#Lola Mendieta

[docpiplup]

Due to the anniversary, there are more articles and interviews these days, for example in this interview Javier Olivares talked about the new patrol he wanted to create for season 5.

What do you think?

The three Spains and a frustrated fifth season: the secrets of a 'Ministry' that "endures time very well"

Javier Olivares, co-creator of 'El Ministerio del Tiempo', reflects on the legacy of the TVE series and gives details of the episodes that were never filmed.

Every story has a beginning (and, in principle, an end) and that of El Ministerio del Tiempo, the adventure series that aired La 1 of TVE between 2015 and 2020, goes back twenty years when its creators, the brothers Pablo and Javier Olivares, set out – while they were drinking beers – to write a series that they would like to see as viewers, but that they knew would never be made.

In between, around 2007, they developed the Spanish adaptation of the series Life on Mars, a police officer who travels to the past, to the seventies, after a car accident. Diagonal TV was going to be in charge of its production (Amar En Tiempos Revueltos, Isabel) and they even started a conversation with British public television, the BBC, for said remake they titled it La Leyenda del Tiempo. If the English had David Bowie; the Spanish had Camarón.

In the end, Antena 3 bought the rights and commissioned it to another production company. The result was La Chica de Ayer (2009), whose title responded to a song by Nacha Pop (1980), ahead of the time on which the series was based (1977).

Anachronies aside, Javier Olivares payed off an old score in the fourth season of El Ministerio del Tiempo. The second episode, in which the patrol of civil servants and time travelers has to obtain financing for Pedro Almodóvar's second film (Laberinto de Pasiones) and for the filmmaker from La Mancha to hire Antonio Banderas as the protagonist, ends with a performance of David Bowie's song Life on Mars. Thus a circle was closed; one of many.

"I was certain that there were not going to be more seasons. I wanted to close the story of the characters. I owed it to the characters, the actors and the audience. With greater or lesser success," recalls Javier Olivares in conversation with El Independiente. This Monday, February 24, marks a decade since the premiere of the first chapter of The Ministry of Time; the first of a total of 42, which, by the way, are not available in full on RTVE Play (yes on HBO Max...)*.

A series of adventures in front of and behind the cameras, since it was not easy, the schedules, late renewals, departure of interpreters and, therefore, rewriting of bibles, that is, the skeleton of each batch of deliveries. More than two years passed between the filming of the third and fourth seasons, so they were paying for a set that finally collapsed. In fact, in the last season, due to budgetary issues, they were unable to build a set. But they found a solution: an old Spanish National Radio building on the outskirts of Madrid where they could decorate.

"When I finish a season, I always think that there won't be another one. And El Ministerio del Tiempo has shown me that. What I don't like is leaving a series unfinished. It was necessary to put an end to it so that, if suddenly there was a new season, it would already be a new patrol," he continues.

Then TVE asked Javier Olivares for a fifth season of El Ministerio del Tiempo. With Star Trek (and its sequels) and Doctor Who (and the physical regenerations of its owner) in mind, the scriptwriter planned a renewal while maintaining the essences. That fifth season was going to be the shortest, of four episodes, to turn its broadcast into an event, and it was going to feature a new protagonist patrol, made up of a female mathematician from the late 17th century, a lieutenant from the War of Independence (1808-1814) and a young ram raider from 2020.

They were going to talk about fake news, the invention of the submarine, The Beatle's performance in Las Ventas (Madrid)… and there was going to be a Christmas special with the story of La Lotería. "Tornero [the then president of RTVE] said it was very expensive and the door was closed," Olivares recalls. Like that other door that closed between the second and third seasons of The Ministry of Time when the possibility of moving to a platform arose...

"Each season is what it inherits from the previous ones. It's better not to think about what would have been and wasn't. You play with the instruments they give you and I'm delighted with how the fourth season turned out," acknowledges Olivares.

If in that fourth and final season he had to remake the bible after the departure of the actress Macarena García (Lola Mendieta) during the halfway point, in the second it already happened with its protagonist, Rodolfo Sancho (Julián). If he hadn't fallen out of the cast, perhaps the merger between Lorca and Camarón would have happened sooner...

