I am not holding a grudge against Ana at all, I am holding a grudge against the writers. In the first two seasons her character was beautiful written and I understand that was the Ana Alberto fallen in love with ( the descriptions of Ana by Alberto to Cristina when they play the game of Truth or Dare), the Ana her friends love and the Ana that Enzo Cafio respect. But in S3 and specially S4, we heard she won all kinds of awards but somehow is kind of side notes, do you really feel it for her. It is the job of writers to make the audience feel the story they are writing about, if I don't feet it is not there. All I am saying is Ana is a main character her storyline is most important we need audience rooting for her, we need to feel her pain, her joy, her accomplishments. The writers only have limit amount of screen time it they spend whole lot on nonsense ex. Cristina's planning, her great business ability, her urge to have Carlos marrying Ana, her wedding planing ability so on and so forth, they will be no time for anymore of Ana's character. I am not a conspiracy theorist but this last 2 seasons make me one. In S3 all that drama about Cristina was well established but in S4 we again have the audience watch how crazy she is Again. Where is our most important character other than Alberto? Don't you wonder whose story is? Cristina? Ana?
Yes, Primosaurs, I think you've hit the nail on the head about the vast difference between seasons one and two, and seasons 3 and 4. I suspect that the producers/writers/creators planned out the first two seasons from the beginning: as a few people have said, the series had a really satisfying build-up, climax, and resolution in the last episode, with happy (and complete) endings for all our protagonists. And clearly they only contracted MAS for two seasons, so probably that was the deal with their actors--unless that's the norm in Spain? I don't know. Here in the US for network TV my understanding is that it's standard for actors to sign a 7 season contract from the get-go, but clearly that wasn't true with Velvet. Not knowing what is usual for Spanish TV, I'm just going from my best guess that they had planned out two seasons worth of story.
S1 and S2 are clearly thought through as a whole from the beginning, and they're careful about building up all the elements one by one. Character-wise, think of how carefully Cristina is constructed over the two: first sympathetic and fun, but when you re-watch you can see signs of the controlling and privileged, manipulative and selfish person that is revealed as she is put under more and more pressure later on. Whereas in S3 and S4, someone who had a lot of nuance and shades of gray previously--Patricia--has just become a wildly oscillating cipher to me. Did she care for Jonas? Does she love Enrique? Has she had any sort of relationship with Ana? Albertito? Does she want to be a mother at all, and would she ever have wanted to have Valentin's child? Enrique's? When on earth did she become willing to be accessory to a murder? Why does she not seem to know about the plotting against the pret-a-porter line? What would she think of that? I know various theories have been floated on these forums about some of these questions, but WHY ARE THE WRITERS OF THE SHOW NOT PROVIDING THE ANSWERS THEMSELVES. And then, as I think Lara said, there are many other elements of the characters the writers seem to have given up dramatizing at all, and just tell us. I mean, we saw Cristina be in love with Alberto in seasons 1 and 2. In season 4, her motivations don't make any sense at all. I mean, she says she expects to get Alberto after Ana marries Carlos, so then we see her arranging their engagement, wedding, etc etc. But...we don't see her do anything to suggest she ever thinks about Alberto, or has any feelings, or has any reason whatsoever for thinking that Ana wouldn't leave Carlos even if they do get married as soon as she finds out that Alberto is alive. I mean, Alberto left their marriage for Ana. Plus, Alberto annulled his marriage with Cristina months after he broke up with Ana. He said he didn't want to be with her no matter what. In the hospital after he found out she had lied to him about the pregnancy and the child wasn't his, he said she ruined his life and he wished he had never met her. Doesn't seem like a promising relationship to pursue--and there is absolutely no acknowledgement at all that Cristina has any plan to deal with these obstacles, scenes about how she feels about this, etc.
