Destinos: An Introduction to Spanish

Season

1992

USA

7.1

A man has just told his family about a secrete and they hire a lawyer to find out if it is true.

Episode List

S1 • E1

La carta (The Letter)

In a serious event after the Civil War in Spain, an old man by the name of don Fernando finds an old letter from his late wife Rosario who might not be dead. To find this woman, don Fernando must hire the best agent in the field, the beautiful and charming Raquel Rodríguez. Raquel, the sexy "abogada" (Spanish for lawyer) with her giant shoulder pads must search out a woman who knows where Rosario is. Will Raquel find this woman in time? Will her shoulder pads slow her down? Will things go horribly wrong?

S1 • E2

El secreto (The Secret)

In this episode of the thrilling yet decidedly dull show Destinos, Don Fernando finds a letter his wife, whom he had thought had died years before in the bombing of Spain. The subsequent turmoils in Don Fernandos mind show a striking metaphor to the struggles of the working in finding the time to pursue more philosophical pursuits. Don Fernando calls in his four children, as well as his brother, and gives them the news; That he, for many years, had in fact been practicing polygamy, even if that was sort of covered up by Death in Absentia. His blatant disregard for how laws work also shows how fragile the psyche of the elderly is effected by the unfeeling hands of time. He has stayed in a house far outside of Spain, giving him no knowledge as to whether or not she had actually survived the bombing so many years ago. This semi telenovela introduces enough characters to make me forget all of them, launching the show into a Schrodinger's character amount, having both many characters and no characters. The paradoxical nature of this show makes it such a headache for anyone who needs to talk about it who is not a native Spanish speaker. This show additionally suffers from having an incredibly short plot that is inexplicably stretched into so many episodes. This episode could have taken place over literally two minutes. Instead, what would have been the short exposition to a short film, becomes the extended plot of a near 30 minute episode. Additionally, due to the expositional nature of this episode, it over introduces characters to the audience. In a good show (or more likely movie), it is possible to over introduce characters if it is juxtaposed by an underdevelopment of some other part of the character, or some sort of metaphor explored throughout the film. But with this shows lack of substance, it becomes its fatal flaw.