Selena is a web TV series that tells the story of singer Selena Quintanilla, from her childhood to her rise to fame, along with the difficult and heartbreaking decisions she had to make to make a living from love and hold on to music. It is produced by Netflix, and Campanario Entertainment, along with the singer's family, and is the authorized version of Selena's life, unlike the series El secreto de Selena, an unauthorized version by journalist María Celeste Arrarás. The series stars Christian Serratos as the title character. The series has 18 episodes, divided into two parts of 9 episodes each.
Netflix delayed its scheduled release, and they had to resume filming after months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The first part was released on December 4, 2020. Netflix "despite the harsh criticism the series received," confirmed on April 5, 2021 that the second and final part of the series would premiere on May 4, 2021.
Tejano music queen Selena Quintanilla Perez had a success story well suited for the screen. While growing up in poverty in Corpus Christi, Texas, she learned Spanish watching telenovelas and persevered in a male-dominated music industry to become a major star, forever changing the face of Tejano and popular music in the United States and some Latin American countries. Her murder in 1995, at the age of 23, was the tragic ending to her Cinderella story.
The first two episodes establish Selena's musician father, Abraham Quintanilla (played by Ricardo Chavira), as an ambitious, principled and demanding dreamer. He is determined to lift his family out of poverty by pushing his children toward the musical stardom that eluded him. Thus, he forms a family band, Selena y Los Dinos, and becomes the driving force for the young girl's success.
His brother, A.B. (played by Gabriel Chavarría), is a loyal son. He is a bass player and budding entrepreneur, struggling to live up to his father's high expectations. He feels torn between his paternal family and the desire to start a new family of his own. His crisis includes songwriting roadblocks and parenting conundrums.
For her part, Selena (played by Christian Serratos, from "The Walking Dead") is a charismatic presence. When Serratos takes the stage as a singer, the series lights up. She embodies the spirit of the star, defying a crowd of traditionalist Texans in Mexico by belting out a Jody Watley song and then wooing young converts with hits like "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom Bom" and "Like the Flower." Serratos adds her own flair to the role, just as Jennifer Lopez did in the 1997 biopic "Selena."
But unlike Lopez, Serratos wasn't given much to work with offstage. The Selena in the Netflix series is a sweet girl who likes to design clothes, dye her hair and, of course, sing; she rarely goes beyond that. Played in her youth by the effervescent Madison Taylor Baez, when Selena ventures into moments of self-discovery, the family narrative quickly captures the focus and takes us backward into the story of dad or A.B. Very rarely does the mother, Marcella (Seidy Lopez), or sister, Suzette (Noemi Gonzalez), take center stage.
Instead, the story in the series focuses on her father and brother, patriarchs of the Quintanilla family, who oversee her estate. They were also the executive producers of the series. It's an insurmountable problem for an already predictable show, created by Moises Zamora and directed by Hiromi Kamata. Viewers never get to the bottom of who Selena was, what drove her or what was holding her back, because she is never given the same attention nor is her character as developed as the men who managed her career.
Even as the series moves into Selena's adolescence and early young adulthood, it is the successes and trials of her career that are used to define her, rather than the kind of characterization that might illuminate her inner life. When she struggles to understand who she really is, she seeks advice from her father: "Some singers have like a disguise," she tells him, after he comments on her frequent hair color changes. "They always do their hair or makeup different, because that's who they are. Well, I don't always know who I am, until I am." The first season of Selena, the series has been a huge success for Netflix, the streaming giant. In its nine episodes, it unveiled the life of Selena Quintanilla, who struggled from childhood to rise in the music world and become the 'Queen of Tex-Mex'.
From her initial group to creating acclaimed compositions, to finding love with new guitarist Chris, and to giving magnificent concerts. Thus, viewers became witnesses to her growth as an artist and were left asking for more after the last episode. As we saw in the final scenes, "Come with me" was very well received by fans and A.B already has a new hit in mind. Meanwhile, Selena's father hires security for his daughter after an incident at one of her concerts, complicating the secret relationship with Chris. When Pete decides to leave the group, A.B. doesn't take it in the best way and scolds Selena for putting the band at risk. In the face of all this, A.B. is inspired and composes Como la Flor, a song adored by the singer. However, the romance between the two doesn't end there. With everything against them, Chris and Selena seal their love with a kiss. Upon finding out, the protagonist's father decides to remove the guitarist from the group. As if that weren't enough, nurse Yolanda Saldivar appears, who will be the singer's future murderer.