The plot and storylines of S1 and 2 are also so much more coherent and well-paced. Not that there aren't any plot holes at all in the first two seasons, but there are SO MANY in these last two that it is really frustrating. I get that MAS's filming schedule proved a huge challenge to the writers. He was committed to Sense8, and probably knew his filming schedule in enough time to know when he had to leave season 3, but I know Netflix took a long time to renew Sense8 for a second season, and I know the filming schedule is really complicated--for those who haven't seen it there are 8 main characters who, at least in the first season, are in 8 different cities on 4 different continents, and not only do the actors have their own storylines to shoot in their own cities, they also appear in each others's, so they have to coordinate traveling from (in MAS's case) from Mexico DF to Seoul, Nairobi, Berlin, Chicago, etc in the right combinations with the other actors, i.e., if MAS appears in Seoul with the actor based there, the scene might also include the actor from Berlin, so they all have to plan accordingly. I mean, it sounds like a nightmare to plan. My understanding is that he didn't get his shooting schedule until quite late, so he couldn't let Bambu know when he would be available or for how long exactly, which made the writers's jobs really difficult. I can't imagine the challenge to write Alberto into the story in the way that would satisfy fans (who obviously would want to get the most out of him as possible), while allowing for the possibility that MAS wouldn't be able to film many scenes at all. You'd have to have a script and a storyline that was incredibly flexible, or you'd just have to settle for planning for the worst (i.e., only including him a little bit at the end).
There are some great moments, and a couple of storylines that they're handling okay/well, but for the most part in S3 and especially S4 I think they're doing a pretty terrible job with what they've got. The pacing is way off. In season 3 there are too many episodes where everyone is missing someone...or waiting for someone...saying goodbye to someone...or something. It's similar plot points, yeah, but worse than that it's scene after scene of slow camera movement, slow music, people standing or sitting, gazing into the distance, looking melancholy, etc. The PACE is just the same and on top of that it is a very, very slow one. Think about it: episode 8, Alberto anguishes over Ana's disappearance; episode 9, Alberto anguishes over the end of his relationship with Ana; episode 10, he's anguishing over leaving Velvet, and Ana; episode 11, Ana is anguishing over not being with Alberto; episode 12, Ana anguishes over his possible death, then his (supposed) death; episode 13, Ana spends half the time anguishing over Alberto's death (and her sickness), until she finds out she's pregnant. Seasons 3 and 4 start moving through time in really strange ways--spending two episodes on a day and a half, say--then skipping three months in a montage that doesn't last a minute, then skipping 5 years from one season to the next. That'd be fine I guess if it made the story better, but they don't really seem to be getting much out of these decisions other than scrambling the fictional reality and introducing some weird plot holes.
In particular, I hated the way they dealt with the way Ana and Alberto were together. I think they should have been together longer. After all that fighting to get there and how happy they were at first, it just wasn't plausible to me that they'd end the relationship so quickly, and it kind of damages their credibility as a couple that is meant for each other. I'm actually a big A/A fan, the actors in all their scenes are so convincing that they care about each other, they understand each other, they believe in each other's talents and dreams, they like the same things and (unless someone is actively trying to ruin their lives) have a lot of fun and make each other happy, they have a powerful friendship as well as a lot of chemistry/sexual attraction and romanic love. I root for them whether they're partnered, estranged, or just friends. And I think Ana's actual reason for breaking up with Alberto (that he's let himself have opportunities that she hasn't, and they can't be together until she feels like she's lived life in the way he has) could be fairly legit. There were many reasons Ana was so hurt at that Airsa party: Cristina showed up pregnant bragging about her pregnancy and reminding her of the child that would keep Cristina in Alberto's life forever; she embarrassed Ana with information she had that Alberto had kept from her; Alberto slept with Sara, yet another woman who wasn't her, and one he wasn't obliged to sleep with by marriage; she was reminded repeatedly that she and Alberto had to keep their relationship a secret, because they would be judged and it would damage Velvet's business dealings; and Alberto had a familiarity with Sara--he had told her all about his relationship, after all--that Ana knew nothing about. I think she suddenly realized Alberto's world was much bigger than hers, and it wouldn't be easy for her to fit in it. It wasn't jealousy so much as envy that she ultimately felt. Both characters are dreamers and both characters are (at their best) sticklers for a code of ethics--they want to fight for their professional dreams and their love, but by doing it the "right" way and not at the expense of others. Each has betrayed both aspects of themselves at times to be with the other, which is what I've decided they mean most deeply when they say "we've hurt each other a lot." I know a lot of people don't think Ana gave up anything for Alberto in season 1 (even Alberto said that), but I think Ana had already given up her professional ambitions for seven years to wait for Alberto. (I don't think this runs counter to my argument that she is ambitious and achieved all her later success on her own