"The character of Rodolfo [Sancho] was basic in the first season and a reflection of my brother [Pablo]," recalls the co-creator. But as soon as one goes out the window, another comes in the door, since Hugo Silva won the affection of the screenwriter ("For me, one of the great discoveries of the series is Pacino") and the public. With Julián's departure and Pacino's replacement, there was a third party in contention, Amelia (Aura Garrido).

But Olivares did not succumb to the love affair: "Already with Isabel, in the first season, I did not do a love story. I did the love story that was historically as I told it. I did not entangle it or turn it into an affair. And in El Ministerio del Tiempo, the same: I did not want to do a stable love story for anyone."**

The series itself also didn't marry anyone. Each of its three original protagonists represented one of the three Spains: Amelia (progressivism, feminism), Alonso (loyalty, Christianity, patriotism) and Julián, "who is fed up with the two Spains fighting and wants to have a beer in peace." The three, with their differences, rowed together in the same boat. "They did not fight among themselves. They fulfilled a function as patriots, as civil servants of a ministry," he adds.

Even so, he was accused of politicization and turning to the left: "It is not a political series, but everything is political. It is a series of adventures, but obviously we talk about corruption, inequality, that everyone loses wars... We can't have a party with Lorca, or do we? We also gave a comical twist to many things, like Velázquez, Lorca...".

Olivares recommends that the most critical review the first season, whose last chapter, set in the Madrid Student Residence, "has the same social, but not political, burden as the rest of the series. The pilot episode, essentially written by his brother Pablo, is one of his favorites along with two others from the second season, those starring El Cid and Felipe II.

Still, the third season of El Ministerio del Tiempo was a turning point after experimenting in the second, jumping from one genre (pure comedy with Napoleon) to another (pure drama with the Spanish flu) in each episode. A painting by Goya, Duelo a garrotazos, inspired that third volume.

"The third season was the darkest. There was a very hard plot, that of the two Spains. Since the 19th century, people of different ideologies killing each other. It was the hardest in terms of sadness and also the hardest in terms of production. In the first two seasons we had a first-class technical cast. We had Goya award winners in our ranks. All those people came for a cheaper price with the condition that, if a movie came out, they would leave, but they would come back. You can use them as a favor in that moment of passion and epic because everyone knew that we were doing a different series. But It was something you couldn't stretch," Olivares admits.

There were times to which they did not travel (Al-Andalus, Roman Spain) due to budgetary and even language issues ("They did not speak Spanish") and ideas that did not prosper because they did not have a good script, such as fake news. Olivares would have liked to create a episode on the Santo Niño de La Guardia ("a myth about some Jews who martyred a Christian child, the Inquisition arrived and took charge of the culprits as a milestone of Christianity, but it had never disappeared for a year, there was no case, there were rumors that became reality because it was of interest at that time") or on the way in which the minister Esquilache was expelled from Spain at the end of the 18th century for trying to modernize the kingdom.

He would also have liked to integrate the curious filming of Dracula (1931) into the plot, during the day with an Anglo-Saxon cast and at night with a Spanish-speaking cast; What didn't change were the sets. Olivares recognizes that they should have given more scope to scientific culture (he redeemed himself with Emilio Herrera, the creator of the diving suit, to whom he dedicated an episode of the fourth season). "I would have loved to tell the story of table football. There was no time for everything," says Olivares.

But let's go back to the beginning, since fiction allows it. Pablo and Javier Olivares returned to the idea of The Ministry of Time after abandoning Isabel (2012), once the first season had been created and written, due to creative differences. Pablo, already diagnosed with ALS, asked his brother to develop that idea they had while they were drinking beers years ago. TVE bought it almost immediately, but it took them a year to find a traveling companion, producer José María Irisarri: "Before, we negotiated with four important production companies and the conditions prevented us from making our decision: they did not want a showrunner. There was total resistance to a scriptwriter being an executive producer – TVE's request –. We proposed an Anglo-Saxon model in which we carried out the creative part with the network without intermediaries. It was one of the most unpleasant moments."

"Olivares took the lead in the end and had decision-making power even in choosing the cast: "We were clear about all of them except one, proposed by TVE. We were very clear about Víctor Clavijo. It was the first one we were clear about. We had always spoken with Rodolfo [Sancho] because we needed an important name. He was part of the family [he played Fernando de Aragón in Isabel] and he signed up. A very clear one that I chose was Nacho Fresneda. And Aura Garrido. "We had doubts between Jaime Blanch and Luis Valera because we wanted an actor who represented traditional Spanish television, an icon."

