Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Miss Adrenaline: A Tale of Twins’ on Netflix, a Colombian Telenovela With Some Promise, But More Cliches

Miss Adrenaline: A Tale of Twins offers a classic telenovela concept: Identical twins, separated at birth, one rich and one poor, one soon to be dead so the other can assume her identity. Juanita Molina anchors this Colombian series, which currently numbers 26 episodes, with another 39 (!) dropping on Sept. 27. We watched the first one to see if the series’ opening hour manages to get our soap all frothy, or if we just feel damp from all the operatic shenanigans.

MISS ADRENALINE: A TALE OF TWINS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: SAMACA, COLOMBIA – 2002: A woman strains and screams and winces in a hospital bed because giving birth to twins can be rather taxing! 

The Gist: TWENTY YEARS LATER. Romina Paez (Molina) talks shit to her downhill-bicycling competitor, then smokes his ass on her way to another trophy. We cross-cut between her bike-parkour endeavors and Luzma (also Molina) as she cranks out delicious pastries at her bakery without getting a single crumb under her manicure. A reporter interviews Romina about her victory, and she uses the moment to call out the cops in her neighborhood for looking the other way while local thugs loan-shark poor and vulnerable residents within an inch of their lives. On the other side of the tracks, Luzma goes home to her insanely gigantic mansion and video-chats with her parents, who are in Tokyo; she’s disappointed to learn that they won’t make it home in time for her birthday.

Luzma is turning 21 soon, and deductive reasoning tells us the same is true for Romina. Some background on Romina: She used to date Leo (Alejandro Buitrago), but dumped him because he’s one of the Chitivas Brothers, who run the aforementioned loan-sharking operation which, she’s upset to learn, victimized her mother (Zharick Leon), who borrowed money to buy Romina’s beloved bike, dubbed Ebony. Romina isn’t the type to take guff from anybody; she’ll call your ass out even if you’re a Chitivas Bro, who can be readily identified by their neck tats, gold chains and stupid-ass haircuts, you know, the immortal Juggalo aesthetic.

Luzma, meanwhile, meets with the family accountant and learns that her parents are giving her a trust fund – but it comes with the condition that she take over the family business, which appears to be a zillion-dollar gigantocorp of some kind, after her father steps down. Hooray, right? Not quite. Luzma’s upset. Her parents see her bakery endeavor as nothing more than a hobby. Her boyfriend says take the dough, but she doesn’t see that as her path to happiness.

Back in the hood, noble cop Ruiz, nickname “Whiz” (David Palacio), steps up and cracks down on some of the Chitivas’ bullshit, and apparently nothing gets Romina hornier than that, because she goes on a date with the guy and gets rather naked with him. Lazma, meanwhile, marks the beginning of the end of all this cross-cutting when she sees the TV interview with Romina. Her jaw hits the exquisite imported marble flooring. They’re doppelgangers. She knocks on Romina’s door and their mother tearfully shares the hilariously overwrought saga of their conception and birth and separation, and then they three-way hug, tears and snot and mascara running like Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce. Note, nobody dies in this episode, so hang on, that’s gotta be happening in episode two, right?

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Research tells me that daytime-soap staples All My Children, The Bold and the Beautiful, General Hospital, One Life to Live and The Young and the Restless all featured identical-twin storylines. And I am not in the least bit shocked!

Our Take: I advise you not to read ahead in Netflix’s one-line episode descriptions, which spoil some of the highly telegraphed plot twists that you’ll totally see coming. Consider yourself warned! Miss Adrenaline’s pilot episode doles out all the clanging hammer-on-anvil cliches – the class divide, the honorable cop, the spitfire protagonist, the tatted-up gangbangers, the long-lost-twins plot – that denote a marked lack of original ideas. So far, at least; we watched the first of 65 episodes so at least a couple of those have to throw a narrative curveball, right? Hopefully.

At 60 minutes, the series premiere is longer than other episodes, and you’d probably chalk that up as what happens when you’re trying to establish multiple characters, setting and dramatic dynamics. But multiple scenes drag on longer than necessary (some of you might not beef about the lengthy facemash/“second base” mucho-sexy sequence) when this show could benefit from snappier pacing, which would reflect the tone of Romina, a just-do-it type who has a need, a need for speed. The series doesn’t lean into campiness, as you might expect, considering the premise, although the big tearful reunion scene is overcooked to the point of comedy, likely unintentionally. It’s not as if Miss Adrenaline gets off on the wrong foot, though. It’s more of a mediocre foot, and there’s plenty of time to correct that once the plot gets humming.  

Sex and Skin: No T or A in the rather sweaty Ruiz-Romina sex scene here – followed by a hilarious scene in which Romina tells a friend that she and Ruiz got to “second base” the previous night, when it’s pretty obvious they were hitting dingers.

Parting Shot: A closeup of the eldest Chitiva Bro as he proclaims that Romina’s gotta die for siccing the cops on them. 

Sleeper Star: I like Palacio as the hunky, do-gooder cop, who gives the series some charismatic coolness, the yin to Romina’s fiery yang.

Most Pilot-y Line: Romina reiterates the title of the show as she participates in outercourse with “Whiz”: “Going slow doesn’t really work for me.”

Our Call: You’ll likely hang on to see how Miss Adrenaline handles its pending one-twin-down-one-to-go tragic-death development before determining if the series is worth your time investment; fans of OTT soap-camp are likely hoping for some high-order histrionics, which might goose the series and shift it into gear. For now, I say serial telenovela watchers should STREAM IT for a few more episodes to see if it hits its stride.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.