(Splitting this off from the Secret Obsessions thread, since this is a different project for the same network.)

For those who just saw this thread and have no idea what the heck it is: Desire is an umbrella series of adaptations of telenovelas (Spanish-language soap operas) that the forthcoming My Network TV will air beginning September 5. This umbrella show (as well as its sister project Secret Obsessions) will be comprised of four separate 65-episode series, each series running five nights a week with no known plans for repeats (though there will be a weekly recap show for each series during its run).

Desire is currently scheduled to air at 8pm EST Monday through Friday, with a weekly recap show airing at 8pm EST on Saturdays. Below are the series making up the project, in airing order:


Table For Three (with Nate Haden, Zack Silva, and Michelle Belegrin)


Art Of Betrayal (with Sean Young and Gordon Thomson)


Rule Of Deception (with Annalynne McCord, Rachelle Woods, and Dylan Bruce)


Friends & Enemies

Those all sound terribly boring and not even enough to sustain a TV movie (in fact they sound like a Lifetime marathon)...but you never know, maybe they'll be good for some campy goodness. I'm sure Crazy Sean Young will bring it.

The official My Network TV website now exists, at least superficially, and it has a small shot of the stars of Table For Three up. They look suitably young and hip and shit (and Michelle Belegrin at least is pouty-hot).

Full length preview now available at MyNetworkTV.com

(Yes - I merely copied the link from my post in the Secret Obsession thread. There's barely a difference between these two "series" aside from the relative star power of SO:FH.)

Sean Young is so unstable and psychotic, I might just tune in to see what kind of cracked-out shit she's churning out these days.

Hmmm...very interesting. Let me see if I can MOXI it. Adaptations of telenovelas is an intriguing idea. Lots of camp and histrionics. Could very possibly be good times.

Well, color me surprised...they went into full blown pseudo-trailer mode with this promo. And thus Table For Three comes off exactly like a B-movie. Actors we don't know, a not-exactly-original plot...but, hey, random violence!

ETA: someone put some Table For Three thirty-second spots up on YouTube (one of which is incorrectly labeled as a Fashion House spot). If nothing else, they continue the B-movie action vibe...

And so it seems that MyNetworkTV is doing away with the umbrella titles and just calling the shows by their proper titles like their Spanish language forebears, as this announcement on what would've been the next Desire cycle shows. So I'm guessing no more Table for Three--that story is simply now Desire, much like what would've been the first Secret Obsessions story is now simply Fashion House.

I can kind of understand using the umbrella title in the case of Table For Three, since that particular title sounds sucky in English. But dumping it altogether? Okaaaay...

Perhaps more importantly, though: apparently Tatum O'Neal is replacing Sean Young in Art of Betrayal.

TCA Pictures

As I kind of put it in the Secret Obsessions thread: who are these people?

The trailer on the MyNetworkTV site has been adjusted to only reflect the Desire title--no more Table for Three, which is further confirmation that the umbrella titles have been eschewed. (Now, no doubt there will be a future story bearing only the Secret Obsessions moniker.)

They went back and redid the trailer? That's new...

Okay, so while Table For Three will be handled under the umbrella name Art of Betrayal--at least thus far--is being referred to by its own name? Damn schizophrenics...

Yeah, the trailer no longer has any Table for Three to be seen anywhere.

I think they simply renamed the Table for Three story to plain old Desire--which I guess would fit in the most vague sense due to the mess with the brothers "desiring" the same woman. So Desire is no longer an umbrella title for all the 8pm stories, just the title for this first story. From the looks of it MyNetworkTV is just going the normal novela route, with each self-contained story going by whatever title it has (hence, Fashion House and presumably just Art of Betrayal.). As vague as it is, Desire is a better title for a lusty soap than Table for Three.

MyNetwork website updated

Near the bottom of the synopsis page for Desire, nee Table For Three, it reads: "Desire, part of the Desire series." (Same goes for Fashion House.)

Jordi Vilasuso was on Guiding Light. Which of these series is he gonna be on? Not that I'll watch for him, he's a terrible, terrible actor but just curious.

Fashion House looks to be good, but I have more interest in Desire. From the promos on the website, it looks to be more action oriented. That may be a ploy to lure some men into the audience as well, but it definitely has piqued my interest.

Darn you are in the wrong thread for Jordi Vilasuso. According to IMDB he is going to be on Fashion House aka Secret Obsessions thread.