Javier Olivares has never seen his own creation again. "I have occasionally seen an episode," he admits. "When they show it on television***, I stay to watch it. It strikes me that, despite its age, it holds up very well over time."

* yes, on RTVE Play season 4 is not available at this moment, but in HBO Max it is available.

** I would argue that's not exactly true, like there's some canon relationships like Alonso/Elena or Julián/Maite that have become very important for much of the series.

***at 23:00 on the TV channel Clan TVE they show an episode of El Ministerio del Tiempo almost daily, today it's episode 3x04 Tiempo de Ilustrados

[incorrect-emdt-quotes]

Salvador: Rule one of being an agent: use whatever tools or tricks necessary to stay ahead of your enemies.

Salvador: Rule two of being an agent: never give out free information.

Salvador: Rule three of being an agent: even though teamwork is important, if you’re sure you can handle something, do it.

Salvador: Got that?

Lola, writing “gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss” in her notes: Yeah, yeah, for sure.

[al-mayriti]

OH SHIT LOLA

[marga-manso]

yo queriendo hacer una versión mejorada y más tranquilita del fic con el reboot, y se me juntan en el año 1925/2016:

el barullo espacio-temporal de Mendieta y Lola (ft consiguiente trauma de Marga)

los jaleos de la niña con Velázquez

los chanchullos de la niña con Mendieta

el episodio depresivo de Julián

el episodio depresivo la hot girl era de Federico

el hexágono amoroso Julián-Federico-Dalí-Maruja-Emilio (aprox. en ese orden)

Nicolás a su bola pillándose de un poli (f en el chat)

covid 2.0 la gripe española

el pifostio de la boda de Ortigosa

el au facha que se monta Felipe II

las cuatro crisis existenciales de Amelia

Irene haciendo el lesbiano por ahí

Alonso pillándose de señoras de izquierdas

yo????

[marga-manso]

BESARTE CON LOLA MENDIETA 💀

@marga-manso thanks for asking again!!! :) Sorry this one took so long lmao when I tried to post it the first time Tumblr ate it 🤡

🍰: What's something your OC counts as unforgivable?

Besarte con Lola Mendieta Que alguien se meta con su hermana. Nicolás tiene bastante capacidad de perdonar cosas, especialmente las que le hacen a él, gracias a su habilidad de ✨ bloquear el recuerdo y no pensar en ello nunca más✨; pero no tolera que absolutamente nadie maltrate a Ana. Es una persona adulta doxxeando a niños de 12 años por decirle algo feo a Ana en el lobby del Fornite. 1 poco mentally ill behavior pero le quiero mucho igualmente.

🍾: Does your OC believe in luck? If so, do they have any charm or ritual they do before a stressful event?

No realmente? Más allá de la convención social (desear suerte, quejarse de estar gafado, etc.) no cree que la suerte exista. Pero es alguien que cree en el destino y en la aleatoriedad impasible del universo al mismo tiempo así que 🤷. Tiene algunos cuantos tics nerviosos (pulsar compulsivamente el botón de un bolígrafo retráctil, abrir y cerrar horquillas...), pero ningún ritual como tal.

🍹: Does your OC have any funny anecdotes told about them?

Su madre tiene aproximadamente un millón de ellas pero su favorita es como, cuando Nicolás era pequeño, su juego favorito era imitar a su padre. Nunca dejará de hacerle gracia recordar cómo su hijo, de tres o cuatro años, se vestía con la chaqueta más formal que podía encontrar en su armario, se dibujaba un maletín en un folio y un reloj inquietantemente acertado en una muñeca, y se disponía a marchar por la casa proclamando lo tarde que llegaba al trabajo o lo inútil que era su jefe. Algunas cosas nunca cambian :)

[elyangelofdeath]

[corvidcantina]

[thekeyunderthemat]

Lola Mendieta - looks del S.XXI

[koboldkatalyst]

Mis Cambios del Sentimiento Con El Ministerio del Tiempo

Temporada 1: ¡Odio a esta Lola Mendieta!

