Amar en tiempos revueltos (a literal English translation would be To Love in Troubled Times) is a Spanish telenovela widely known both in its home country and overseas. The TV series follows the life and times of a wide variety of characters in a neighbourhood (Plaza de los Frutos) in the city of Madrid from 1936 (the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War) to the 1950s, under the Francoist dictatorship.
It is also very famous among the LGBT collective because it features the first lesbian relationship (that of Ana and Teresa, one of the driving plots during the fourth and fifth seasons) on national television that is portrayed reallistically according to the characters' status and setting. The series has a rotating cast of characters, changing them from season to season (the only ones who have appeared in all seasons are the family who run the bar "El Asturiano", where most of the characters congregate). The series has received several awards and prizes during the last years, including a Silver Medal in the "New York Festivals".
The series ran on La Primera / La 1 between 2005 and 2012, then channel hopped to Antena 3 for Spin-Off series Amar es para siempre (set in the 60's and 70's), which is still running as of January 2021.
This series provides examples of:
- The Beard: Irene is this for Ubaldo, who is gay. She knows it and is perfectly all right with it, apparently.
- Child by Rape: The Rivas-Garcia family has this as its trademark. Ana's father, Ramón, was seduced by his stepmother into having sex with her (thus giving birth to Ana, who had always thought of her as her grandmother). Ana herself suffered marital rape at Alfonso's hand before his death.
- Depraved Bisexual: Ana Rivas is this trope, period. Of the Love Dodecahedron she formed part, she is the only one of the four who has had sex with all the other three (Teresa,Hector and Alfonso). Besides that, she also smokes, drinks, and has sex with a male prostitute, all while she is pregnant.
- Did Not Get the Girl: Hector, at the end of season 5.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Cheats on his wife with whatever female he might find attractive and is verbally and emotionally abusive to both his wife and his oldest son (as well as sometimes making threats of beating them if they cross him), and the first time that we saw him he insulted Ubaldo's heritage at a party as well as drunkenly tried to rape Irene, who is arguably one of the most sympathetic characters on the series. However, he gets quite a few Pet the Dog moments when dealing with both his daughters Almudena and Gloria, as well as with Irene, now that both have become neighbours and she has become Almudena's tutor. However, in most popularity polls on the Internet, you might find him to be one of the most popular characters of the whole series.
- Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Luci, not a "good girl", has an abortion in season 6 and later dies as a result of the botched surgery. Chelo, a "good girl", does not have an abortion.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Hector and Bonilla.
- Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Diana from the fourth and fifth seasons
- Large Ham: Pelayo, sometimes. It seems to be a family trait, as his son Marcelino sometimes enters this territory as well.
- Love Dodecahedron: One every season.
- Long-Runners: One of the most long-running series in a country that tends to have short TV shows. On its first incarnation it lasted seven years, on the second nine, for a whooping total of *sixteen years* (and counting).
- One Drink Will Kill the Baby: Averted with Ana's pregnancy during the fifth season. We saw her drink, smoke and have sex during that period.
- Politically Correct History: Both averted and played straight with Leona, the black girl who works as a secretary in Andres's factory in the sixth season. While most of the young characters treat her like any young people would do nowadays, older characters tend to treat her as somebody inferior just for her ethnicity.
- Private Detective: Hector during the fifth season, after being expelled from the force.
- Phony Psychic: Bibiana, although not a psychic, comes very close to this, as she takes advantage of Eulalia's religiousness and her daughter's sickness in order to con her.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: After Carreño's death at the hands of an (as of now) unknown assailtant, his sidekick Celso was being set up as the next Big Bad for the rest of the season. Too bad Paco Maestre, his actor, died of a heart attack just after the shooting of that episode.
- Serial Killer: One of the fourth season's subplots.
- Sexy Priest: Angel, one of the most handsome men ever seen in priest's clothes.
- Through the Eyes of Madness: In a recent episode, Eulalia begins to experience hallucinations surrounding her ill daughter that border on pure Nightmare Fuel.
- Aside from that, in the fifth season we also had Abel having a nervous breakdown in one episode and seeing his father (who had been dead for decades) insult and degrade him about his wife's infidelity.
- Unexpected Virgin: It is revealed that the rookie cop Bonilla, at twenty-two years old, has actually never been involved sexually with a woman, and passes up the chance to be with one when Diana offers to go to bed with him, being still in love with Mariana.