Action scenes are expensive to produce so I too would wonder if they would kept up after the first week. Plus I thought all that was needed to lure men to watch was some hot babes! They actually want action and plot!? What is the world coming to?

Thanks, harlowe.

The hot babes lure us in...but the action and plot have to keep us around. Well, the slightly-less-shallow ones. :)

Eye candy only goes so far, at least for me. I think the women work in that they catch my eye during promos, but in order for me to actually stick around and watch an episode, something exciting needs to be happening. Action is what keeps me around.

Why watch cheap imitation of telenovela when you can watch actual telenovela? I thought they were avaliable in USA. The hottest babes are in telenovelas, esp. those from Venezuela (IMHO), and there are even some genuinly good telenovelas, or at least highly tolerable. Also, at least it's insight into different culture. Older telenovelas have especially big chance of being good. Why should everything be "americanized"?

Since i don't speak spanish and can't get any dubbed telenovas this is a great thing for me. Admitedly i did watch a couple of them in highschool without understanding them. It woiuld be nice to know what the fuck is going on sometimes though.

So telenovelas in USA are never translated? Weird. Then producers would be well advized to simply translate best of telenovelas.

Anyway, it's great opportunity to perfect your spanish. It's pretty easy language, to understand I mean, esp. easy texts of soaps. I've been studying it on and off for about two months and already understand resumes of telenovellas. It's ain't Shakespeare.

And, unlike Russian, English is has a lot in common with Spanish, so after watching two series in spanish you'll probably learn very good spanish. Which I suspect is very helpful in country with huge amount of spanish speaking people.

It's just that some telenovelas are almost pieces of art, and you just know that producers aren't thriving to create worthy product, but simply to throw together some trash for audience of (they presume) sentimental housewives.

I'll be interested to read everyone's reaction though, I am very interested in latino american influence in USA, how it all translates to american standards.

I've seen at least one telenovela with English captioning.

Telemundo captions most if not all of the telenovelas it airs in English. Oddly, Univision has never captioned any of theirs in English...

Univision probably doesn't feel the need to caption in English. They get more than double the ratings of Telemundo.

With less than a week to the start reviews are starting to come. A good one is at http://www.suntimes.com/output/elfman/cst-ftr-elf31.html

It also says that Desire is better than Fashion House. I might have to reconsider which novela I am going to watch.

Thanks for finding that, harlowe. That particular review seems to be in full-on guilty pleasure mode, which isn't necessarily a bad thing...

My HD DVR's going to get a real workout here--I'm going to try to give both shows a shot, at least at first.

ETA: check your local MNTV listings--there's going to be some sort of promo show called Desire Revealed airing at least a few times between now and Tuesday night's premiere.

Oh. My brain hurts, what with all these umbrella shows and their numerous titles. They should simply stick with Desire and Fashion House as the titles. Watching telenovelas, er, a "television novel," shouldn't be this complicated.

Right now I'm watching a program on MNTV called Desire: Revealed. This one guy (who looks so familiar, but I can't place his name or face to save my life) is doing an "in-depth" interview with the Desire actors except the actors are in their roles so he's actually interviewing the characters. Fashion House: Revealed is up next. It's all so meta. And campy.

These premieres have definitely snuck up on me. I'm glad I stumbled back into this thread so I could remind myself to tune in on 5th September to check out both shows.

Does anyone know when the specials are airing in New York? I've tried checking the listings, but I've come up empty handed. I don't know how interested I am in watching them, but I suppose if they're on and I've nothing better to do, I might check them out.

I assume it (the introduction specials) will be shown tomorrow night in all markets before the shows debut Tuesday Stinger. There are trailers for each show though at a MySpace area for MNT (both`re owned by News Corp./Fox) http://www.myspace.com/mynetworktv

The specials screened this afternoon at around 6, then again at around 8 or 9. I've recorded both of them, though saw the beginning of the Desire special. I agree with fashionista about it being quite campy to have someone interviewing the actors in character. I found it jarring.

Here we go...

Ham on white bread, sho' nuff (halfway through the show). Nice explosion. Hotties. Nate Haden appears to have the acting range of the Jujyfruit I just ate. More later.

Hee this is so much trashy goodness. That guy playing Alex woud go so well on Passions. He should so be Jared.

I don't like the brother love triangle. They should have stuck the so-so looking brother with the "true love" story. And allowed the cute one to philander. One thing I did like was that the sibling relationship was realistic.

George's Bond villain accent was fanatstic. The utter stupidity of the mob boss plotline less so.

