--- ---  # _Jane the Virgin_ Is the Keeper of This Fall Season by [James Poniewozik](https://time.com/author/james-poniewozik/) ## James Poniewozik Oct 29, 2014 1:57 PM UTC  Jaime Camil as Rogelio and Gina Rodriguez as Jane in Jane The Virgin. Jaime Camil as Rogelio and Gina Rodriguez as Jane in Jane The Virgin.Patrick Wymore—The CW by [James Poniewozik](https://time.com/author/james-poniewozik/) ## James Poniewozik Oct 29, 2014 1:57 PM UTC The networks, with their vast new fall schedules, are like a species of sea turtle that lays dozens of eggs to perpetuate the species. Some of the eggs [never hatch](http://insidetv.ew.com/2014/06/30/fox-cancels-hieroglyph/). Some hatchlings are [eaten by sharks](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/fox-pulls-tuesday-utopia-moves-737363). Others scamper to shore and [carried off by seagulls](http://www.avclub.com/article/manhattan-love-story-falls-first-cancellation-210999). Only a hardy few make it. Just so, when I see the new network pilots, there are many I know I’m done with after one episode. Others go on a wait-and-see list, but as the weeks pass, I drop one and another off the list, from the truly bad to fine-but-the not-good-enough-to-make-time-for. I’m left with a few survivors on my season pass list: last season, e.g., _Sleepy Hollow_, _Brooklyn 9-9_ and _Trophy Wife_ (which, alas, was devoured by the orca of cancellation). We’re a month into the 2014 season, and so far, _Jane the Virgin_ is my turtle. The CW series–a comic telenovela about a chaste woman who’s inseminated through a gynecologist’s mistake–had a strong, elegantly constructed pilot, and the luminous Gina Rodriguez was instantly winning as the title character. But a pilot is only a pilot: what’s won me over is that, having seen four episodes (next week’s included), each is as good as or better than the last. Here’s why: **This Show Is Having Fun.** There’s a difference between a show being fun, or trying to be–which can sometimes be a forced exercise–and communicating a sense that its makers are having the time of their lives. _Jane_ in its early days has something in common with other fresh, full-of-voice network hours like _Scandal_ and _The Good Wife_: a sense of play. The _rico-suave_ voiceover and cheeky screen captions bounce commentary off the storylines, and the show gets a particular kick out of visual and dialogue-based twists, as when Jane and her fiance have a conversation seemingly related to having sex for the first time, which takes a weird turn (“I promise it’ll be quick,” he says, “in and out”) until we see he’s accompanied her to an appointment. And the episode-three musical sequence where a guilt-wracked Jane imagines her entire church scolding her for considering losing her virginity–complete with a _Clutch Cargo_\-style solo from a Virgin Mary statue–is one of the great TV moments of 2014. **Jane’s a Virgin, but Not a Saint.** Jane has her reasons for waiting until marriage–guilt, family influence (pro and con), a certain personal cautiousness–but the show doesn’t make her a paragon; she’s just a sharp, complex young woman figuring out how she wants her life to go. She’s still a sexual being. She can be “judgey,” she admits, but she’s not a moralizer, and she’s self-aware of her judginess. The show foregrounds her virginity–it’s in the title, after all–but it doesn’t portray it as either a burden or a crusade. **It’s Culturally Specific.** And by that, I don’t just mean, “It’s a show about Latino Americans.” It is, and the diversity’s welcome on TV; but it also has a very particular feel for things like Catholic culture in the 21st century, the generational differences in Jane’s family and her place in all of it. It’s the difference between a show that feels like it takes place in the world, and one that feels like it takes place on a TV set. **It’s a Soap Without Soap Opera Villains.** _Jane the Virgin_ is pretty plainly not going to skimp on the telenovela twists–beyond the title predicament, we’ve already seen a guy defenestrated and impaled on an ice sculpture–but it plays them out with characters who react genuinely. There isn’t, so far anyway, much mustache-twirling or vampy scheming, even among the antagonists and competing love interests; there’s a sense that on some level, everyone has good intentions, which makes for more interesting conflict. And the multigenerational dynamic among Jane, her mother and her abuelita is really something: Grandma is showing herself to be more than the pious scold you might have guessed from the opening “flower” scene, while Jane’s cautionary tale of a mom seem, at heart, to genuinely want to do right, even when she seems more like the child in the relationship. It all goes a long way toward making the unbelievable believable. If you’ve been holding off because the show sounded ludicrously soapy, give _Jane_ a shot. And if you didn’t want to commit for fear of getting your heart broken, good news: The CW has decided to carry the show to term, as it were, with a full season order. Whatever your position on virginity itself, _Jane_ is worth keeping. Review of Jane the Virgin, on The CW ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3545682/jane-the-virgin-is-the-keeper-of-this-fall-season/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3545682/jane-the-virgin-is-the-keeper-of-this-fall-season/"},"headline":"Jane the Virgin Is the Keeper of This Fall Season","datePublished":"2014-10-29T13:57:36.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T11:04:50.065Z","description":"The accidental-pregnancy premise sounds absurd--and it is--but Jane's playful, good-hearted humor makes the unbelievable believable.","url":"https://time.com/3545682/jane-the-virgin-is-the-keeper-of-this-fall-season/","keywords":["Television","review","jane the virgin"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1dc2ebf00c508a42/6987631e55a859715ca83793/jane-the-virgin.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"James Poniewozik","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/james-poniewozik/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1dc2ebf00c508a42/6987631e55a859715ca83793/jane-the-virgin.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Jane The Virgin","caption":"Jaime Camil as Rogelio and Gina Rodriguez as Jane in Jane The Virgin.","creditText":"Patrick Wymore—The CW","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3545682/jane-the-virgin-is-the-keeper-of-this-fall-season/","name":"Jane the Virgin Is the Keeper of This Fall Season"}}]}] ```