Remembering Marimar

I underestimated Marimar yet at the same time I totally overestimated her. The telenovela is not quite what I remembered from having watched when I was six.
Certain things pop out now that I am older, wiser, and of course more critical of telenovelas thanks to Dr. A's class. For example, Marimar is annoying as hell. I just can't put it any other way. She is sickeningly naive and at times just stupid. Everyone in the telenovela, even the love of her life, has at some point called her salvaje, or savage. But what annoys me the most about Marimar is how she will fall into her wicked mother-in-law's evil plotting every time. You'd think she'd learn after the fifteenth time...
Of course, Sergio, prince charming, is simply too good to be true; but though he too is annoyingly naive, next to Marimar, he looks like a genius (and of course he is her savior).
But those glaring annoyances aside, some things that I totally forgot about Marimar are also some of the most entertaining. For example, the dog talks. How could I forget that Marimar's loyal companion talks? Like Marimar, he has an accent of those from la costa, or the coast, which everyone in Mexico makes fun of (well, at least my family does... maybe we're just mean). And Plugoso (which literally translates as the flea-ridden one), the dog, usually has one liners, which are suppose to provide comic relief, but to me are the equivalent of Alice's, the maid, zingers in the Brady Bunch. And again how could I forget that Marimar has a rich-soon-to-be-dead-father-who-left-her-at-birth? Of course, she would, and at the end of the telenovela she will have both Sergio's love and her father's money.
But despite all my Marimar cynicism, there's still something there with Marimar. I told one of my Latina friends this week that I was studying Marimar for a class and she started singing the entrada, which is honestly the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Marimar also. Not only that but Marimar has a whopping 1,845 fans on Facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=marimar&init=quick
Although that may not seem much compared to Kanye West (he's just been everywhere this week), you have take into consideration that this telenovela is 14 years old and I don't know many Latinos who have the courage to admit that they're a fan of Marimar... I know I don't... yet.