Hugo Chavez returns to life in TV show criticized by allies
BOGOTA — The revolution will now be televised.
The life of Hugo Chavez, who mesmerized Venezuela’s impoverished masses before dying of cancer in 2013, is being dramatized in a Spanish-language TV series that is generating a backlash even before it airs.
Produced by Sony Pictures Television, “El Comandante” premieres this week throughout Latin America and in the spring will be broadcast in the U.S. by the Telemundo network.
Conceived by a staunch Chavez critic, the 60-episode series aims to retell the leftist leader’s improbable rise to power from his roots in poor, rural Venezuela while showing how the former tank commander’s authoritarianism laid the groundwork for the country’s current economic mess.