Temporada 4: 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 (Yo, llorando por la misma)

Temporada 2: De verdad, no estoy segura de que me vaya a gustar a este Pacino...

Temporada 4:😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 (Yo, llorando por lo mismo)

Temporada 1: ¡Dejad a Julián salvar a Maite!

Temporada 4: Bueno, sé lo que dije ¡pero no tuvisteis que hacer eso a Lola y Pacino mientras tanto joder!

[polgaragold]

No sabeis lo bonito y lo dramático que es el AU que @docpiplup y yo estamos montando. Hay mucho drama, mucho lío, pero también momentos memorables como las referencia de Juego de Tronos y las tres cabezas del dragón. 

Y sí, direis ¿que os habeis fumado? Pero la cuarta era mayor fumada que esto 

[griffinssclarke]

“Quién nos iba a decir que tú y yo íbamos a tener futuro.”

[al-mayriti]

MILLM -> Man I Love Lola Mendieta

[anaisimoo]

El Ministerio del Tiempo Alignment Chart

[mywingsareonwheels]

When the Ineffables meet the Ministry

There is a language barrier, at first, because while each of Aziraphale and Crowley have each lived in Spain before (well, Castille in Aziraphale’s case), it was not recently and they are both rusty.

Amelia, of course, is practically bilingual, and smoothes the way as the vocabulary eases back (and Alonso is so, so happy to have people to talk to who don’t mock him for being old-fashioned when he uses vos rather than usted).

Aziraphale and Crowley both adore Amelia. She’s brilliant, compassionate, no-nonsense. Rebels against her society in order to get an education. In different ways she is exactly the kind of human they love. Aziraphale wishes they could introduce her to Pepper. They stay up late exchanging tales of writers and artists and composers they’ve all met. Velázquez tags along and keeps interrupting. He interrupts a *lot*. For once, nobody minds. Especially when he presents each of the Ineffable Spouses with a gorgeous sketched portrait of the other.

Alonso initially is deeply perplexed and keeps crossing himself around Crowley which the latter finds exceedingly irritating. He is close to panic the first time Aziraphale says something wry and disparaging about Gabriel, and that’s before they get on to the story of Armageddon’t. What changes things for him (beyond vos!) is when he hears the softness in Crowley’s voice when he talks about Yeshua. And then when Crowley admires his motorbike. And then when Aziraphale asks him for some sparring practice and it turns out they each have something to learn from each other.

After all, Alonso is used to learning, to changing, to growing. He does it all the time.

When Aziraphale meets Julián he takes his hand and doesn’t let go for quite a while. When Crowley meets Julián they get drunk together. Pacino comes with them, and helps Julián stumble home.

They don’t need to say much, though they do, in the end. Julián asks the best questions, the most painful questions, and they answer what they can.

But they don’t need to ask him anything, especially after Amelia fills in the blanks. They can see. It’s in his eyes.

Crowley inevitably adores Irene, and the feeling is entirely mutual. They drag Aziraphale to the finest gay bars in Madrid, then to a glorious drag show in Soho.

Aziraphale takes Angustias out for dinner and they giggle their way through it. Everybody else is faintly alarmed.

And then, Crowley and Aziraphale meet Salvador and Ernesto.

And they do get it. They do. Changing things might make things worse. Has made things worse, when it’s been done. Sacred trust. What people have died for.

But Crowley looks back at everything he’s been blamed for, taking credit for, mostly-inadvertently caused. And the things humans have just done to themselves and each other. All the pain, all the suffering. The deaths. Children. So many, many children. And this, this is the one power that neither Heaven nor Hell has ever had. The power to change what has been.

“I like you,” he says. “You’re... you’re a good men, I get it. But I don’t like what you’re doing. It’s... gah. I get that you may be doing the least wrong thing here but I don’t have to fucking like it.”

Aziraphale says nothing. He knows what it is to be a Neutral Good person working for an organisation that is at best Lawful Neutral while claiming to be Lawful Good, implimenting policies you wish you fully believed in, making excuses, some of which are even valid. He worries the velvet of his waistcoat, winces. Doesn’t miss the pained looks that Salvador and Ernesto are exchanging, especially when Crowley gets on to the subject of the Inquisition.

