Siempre Bruja - Season 1

When I heard about a Spanish language show, Siempre Bruja, about witches with a time traveling angle, I was very interested in watching it. Sadly, the show has trouble living up to the expectations. Siempre Bruja (Always a Witch), is a 2019 Netflix show set in Cartagena, Colombia. Let me start by saying that the setting is absolutely lovely; the Caribbean vibes jump off of the screen and make me want to hop right on the next plane to Colombia. The soundtrack of the show is also on point and adds to the general, lovely atmosphere.

So that is what is good (great even) about this show. So where does it go wrong? In short: the execution of the story. The story basically goes as follows: Carmen (Angely Gaviria, 2091), a witch and slave living in 1646, ends up in 2019 with no way of returning. She leaves behind the love of her life in the past and has to build a new life in the present. She ends up enrolling into the local university and starts following classes there. In the first few episodes, we see how she adapts to modern-day life and how she finds new friends to help her with that. Next to that, she tries to help a witch stuck in the 17th century get rid of a curse, while being pursued by a bad witch in the present.



The plot on its own could have been interesting, but it falls flat in the execution. The first part of the season feels like watching a high school drama for the most part; the characters mostly deal with relationship issues and continuously make what I can only describe as stupid decisions. The second part picks up in pace and actually gets interesting. We move away from the drama and a larger picture of betrayal and dark magic starts to emerge.

My main issue with the show is that it is often very difficult to understand why characters do what they do.

Sadly, it falls short for two reasons. First, the acting is often mediocre. All actors have better and lesser moments, but on average it is just not very good. Gaviria carries the show here. However, what she gets is not always much to work with. My main issue with the show is that it is often very difficult to understand why characters do what they do. In the case of Carmen, she is insistent on returning to 1646 where she will be a slave, mostly in the name of love. She fell in love with the son of her owners and she continuously wants to return to him, even though that means returning to slavery. On its own, that is already odd, but it is worse because their love feels empty and performative on the screen. The two keep reiterating how much they love each but it is just not convincing because we do not see them fall in love or be together, so we have no clue what these love declarations are based on. This whole part of the show feels like I am watching a cheap romance movie, and I do not like those.

The rest of the characters are quite one-dimensional and their motivations are often unclear. The show could really use some “show, don’t tell”, rather than trying to convince us certain things are something by repeating that they are. I also saw the major plot twist coming from a mile away, which makes the character seems unnecessarily gullible and even somewhat dumb, which is not fun to watch.

Nonetheless, the final few episodes are quite okay (save the continuous drive of Carmen to return to the past). The witchy aspect of it all picks up and the pace increases. I’d give those a higher grade.

So should you watch it? Probably not. If you are into high school dramas you can give it a go. If you are into witches, you can try it out. If you want to watch the beautiful scenery, I would definitely recommend it. Otherwise, maybe skip this one. If you de decide to give it a go, I’d recommend you watch the Spanish original with subtitles instead of the English dub. The dub sucks.