THE COOK OF CASTAMAR: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: It’s morning; Diego de Castamar (Roberto Enriquez), the Duke of Castamar, wakes up next to the love of his life, his wife Alba (Xenia Tostado).

The Gist: Life is bliss for the duke and duchess in 1720 Madrid; they seize the morning by riding horses to look over Castamar, which is where Alba tells Diego that she’s pregnant. At that moment, her horse throws her off, killing her.

Twenty months later, Diego is holed up in the castle, still in mourning. A messenger from King Philip (Joan Carreras) comes to Castamar with a request that Diego join his court again. Diego just isn’t ready and kicks the messenger out. Both his adopted brother Gabriel (Jean Cruz) and his friend Alfredo (aime Zatarain) tell him he should take the job. When he goes to the king himself to tell him that he’s not ready to serve, the king dismisses his grief, as he has also lost his wife, but knows when to follow the call of duty. The king orders Diego to throw a gala at Castamar, and he will bring his royal presence.

At the same time, a young woman named Clara Belmonte (Michelle Jenner) is sent by the local priest to Castamar to fill a job on the kitchen staff. The house manager, Úrsula Berenguer (Mónica López) is angry that the majordomo hired her without her knowledge, but she gives Clara a trial period. Clara learns from friendly co-workers and tries to avoid the rivals. But when Úrsula catches the cook en flagrante delicto with a male staff member, she banishes the cook and elevates her clueless assistant. Clara, who actually knows how to cook, vows to help her with the gala and dinner for the elite visitors.

Diego’s mother, Doña Mercedes (Fiorella Faltoyano) joins family friend Enrique de Arcona (Hugo Silva) in a quest to find Diego a wife, and they think they found that in the seemingly innocent Amelia Castro (María Hervás). But Enrique knows Amelia’s secrets, and wants to marry her to Diego in order to manipulate her. Another visitor to Castamar for the gala, Lady Sol Montijos (Marina Gatell), sees through Enrique’s plan, but she’s busy experimenting with Francisco Marlango, the Count of Armiño (Maxi Iglesias).

When the dinner goes well — the food is so good, it’s almost an orgasmic experience — Diego starts noticing Clara. But Clara has some crippling anxieties based on her father’s execution; one of those anxieties is that she can’t be in the outdoors without suffering a massive panic attack.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Bridgerton, but about a century earlier and in Spain. Either way, there’s lots of sex going on in both shows.

Our Take: The Cook Of Castamar, created by Tatiana Rodríguez based on Fernando J. Muñez’s novel, does have somewhat of a plot: The widowed Duke takes notice of Clara just as his mother and other interested parties push him back into society and try to marry him off. But the story sprawls from there, involving subplots where secrets are tossed around without much elaboration.

There are seemingly dozens of characters to keep track of, and it just feels like, even in a first episode that runs over an hour, there’s not enough time to give all their stories the time they deserve. All of these characters converge on Castamar for the gala, but what happens when they go back to their respective castles? Do we follow them around? It just feels like there’s so much going on that we’re not getting to the meat of the main story — Clara and Diego — soon enough.

It mostly has to do with sex. There’s even more sex in this first episode than there was in the first episode of Bridgerton, and that’s saying a lot. And we get that it’s a part of the story. But, even some plot points, like Enrique ravishing Amelia as payback for him covering her debts, or the fact that Alfredo and Francisco’s friend Ignacio (Carlos Serrano-Clark) know each other more intimately than they let on, are supposed to be significant but they get lost in the many scenes of colonial-era sex.

There’s also a fencing match between Diego and Gabriel that goes nowhere and voiceover from Clara that gets suddenly dropped into the narrative midway through the episode, as everyone’s eating Clara’s orgasmic meal.

Sex and Skin: Lots of sex, but very little nudity.

Parting Shot: Clara starts to panic when she has to bring a roast out to the visiting King Philip during the gala, but is saved when a messenger rides in and says the king is missing.

Sleeper Star: Marina Gatell plays Lady Sol, whose husband is a million years old, meaning she’s up for anything — including threesomes and getting into everyone’s business.

Most Pilot-y Line: Again, Clara’s voiceover appears again near the end as we see why she has her agoraphobia. Voiceovers are annoying to begin with, but when they’re dropped into a show without establishing them at the beginning of the episode, they make no sense. It feels like something that was tacked on later for clarity reasons.

Our Call: SKIP IT. While The Cook Of Castamar looks great, it’s all a bit of a slow-moving mess, albeit a well-acted one, filled with sex that’s not sexy and stories that are bound to get the short end of the stick (pun intended) as we go along.