merits--that's why is was such a sacrifice.) Alberto didn't ask her for this, it's true, but she didn't disappear into Paris or move on in any aspect of her life because deep down she wanted to be in Alberto's real "home" when he came back. That's why she said to Luisa that though she thought about trying to open her own shop, in the end she was too attached to Velvet. Then they continue to compromise more and more of their values--for Alberto, his idea of his true love, and for both of them their guilt in doing wrong to Cristina--which is why they end up so far apart in S1. In S2, they start to put things right: Ana lives out her dream of being a designer, Alberto in the end (with the help of his mother) realizes Ana is indeed his true love and he should fight for her. They are honest with the people around them and so they can be together. Then, again because the writers seem to have kind of muddled through the next seasons, while Ana and Alberto stay essentially the same (still idealists in goals and habits), but Ana's sense that she's sacrificed her dreams for the relationship kind of comes out of left field, and it's unclear to me what exactly she wants. She only seems to design? Which she could do with Alberto? She is a pretty clear-eyed person in almost every way--e.g. when she goes barging into Alberto's office demanding that he let her design Cristina's wedding dress again, even though she just found out that they slept together--so the way they've created this obstacle isn't organic to the story. (The sense of cumulative damage is more effectively conveyed, though.) The writers do a better job showing why Alberto needed to leave, why--though it's absolutely true that it would probably never occur to him on his own to sell Velvet--he was happy to accept the offer when it came from Cafiero. He became so bitter and cynical that he didn't even get involved in the runway show the day of the event (i.e., gave up on his dreams). He starting using all the dirty tricks he despised his father for utilizing--hiring the private detective taking pictures of his sister to blackmail her, paying a sketchy guy a ton of money to arrange for his annulment, etc. Alberto was filled with self-loathing, he was acting completely opposite his nature--there was no way he could ever stay at Velvet or be with Ana like that, it was clear to me. My problem is that there didn't seem to be a real catalyzing event, didn't seem to be enough of a reason for such a precipitous and extreme descent into darkness. He was way worse than he ever was even at his unhappiest in his marriage, when he thought he had lost Ana to Carlos. It makes no sense at all to me that he wouldn't think that once Ana had lived life a little they couldn't be together again. They wanted a character to undergo a certain change so they just kind of did it, without building up a reasonable context and motivation, for Ana and for Alberto.
They also had a lot of plots that didn't really have much consequence, or story arcs that rose and fell and rose and fell in ways that were too similar to each other. The biggest victims of this were Rita and Pedro: the mother/mother-in-law, the I-want-to-have-a-baby-let's-have-sex, the hostile uterus--in very broad strokes they were all about Rita being a little hard-headed, the couple being pushed to a big fight, Pedro and Rita finally having a conversation (with Rita in all three cases finally sharing feelings/information she had been hiding from Pedro), and a resolution. Only one had real emotional weight--the other two were played for laughs--and Rita is pregnant by the end of the season, so her fertility is only an issue for less than 4 episodes. With such similarities, and such low stakes, I end up feeling like we're just going in circles and wasting our time.
Now, onto the topic of plot holes, I don't want to beat a dead horse but a list of just a few: Adele. WTF ever happened to her, why has Ana never wondered why she didn't come for the dresses (or, if she did, why she didn't tell anyone Alberto was alive--and why we didn't see her), and why
doesn't Alberto now know that everyone thinks he's dead. Raul just coming out with his first menswear line after talking about it with Enzo Cafiero FIVE YEARS ago. Marco's fiancee. How destroying the locale would be a problem if Ana had a budget to remodel it, and if it was a problem, where they got the money for Pedro and Jonas's supplies after all. Why Alberto has not come to check on Ana or called or even tried addressing a letter to her in her own name, particularly given the fact that they already had the experience of her not getting his letters for years (when he was in London). Did it never occur to him that this just might have happened again? Not even once? Alberto never being in touch with Mateo, since apparently he wanted to know how he was doing. How/why Mateo and Clara are divorced, not separated, when apparently it was so impossible to get divorced in Spain at the time and neither of them seem to want to get married again. Why Petra appeared as a deus ex machina to point out that Emilio should date Blanca and was never developed as a character. I mean, wasn't she supposed to be an old girlfriend or something? We know nothing about that! What happened to Lucia. Why we ever met Jonas's sister in the way we did (i.e., why the scenes were such wasted time--if she comes back and plays an important role, say going to Paris, or taking Jonas's job in the taller, or whatever, fine, but she could have been introduced in a completely different way that actually had some consequence). Whether Clara works at Marco's secretary, or now that his office moved to the other wing (where Victor worked) he has some unknown secretary, and if so why he occasionally threatens Clara as if she were his secretary and that entire dynamic then disappears for weeks and weeks on end--in fact, their whole relationship has one come up once between the two of them after seeming like a big deal.
