
Developed by | Underground Producciones |
Written by | Esther Feldman, Alejandro Maci |
Starring |
Florencia Peña Nicolás Cabré Romina Gaetani Isabel Macedo Gonzalo Valenzuela Damián De Santo |
Opening theme | Las Botineras by David Bolzoni |
Composer(s) |
Facundo Espinosa Fernando Monteleone |
Country of origin | Argentina |
Original language(s) | Spanish |
No. of seasons | 1 |
No. of episodes | 142 |
Release | |
Original network | Telefé |
Original release | November 24, 2009 – August 25, 2010 |
External links | |
Website | |
Production website |
Botineras (WAGs: Love for the Game) is an Argentine telenovela produced by Endemol and Underground. Airing on Telefe, it premiered on November 24, 2009, and was broadcast until August 25, 2010. The show revolves around the theme of football players and their romances, whilst also dealing with the different police investigations they stumble across during the show. When it first aired, the telenovela was originally a comedy, before later becoming a police drama. The original stars were Florencia Peña and Nicolás Cabré, who played Giselle López and Cristian "Chiqui" Flores. Peña resigned after the genre shift, as the shift caused her character to lose importance, which, compiled with Peña's general dissatisfaction with the show, saw Romina Gaetani's and Isabel Macedo's characters (Laura Posse/Mía Alberdi and Margarita "Marga" Molinari respectively) gain superior notability in contrast to her own.
Premise
Initially, the telenovela was intended to be a comedy about football as botinera translates literally to "a woman that wears a botín", which can mean either high-heeled footwear or a football boot; colloquially it means a footballer's girlfriend or wife. The comedy featured some celebrities from the Argentine football, like football agent Guillermo Cóppola, acting as themselves and the main asset of the comedy was Florencia Peña, who worked in many other successful comedies and helped the show gain modest notoriety.
By January 2010, the telenovela made a genre shift from comedy to police drama, with more emphasis beginning to shift onto Gaetani's and Roberto Carnaghi's characters. The first story arc which changed genre began when Cristian Flores (Cabré) was jailed for some weeks, and following the dramatic genre change, helped the show gain higher ratings than its previous status as a comedy.[1] A lot of characters began a repackaging, with Peña's character reformulated in the process. Her character began by going into bankruptcy and being forced to work for the police and despite the new approach to the show, Peña announced that she would leave the program because of the changes and she was replaced with Pablo Rago.[1] Rago would also soon depart from the program towards its end, in order to play the lead role in the film Manuel Belgrano and not have conflicting schedules with the show and the movie.
Plot
The name of the show comes from an organization within the plot, where the botineras are women that use an agency to develop mediatic romances with football players. The agency is managed by Giselle López (Florencia Peña). The plot starts with the arrival to Buenos Aires of football player Cristian Flores (Nicolás Cabré), who is determined on getting married with his girlfriend, Marga Molinari (Isabel Macedo). Flores was suspected of murdering Cappa, a rival player in Europe, and the police start to investigate him. Laura Posse (Romina Gaetani) tries to investigate him by becoming a botinera, and therefore by getting near him. For this purpose, she takes a secret identity as Mía Alberdi. Flores was living with his agent, Tato Marín, so Mía managed to work as secretary for Tato. Tato had killed Alberto Flores (Cristian's father) in order to have control over him by acting as a parental figure. This was unknown by Flores, but not by Nino Paredes, Tato's lawyer. Paredes kept evidence of the crime to threaten him.
Reception
On the day of the premiere, opposing television broadcaster Channel 13 scheduled a sketch with Francella, Adrian Suar and Tinelli, but "Botineras" had a higher rating, garnering 27.3 against 22.3.[2]
Cast
Cast (in credits order)
- Nicolás Cabré ... Cristian "Chiqui" Flores
- Romina Gaetani ... Laura Posse/Mía Alberdi
- Damián de Santo ... Eduardo "Tato" Marín
- Isabel Macedo ... Margarita "Marga" Molinari
- Gonzalo Valenzuela ... Nino Paredes
- Tomás Fonzi ... Adrián "Anguila" Muñiz
- Lola Berthet ... Catalina Bellagamba
- Christian Sancho ... Manuel "Flaco" Riveiro
- Florencia Peña ... Giselle López †
- Lucas Ferraro ... Fernando Rodríguez
- Ezequiel Castaño ... Gonzalo "Lalo" Roldán
- Guillermina Valdez ... Liliana "Lili" Aramburu
- Alan Sabbagh ... Omar Torres
- Silvia Pérez ... Éthel Molinari
- Graciela Pal ... Mirta Rubinstein †
- Roberto Carnaghi ... Humberto Arregui
References
- 1 2 Se va Flor y llega Pablo Rago a "Botineras" (Spanish)
- ↑ Botineras pudo más que ShowMatch (Spanish)