It’s not often that a show so incredibly surprising, ridiculous, and fantastic finds its way onto our screens, but that’s exactly what happened when Jane the Virgin aired in America in late 2014. Equal parts comedy, drama, murder mystery, soap opera, romance, family drama, and coming-of-age, Jane the Virgin has something for everyone, and even though it’s based on the Venezuelan series of the same name, it’s one of the most original programs on the box.
Jane the Virgin sees Jane Villanueva (a fantastic Gina Rodriguez), a 23-year-old virgin happily attached to Michael (Brett Dier), find herself pregnant after she is accidentally artificially inseminated. The biological father of the baby is Rafael (Justin Baldoni), a reformed playboy-turned-hotelier married to the scheming Petra (Yael Grobglas). Rounding out the telenovela are Jane’s family – her mother Xiomara (Andrea Navedo), who was a young mother herself, devoutly religious grandmother Alba (Ivonne Coll), and long-lost father, Rogelio (Jaime Camil), a famous telenovela actor. Narrated by an omniscient ‘Latin Lover’, Jane the Virgin combines everything from murder plots, to love triangles, to heartwarming family moments.
At its core, Jane the Virgin is about the three Villanueva women coming together to support Jane through her pregnancy. It’s about facing hard decisions and choices, and realising that the thing you’ve wanted least in the world might be the best. It’s got heart, and plenty of it. Created in a latin ‘Telenovela’ style – a soap opera, filled with weaving plotlines and crazy twists and turns – Jane the Virgin is also never boring. The heartfelt moments are interwoven with affairs, drug lords, and crime scenes, and that makes them all the more potent.
Each cast member is fantastic in their roles, but the big discovery here is the gorgeous lead actress, Gina Rodriguez. She handles each of Jane’s shocks and surprises with aplomb, making this incredibly unbelievable situation seem legitimate and relateable. She infuses Jane with the right amount of humour, steadfastness, and gumption that the character needs, and even manages to make her love triangle believeable – you genuinely end up wondering if Jane does love them both. Andrea Navedo and Ivonne Coll are fantastic as Xiomara and Alba, and the three actresses work so well together, you’d believe that they were family in real life. That’s the crux of this show’s success: in a Miami so full of twists and turns, these people are always unwaveringly believeable.
The season one box set contains five discs, each with special features including ‘Immaculate Conception’, the ‘making of’ of the show, gag reels, deleted scenes, and ‘meet the cast’ featurettes.
Review Score: FIVE STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Jane the Virgin Season 1 is available now on DVD
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