Nick has gotten very good with telenova style program aimed at teens and tweens.  Their first such series, Every Witch Way, is in Cycle 4.  Make It Pop was successful enough to be renewed for a Second Cycle.  Moreover, Nick has made Miami a new production hub and has done an admirable job with bringing positive Hispanic characters to life.  Bravo to Nick for re-imagining teen programming.

In Talia in the Kitchen, main character Talia Parra (winsomely played by Maria Quezada) and her younger sister Julie will be moving to Miami to stay with their abuela for a month.  Abuela Dolores seems straight out of central casting (hey, let’s get an older, sassy Hispanic woman who loves salsa – if she was the owner of Lola’s restaurant, she must be a smart, savvy businesswoman – or should be).

Lola-ville is populated by a standard issue group of characters.  Hipster new best friend Rudy (who looks like Jonathan Jackson of Nashville when he starred as Lucky on General Hospital) and former friend/renewed BFF Valerie complete Talia’s circle.  In the pilot, they discover Lola’s has closed and they discover some secret spices in the wall (do we really need another hidden powers series on Nick?). Naturally, we need some competition.  Restaurant competitors the Fuccinellis (these two seem straight from Master Chef Junior) fulfill the “evil competition slot.”  We get some EWW parallels here.

• TITK’s Frenchie + Debbie = EWW’s Maddie and her crew
• TITK’s Valerie = EWW’s Andi
• TITK’s Talia = EWW’s Emma
• TITK’s Tyson = EWW’s Daniel

So there is the set up: Fuccinellis closed Lola’s.  Lola’s tries to reopen.  Competition ensues.  A pretty good set up for a telenovela.

Then there’s the acting.  When EWW debuted, the actors were pretty raw (but grew nicely into their roles).  The cast of TITK is up to snuff as they do not appear to have graduated from the teen school of over acting and over emoting.  They talk like normal teens and act like normal teens.  Frenchie, though, is a little over the top.

The sets are rather expansive – we have Abeula’s apartment, the 2 restaurants, the Fuccinellis house and an outdoor space.  There’s a lot of bright colors for sure.  Fuccinelli’s kitchen looks great but Lola’s looks overworked.  One notch higher in the set department would have moved some of them past Trading Spaces quality.

I’ll give props to Liam Obergfoll who plays Tyson.  He’s the guy in the middle between family loyalty and his obvious affection for Talia.  He’s relaxed, natural and normal in a somewhat bizarro world.  He’s got a big career ahead of him.

Teens would be well served to see what Talia is cooking up in the kitchen.