A little confused.

Estoy confundida. How is it that my favorite U.S. shows run only a season long and air only a handful of episodes while telenovelas, but the Venuezuelan one we have recently discussed in class, "La Vida Entera,: runs for an entire year--sin interrupciones?? I understand that unlike primetime shows in the U.S.,  telenovelas have a much lower budget, thus limiting the amount of time-consuming special effects and location changes (and hence explaining the cold-weather clothing worn on set to preserve lenses). Likewise, I understand that the demand for telenovelas is more rampant in other parts of the world than primetime favs in the U.S., but I still don't see how the equation adds up. Perhaps, it's my ignorance, or maybe it's my amazement by the work ethic of the telenovela crew. Don't get me wrong though. I'm not saying that our t.v. crews in here aren't hard-working. I'm just pointing out the inconsistencies in the telenovela v. american t.v. show production equation. 

Before I thought, mucho dinero + great writers and actors= high quality show, with a good number of episodes...as in, maybe 12 hour sagas. 

Now, after studying the production process of "La Vida Entera," I see that a well-produced show can take much less moola on far less time,  and still give its audience what they want, plus a run of 150+ episodes of non-stop drama.  

And it's not that telenovela actors simply read cue-cards, and then techs slap together whatever scenes are shot with little regard to the end result. No, no no. 

Telenovela crew's are crazy hard workers. As I observed in our discussion about "La Vida Entera," execs don't allow for mistakes in production. And with a lower budget than American soaps and t.v shows, this makes the shooting process entirely more time consuming. 

For example, when we discussed the sequence shot scene, we see how careful the crew had to be when filming, and then how a simple drop of one item in the shot forced an entire re-do of the entire scene. 

Also, we discussed how intelligent the actors and actresses must be. Most of the time, they are given just a few minutes to go over their scripts before shooting the real deal, and most of the time they ace their lines sin problemas. And if it wasn't hard enough to memorize lines a few minutes before filming, actors are monitored by crew members with scripts in hand to make sure each line is delivered correctly. Talk about pressure. 

Above all, with such a small frame of time to work with, telenovela's don't always shoot an episode in a few days time. Sometimes, it could take nearly an entire to day to film just one scene lasting only a few minutes. And yet, each episode is still whisked away to editing in time for it's debut the next night. 

So, dímelo. Why do I have to wait eight months for my favorite show to air, only to be delighted with about 10 episodes? In the meantime while I'm waiting, maybe I'll switch to Telenovelas. For good.