EARLIER this month, Telemundo dropped a tear bomb.

Sofia, Dame Tiempo (Sofia, Give Me Time) is packed with romantic heartbreak and melodrama, ingredients that co-producers Telemundo, Caracol and RTI seem to think are integral to the success of a telenovela.

Sofia airs weeknights at 6, taking the spot left vacant after Telemundo bumped Globo's El Beso de Vampiro (The Kiss of the Vampire) to 10 a.m. Apparently, the Brazilian novela was deemed too cartoonish for Latin audiences, which still favor love stories regardless of how moronic their plots may be.

The new novela, the latest to come from the multinetwork programming partnership, features Karen Martinez as Sofia Santero, one of those lovely little women who have every man in town either killing, or dying, for her.

Martinez, a young Colombian actress who left her dentistry studies to compete in beauty pageants, is better known as the fiance of Colombia's hottest singer-songwriter, Juanes.

Rafael Novoa (also seen in Las Juanas and Guajira) plays Sofia's love interest, Santiago Rodriguez, a man forced to leave town after he's wrongly accused of killing a man obsessed with his bride. He escapes - on the wedding day - and hides in the big city, where he meets and falls for another woman; so much for undying love. Completing the triangle is Francesca, played by Ana Maria Trujillo, another beauty queen in her first acting role.

Sofia, Dame Tiempo, an original story by Juan Andres Granados and Adriana Barreto, is premiering simultaneously in the United States and Colombia. In Colombia, it replaces Pedro el Escamoso, which just ended after more than two years on the air.

For those viewers for whom a daily dose of Sofia is not enough, the network has set up a link at www.telemundo.com, where they can read El Diario de Sofia (Sofia's Diary).

With this novela, Telemundo has further increased its Colombian-accented programming. There are now three Colombian novelas airing in prime time. The others are Adrian esta de Visita (Adrian Is Visiting) at 7 p.m. and La Venganza (The Vengeance) at 8. Both are also co-productions of Telemundo and the Colombian TV networks.

Getting up-to-date

While not notable for their inspiring performances, Adrian esta de Visita and La Venganza do feature original and more contemporary story lines. They are also addressing, without stereotyping, such taboo issues as homosexuality.

Sexual-identity subplots are no longer uncommon in telenovelas, but such characters are often depicted on Spanish-language television as caricatures. Adrian includes a homosexual relationship between Cristian, an upper-class young man, and the son of his family's maid. Unfortunately, the two actors have zero chemistry and look rather uncomfortable with the script's demands.

Telemundo recently made TV history with the first female-female onscreen kiss in La Venganza. The kiss, between the malevolent antagonists Grazia, played by Catherine Siachoque, and Sandra, her assistant, didn't stir much controversy, which is a sign either that Latinos are becoming more open-minded, or that nobody is watching the novela.

Must be the former, since La Venganza, which has already been sold to 22 countries, is Telemundo's most-watched program.

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