If you can get past the sloppy errors, mediocre acting from the supporting cast, and general goofs, the show is watchable, but just barely. Queen of the South plays more like a college audio-visual club production of a telenovela than a well acted, well written, and well directed show in the same vein like Breaking Bad or Narcos. Here are a few issues, goofs, and just plain wackiness that really should have been addressed before this ever saw the light of day. 1. Taser shocks that knock people out for hours at a time. You expect me to believe a Taser is powerful enough to knock someone out in Dallas and they only wake up after driving them for hours to the border? If so, see issue number 2. 2. Getting from Dallas to Mexico/Houston/Galveston, or any other city by car in a shorter time than it takes most planes hours to reach. This happened so often I lost track of how many times characters managed to get to the Texas-Mexico border or deep in to Mexico from Dallas and back by car in less than one day. 3. Easily noticeable Dallas street signs, stop signs in English, as well as cars with Texas inspection stickers clearly visible on the windshield, and Dallas houses in the background when they are supposed to be in Mexico. 4. Music: iIf Jan Hammer had a garage sale, the majority of the music used here would have been part his catalog circa his Miami Vice years. 5. The dialogue. Don't speak Spanish for the first sentence and then switch to English for the remainder of the scene. It drops the character's believability. I know many do not like having to read closed captioning instead of being fed lines in English, but when you are supposed to be in Mexico, you don't throw out Spanish for the sake of making it easier to follow the character's story arc. Narcos did not need to rely on that to be an excellent show and neither should Queen of the South. Those are just my top five issues from the first season, but believe me, I could go on. I'm almost of the opinion this show was green-lit based on how well the show Narcos did. If that is the case, they should have taken some time to refine the dialogue and acting. The main two or three characters (Teresa, Guero, and James) are believable, and Pote adds the additional flavor needed, but the remaining cast seems to be overacting to fit a role straight out of the telenovela I have already mentioned. Queen of the South is binge worthy, but only if you want to forget about things for a while and imagine Dallas being as dangerous as Chicago is now or Miami was during the cocaine heyday of the 80s. Trust me, it's not. While the stereotypes on both sides of the Rio Grande are so over the top they are laughable, the 2nd season does firm up the story and acting. However, the first season leaves such a weird taste in your mouth that you may not make it that far. I give it 4 or 5 stars, but that's only because the 2nd season turned out slightly better than the 1st. Give it a shot if you find yourself with nothing else to do and no other shows to watch.

I think it's natural to compare this to Narcos. Narcos was brilliant: superbly written, directed, acted, yadda yadda. Compared to Queen of the South, Narcos is a kobe steak and Queen of the South is a McRib. Awful writing, acting and storyline. And did I mention the bad acting?

Really good show! Love how it portrays women to be independent and powerful, even though it's cartel and drug related. I'm def rooting for Teresa and James to become a thing!! #TeamJames

It was fun, in a woman in danger way (c'mon... Teresa Medoza miraculously survives TWO auto wrecks in the first season?), but I had a hard time taking seriously a story where the scriptwriters seemed to know nothing about geography, let alone politics. Hilariously, characters seem to drive from Dallas to Laredo in a few hours (425 miles?) and whoever wrote this nonsense thinks you can get from Culiacan to Dallas in a matter of a day. Hell, you can't get from Culiacan to Mazatlan in less than two hours, and they're connected by major highways. Then, in one episode, someone says "there's only one road to Mexico"... from Texas? I found the election story absolutely hilarious. Obviously, the screenwriters just didn't bother with anything so simple as looking up even election schedules. Besides reducing the election to two candidates (Mexico is a multi-party state) and introducing elements that are just impossible (exit polls, a press conference the day before the election).The two days before an election in Mexico, no news coverage is allowed. And exit polls don't exist. There is an official quick count of early returns that is reported after polls close, but the official winner isn't known until at least the next day... and certainly does not have any legal authority at that time. When the new governor (who somehow is both a famous narco and sold to the voters as an honest man.. though why everyone knows he's a narco in the show) is declared the winner, he somehow manages to pick up a phone and unleash the Army on his narco-enemies. PLEASE!!!!! For one thing, the elections are in July, and state governors don't take office until the 1st of December. This was just stupid.Never mind the usual foolishness where the bad guys just bump off minor characters, but keep the heroine, or the interesting people around for a few days (until they miraculously escape), and the oh-so-convenient coincidences of finding a tunnel across the Laredos, or the secret book that just happens to end up in the right hands, I suppose it was fun as escapist fare.But anyone who has any knowledge of Mexico, Latin America, Texas, or the on-going "war on (some) drugs" is going to find the story more annoying than enjoyable.