La Madrastra

La Madrastra (lit: The Stepmother) is a Chilean television soap opera created by Arturo Moya Grau, that aired on Canal 13 from April 21, to September 18, 1981, starring Jael Unger and Walter Kliche. The series, set in Los Angeles and Santiago between 1961 and 1981, depicts the memoirs of Marcia Espínola, an innocent woman accused of murder in America, twenty years later, she is freed from prison, returning to Chile for revenge, and to see her children as their stepmother. La Madrastra having achieved both wide acclaim and commercial success with 80% television ratings, became a significant part of 1980s Chilean popular culture. Directed by Óscar Rodríguez and comprising a total of 75 episodes, the series has been consistently ranked by Latin American media as one of the greatest television screenplay in Spanish language of all time, and has been remade several times by other television networks. La Madrastra has been cited as a key influence on Chilean television productions inspiring screenwriters until now. International versions has been adapted and rebranded as Vivir un poco (1985), Para toda la vida (1996), Forever (1996), La Madrastra (2005), ¿Quién mató a Patricia Soler? (2014) and the most recent La madrastra (2022). Plot The series starts twenty years earlier when a group of Chilean friends travel for fun to Los Angeles, United States. One night in the hotel a gunshot is heard, and Marcia Jones (Jael Unger), the first to hear it, runs to the room where she heard the shot to find her friend Patricia dead on the floor of the room. Marcia picks up the gun by accident, therefore becoming the sole murder suspect. Months later she's found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in prison in the United States. During the trial it's discovered that at the time of her death, Patricia was pregnant. Every friend Marcia thought she had shuns her, including her husband Esteban San Lucas (Walter Kliche), who leaves her in the United States and forces her to sign a marriage annulment. The story moves on to present day (1981), Marcia has now become a bitter woman who only maintains contact with her attorney, who has always believed in her innocence and tries to help her.