Out of everything crammed into the Bible, it seems odd that it was sexual abstinence that stuck while all the cool stuff – I dunno, killing goats up the sides of mountains, wives turning into salt – fell out of favour. But who am I to question why, when keeping it virtuous is the lovely, radiant Jane of Jane The Virgin (Wednesday, 9pm, E4)? It’s based on the Venezuelan telenovela Juana la Virgen, and, as the title suggests, Jane Villanueva has pledged her hymen to her husband – a job her boyfriend Michael is in line for – after her Catholic grandma Alba drummed some pretty firm ideas into her many years ago, with the visual aid of a perfect white flower. “Crumple it up” her flashback subtitles say, because Alba unapologetically speaks only in her mother tongue, “That’s what happens when you lose your VIRGINITY.”
Here, mercifully, any ideas you might be entertaining about psychosexual counselling or a 4,000-word essay on the toxic concept of maidenhead are drowned out by a frenetic wave of plot points. In short, Jane is mistakenly inseminated by her gynaecologist Luisa, bereft after walking in on her wife’s infidelity. Luisa also happens to be the alcoholic sister of the embryo’s father, Rafael, a suave playboy with whom lowly Jane once shared a kiss and whose luxury hotel is embroiled in some nefarious drug-lord doings that have caught the eye of Michael – who, by the way, is a drug-ring-busting detective.
To enjoy Jane The Virgin, which I do, you should be wholly open to the idea that, dramatically speaking, scandal is more important than feasibility. Forget the sneaking suspicion that Rafael’s evil wife Petra getting hot and heavy with her husband’s only sperm sample – the precious vestige of his fertility after an unfortunate bout of testicular cancer – might at least require some paperwork (“I had the nurse unfreeze Rafael’s sperm – a surprise for him”) or that her doctor crying into her vagina might ring warning bells for Jane. To smooth over any wrinkles, a jovial, patient narrator carries us through, their soft tones interceding for the benefit of those whose attention may have strayed for seconds at a time, thus missing whole branches of story. The identity of the omnipresent voice isn’t clear, but given the general thrust of things, it could well be the Big Man himself. “Inmaculada! You are Inmaculada!” gasps Jane’s mum Xiomara as a nurse confirms Jane’s miracle pregnancy.
In many ways, Jane embodies all the qualities traditionally associated with purity: sweet, honest, liable to give her bus seat to nuns etc. Usually, the crossover between people this saintly and those you’d want to spend your time with is slim, but Gina Rodriguez does an excellent job of making Jane smart and charismatic. To be honest, though, given the characters written for women that dot the comedy landscape – falling over their ditzy little fawn legs or wandering round in endless circles, driven mad by their own neuroticism – I’m just glad to have a leading lady I don’t want to (and possibly couldn’t) beat up.
The characters in Jane The Virgin are interesting and multi-dimensional because the show is, basically, a meta-shrine to the telenovela, a genre that relies on the complexities and shiftable morals of its characters to confuse the sixth-sense-like previsional powers of audiences. Jane The Virgin blows referential kisses at the medium throughout the series.
“I know exactly how you feel. When I found out the deepest, truest love of my life was really my half sister born as a result of my father’s secret double life, I was devastated,” the star of the fictional Passions Of Santos, Rogelio de la Vega tells Jane in a doctor’s-room hallucination, brought on by shock. “But I got through that, Jane, and you will get through this, too,” he tells her with fatherly reassurance. This is beautiful. What a comfort the relatable screw-ups of onscreen heroes are, even if Rogelio’s nearest equivalent is Simon Wicks looking shifty next to some Roman blinds. Take my hand and let yourself go, Rogelio would probably say.
Jane The Virgin begins at 9pm on Wednesday 22 April on E4