Which one's the cute one?

Going off jjfc's comments, it appears that Alex (Zack Silva) is "the cute one," and Louis (Nate Haden, who actually does have some acting range--and it's all smarmy smartass) is the "so-so looking" one.

After watching the entire episode...it has promise, at least. We've got our requisite asshole (George the gold-digging himbo, and yes that accent just puts him over the top--in both senses), the snowballing event (Louis sleeping with the daughter of a mob kingpin in New Jersey, the thing that started all this--and she later says he raped her and totally sets her father off), and the requisite skank (Andrea's "friend," who makes a move on George right after Andrea breaks up with him). Okay, I'll give it a week or two...

Ah that's my take as well. Alex with his hair is definitely the cutie. But I like the take that they have going now. I like that the goodlooking one is the supposedly sweet one and the alright brother is the jerk.

I hate when pretty people are bad. Messes up my dreamscape.

Oh yeah, you got it right. Sorry, different tastes and all - I should have been clearer. I don't mind that the so-so one is a jerk because then you could do the reformed by true love plotline. Just that you don't want to die down the really cute one (Alex) when the "true love" plotline inevitably gets serious.

I'll give it until the GG/VM pairing comes on. It'll be interesting to see if a true Telenovela can make it on American TV.

I was kinda impressed at how well the story started, or at least how much better it was than Fashion House. Color me surprised.

Desire is more of a straight drama/"dramedy" with soapy tendencies, it seem, than Fashion House is. I spent most of tonight's episode wondering how this thing is likely going to end, since we have a triangle in the making. (Okay, and really wanting to just sock Louis the so-called playboy in the face...I suppose he either has to die in the end or get redeemed somehow, which probably explains why Gamarra's daughter played the rape card. Ah, plot devices...)

I was going to say the exact opposite. I'm impressed by Louis's ability to be a smarmy jackass and still likable. And equally impressed by Alex's ability to be a nice pretty boy and yet not be a complete wuss. Mr. jjfc has a TV test about whether he would be friends with any of the male characters (why he refuses to watch Grey's). I think Louis and Alex come shockingly close for primetime soap himbos.That's one of the strengths of the show, IMO.

I have no interest whatsoever in the mob storyline. Other than the fact that I think that nice hit man is cute.

I was pretty suprised (in a good way) but the first episode. I want this to be my guilty pleasure... but 5 nights a week is a heck of a commitment for any show, let alone a guilty pleasure. I just don't know if I can get through it. but i'll try for at least a while.



Yeah, good test. I think I agree with you. I think I would have turned the show off 10 minutes into the first episode of the actors didn't all come across as fairly likeable. That's a product of a) decent acting (how about giving that a shot sometime, daytime soaps) and b) the show not seeming to take itself 100% serious, which is what you would expect from the sleak title. Don't get me started on Greys though, I just don't see the appeal of that show at all, unlikeable characters all around.

Ah tonight's episode was definitely an improvement on the first. I like both brothers but I do want to smack Louis for simply not learning from his mistakes. That penis of his is going to get him killed.

For the most part the one I'm most impressed with actingwise is the father Peter(?) for some reason I get him and I like his portrayal. Everyone else, even my second fav Alex is a caricature at this point. Which I guess is all part of the soapy goodness.

As a public service announcement: it looks like MNTV is replaying the previous night's episodes of Desire and Fashion House the following afternoon (or they might even have a nearby Fox affiliate airing them, as I think one person noted).

Oh, and you Alex fans might want to check out the official site: they have a cute little video of him talking about...pancakes.

I remember the guy plays George from when he was on All My Children a few years back as Greenless's love interest around the time of the Bianca's rape story. A lot of AMC fans complained that they couldn't understand a word he was saying and that he needed subtitles. I'm assuming that's why he was eventually fired and the show never explained where his character disappeared to.

The guy was actually on AMC? Romancing Greenlee? Ow, my brain... (Though according to the official site, Tony Dunster--the guy--speaks five languages. Man's got skillz.)

I'm stunned, though: the guy playing Gamarra's chief henchman (not the cute one, the big guy) is Daniel Bernhardt, veteran of many a B-movie and perhaps best known from his relatively nonverbal roles in The Matrix Reloaded and Future War (the worst film ever made). Is it just me, or is that oddly fitting?

Here in NY they replay both Desire and FH at 11pm and 12pm respectively. Not sure yet if they replay them during the day.