Obviously some of these problems are bigger than others (ALBERTO), but the ones that don't have any external excuse (even if I think they still could have been handled better) are just so sloppy. So sloppy. I don't think this is a matter of US vs. Spanish tv, because the writers weren't careless like this seasons 1 and 2. Random characters did not pop up and disappear without explanation. They did not introduce problems or stories that were never resolved or only existed for one episode and somehow magically didn't matter in the next one. Production values are one thing--Velvet has always had hilariously bad continuity issues, where an object like a cigarette or a coat or a ring will pop up in one shot, disappear in the next, and reappear again--but that's about money and can definitely be attributed to the resources of American tv companies. (For any Grand Hotel fans, I found that show way way worse. Those doorknob sets that didn't have locks that they pretended to "unlock" with a key! Then conveniently sometimes they couldn't lock doors! Doors that constantly changed numbers. Gloves that game and went. Room configurations and closets that changed shape. And all the polyester lace, ayy. What bothered me most during Diego and Alicia's wedding was her damn veil! It looked so cheap and synthetic and wrong for 1906 I couldn't stand it.) But whatever. The writing problems frustrate me more--they make me feel like the creative team never bothered to think seasons 3 and 4 through, and that's a little insulting to us loyal fans (though of course I'm not going to stop watching).
As for Ana being the main character, well... There are plenty of shows that are ensembles, rather than having a single protagonist/couple, and I always thought Velvet was one of those. Ana and Alberto are important, but I've realized that as I try to think about Velvet's characters, I end up thinking about all the different sets of people: Ana/Alberto, Alberto/Mateo, Mateo/Clara, Clara/Rita, the Chicas Velvet (variously Ana/Rita/Luisa, Ana/Rita/Luisa/Clara, Ana/Rita/Lucia, Ana/Rita/Clara), Rita/Pedro, Pedro/Jonas, Emilio/Pedro/Jonas, Patricia/Enrique/Valentin, Barbara/Cristina, Marco/Enrique/Cristina, Ana/Emilio, Ana/Raul, Raul/Humberto, Raul/Mateo/Alberto, etc. I think the Ana/Alberto relationship was central because it represented romance, in this case meaning not just love, but an idealized reality. One of the reasons that was so important for Velvet is that fashion is also a dream--especially of haute couture--and it's exciting for us to watch someone fight for something so pure, even if at times it might be a little naive. (This dream business is something Raul talks about with Ana when he finds out she's Philippe Ray, but it's also something lots of people in the fashion world say.) If the writers had done it right, they might have figured out how to balance existing sets of people with new couplings to keep the show in balance. The Chicas Velvet (of Ana/Clara/Rita plus Raul--who I think now should be a permanent honorary member--and Pedro) finally had a scene together, and lots of people gathered by Rita's bedside. The soccer game also united a great gang of people. But there's been a pretty limited set of people we see together, and when each grouping is kind of a character of its own, having everyone on their lonesome makes u
s feel like there are fewer actual characters. Ana, until very recently, has mostly been shown with her business adversaries (well, those groupings maybe aren't characters), yelling or being yelled at, or delivering expository information in scenes with Emilio or Carlos. She's been there, and has been given a storyline, it just...isn't emotionally satisfying, which really sucks considering she was essentially the literal heart of the show--not necessarily the main character, but the one who set the mood and the mission for the Galerias where everyone else's stories take place.