And when Irene slips Crowley the phone number for one Lola Mendieta, Aziraphale still says nothing. Nor does he say anything when Crowley mentions, casually, that he might have put her in touch with Newt. Just a hand on Crowley’s arm, a warning. Don’t take this too far, love. Don’t unravel the world, we don’t know where it will tangle. And Crowley nuzzles his hair, and whispers, “I know. Just need to spread a bit of chaos in the right place.” And that has to be enough.

Aziraphale sends a quiet word up to Her, asking for Her blessing on all these flawed, brave, brilliant, well-intentioned humans. And thanking Her that at least he’s never had to face the choices the Ministry face every day.

He would perhaps not be unsurprised to know that in a much angrier way, Crowley does something very similar.

They also both resolve that however stable the lad is now, they are never, ever, ever going to tell Adam about all this.

[elyalovi]

Un doble regalo

La cuarta temporada ha sido hecha con el único objetivo de cerrar hilos dejando abierta, como siempre, la posibilidad de un retorno. De ese modo, se dio el ansiado y extraño regreso de Julián (Rodolfo Sancho), quien se supone que murió en la tercera temporada, también se concretó en la relación de Lola Mendieta (Macarena García) y Pacino (Hugo Silva), Amelia Folch (Aura Garrido) hizo un breve cameo y Alonso de Entrerríos (Nacho Fresneda) lidió con el estrés de ser padre a la par que trabaja viajando por el tiempo. Asimismo, Salvador Martí (Jaime Blach), Irene Larra (Cayetena Guillén Cuervo) y Ernesto Jiménez (Juan Gea) vuelven a estar a la cabeza del Ministerio y también pudimos ver más excentricidades de Velázquéz (Julián Villagrán) y a Angustias (Francesca Piñón) reaccionando ante la locura de las misiones. Pensando en el futuro se adhirió a Carolina (Manuela Vellés) como una nueva integrante de la patrulla.

Esta vez el enfoque estuvo nivelado entre el lado humano de los personajes de la serie y los personajes históricos que anteriormente parecían predominar el plot de los episodios. Una de las críticas que hice en la tercera temporada es que la serie estaba más interesada en el cameo de sus figuras históricas que en la propia evolución de sus propios personajes, pero uno no ve la serie para decir “hey, mira allí está X”, ese más bien es el plus. La cuarta temporada se encargo de que estos personajes históricos tengan su tiempo de brillar, pero también que los protagonistas se vean impactados a un nivel emocional por cada viaje en el tiempo. Los episodios “El laberinto del tiempo” y “El tiempo vuelta” son los mejores de la temporada exactamente porque, aunque es genial ver a la patrulla ayudar a Pedro Almodóvar de joven a producir su película “Laberinto de Pasiones”, es mucho más emocionante ver el reencuentro entre Pacino y uno de sus viejos amigos, del mismo modo, es alucinante ver a Albert Einstein, pero es mucho más reconfortante conocer la historia de amor de Salvador y su conexión con Emilio Herrera, inventor de la escafandra estrato náutica, porque explica el nivel de compromiso y cariño que le tiene Salvador al ministerio.

Como siempre, la serie encuentra un modo de incluir alguna problemática social en los episodios, aunque no tenga tiempo de adentrarse en debates y posiciones. Por ejemplo, una de las exigencias de Alonso para volver al ministerio es la instalación de una cuna para los hijos de los agentes. La demanda de Alonso se siente como una broma porque Alonso es el prototipo de macho alfa, guerrero y patriota, pero no deja de ser un derecho laboral. La esposa de Alonso trabaja y él se ha quedado en casa cuidando a su bebé, tiene sentido que, si va a volver a laboral, su lugar de trabajo le tiene que ofrecer ese beneficio. Del mismo modo, en el episodio de Pedro Almodóvar, el amigo de Pacino muere de sida, pero no se hace mención que el amigo de Pacino tiene sida, pero vemos su espalda llena de manchas y su deterioro físico y sabemos que la canción que canta lo hace a modo de despedida. En ese mismo capítulo, se presenta a Carolina, quien ha escapado de su matrimonio porque era víctima de violencia doméstica.

#ElMinisteriodelTiempo T4: Un doble regalo y una puta mariposa