Tin Tem Jai (2023)

Who needs a plot?

There seems to be a spate of plotless Thai BL dramas. There's really not much to say about this series - the author apparently couldn't think of anything to write so she just used whatever she did that day. Everything that happens in this is mundane day-to-day activity - largely eating snacks and bubble tea.

There is zero romantic chemistry between the leads - it's not clear what their age difference is, because they're both children at the same time, but later Park is a doctor, so that would put him in his late 20s, while Tin is either in high school or maybe college - it's hard to tell because he never seems to go to class. I was surprised to hear he goes to school when it was mentioned in the finale. Tin behaves like a small child almost all the time, so there is something kind of creepy about their relationship, only saved by the fact that the actors are similar in age.

Since there's no plot, there's no dramatic tension - and it looks like the writer realized she'd reached the conclusion without any drama, so she threw in a long series of fights over absolutely nothing between Park and Tin - which likely cemented the feeling the audience had that they really shoudn't be together. Except as parent and child, maybe.

There are lots of side characters, but they're all pointless and their stories never go anywhere.

I didn't think it was possible to have less of the story than Physical Therapy, but apparently it is. I rated this a 3 because while it's a total waste of time, it's not aggressively awful.

I'd skip it.

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Plots Are So Last Year

I'm going to preface this by saying that I very, very rarely drop dramas. I may put them on hold, but I generally will eventually finish them. I was sorely tempted to drop this drama after the first episode. The only reason I completed it is because it was only 10 episodes. Any longer than that and I wouldn't have continued. I kept hoping that things would get better, that a plot would emerge, the characters would get better, the sometimes confusing editing would improve, but it never did. It was just a giant ball of disappointment from beginning to end.

First of all, there's no plot here. I'm not even kidding, it is literally non-existent. It's like they threw a bunch of ideas into a bowl, blended it and popped it in the oven expecting something good to emerge. Suffice to say, that plan failed epically. I think they may have been going for a slice of life drama, but it's so poorly done that it's impossible to tell. It felt like a lot of the plot, miniscule as it was, revolved around bubble tea, orange juice, and snacks. There were far, far too many characters. I'm used to Thai BLs having a bloated cast, but this one really took the cake. I couldn't even begin to keep track of half the characters and some would pop in and out and it would be like, who are you and why should I care? Inconsistencies run rife throughout the whole of the drama. They just add to the general confusion and make the non-existent plot even more obvious.

The romantic aspects were by and large a joke. Two of Tin's friends would randomly pop up on dates throughout the drama which was weird and nonsensical. They weren't featured enough for me to have an opinion about them or care about their relationship. I just found them annoying. And Tin and Park didn't make much more sense. Tin spends half the drama pining after Park with Park pushing him away and insisting they're just brothers and then it's like a switch gets flipped and suddenly he's declaring his love and becoming all lovey dovey. I got whiplash with that one cause there was basically no build up. Yes, it was obvious that he was jealous of Tin spending time with Phloen, but that was it. And then, because the writer apparently decided the last episode or so needed to finish with a bang, we have multiple spats between Tin and Park that were stupid and added nothing. I didn't even know what they were fighting about half the time. The only couple, if you can really call them that, that I liked was Pao and Khana. They get very little screen time, but they had chemistry and felt like they worked well together. Unfortunately, we get a single make out scene between them and that's really it. It's implied that they're in a relationship, but not really confirmed and they don't really act like they're in a relationship, at least not overtly. There are some subtle clues, but I would have liked something more obvious, more of them spending time together one on one getting to know each other and clearer signs that they were together.

As far as the characters go, they were a bit of a mixed bag.
-Tin was the most annoying character ever. It was like a whiny toddler was placed in a college age man's body. Seriously, 90% of what he did was whine and complain. And that's what he acts like for the entirety of the drama. He doesn't really mature or develop, it's just ten episodes of this man child constantly proclaiming his love for Park and pouting when Park doesn't act the way he wants him to. And the sad thing is, I could have liked him. He had moments where he was very sweet and compassionate towards others, moments of vulnerability, where I could see the potential the character had, but then he opened his mouth and that went right out the window.
-As for Park, what on earth did he even see in him? He talks about how cute he is, but I've rarely seen anyone less cute. I really did not get a good impression of why he fell in love with Tin or even why Tin fell in love with him, though the fact that he's clearly smart, handsome, and charming when he wants to be certainly helps. Also, the age gap between them was confusing. Flashbacks made it seem like they were fairly close in age, they were both wearing the same high school or middle school uniforms, but then you have Tin who seems to be a freshman in college and Park is already a full certified nurse. It doesn't add up.
-Barbie was a hit or miss for me. Sometimes I really liked her, other times I found her to be a bit annoying/boring. For the most part though, I liked her determination to forge her own path in the world and the way she was there for her friends.
-I really liked Pai. I know she wasn't in there much, but I enjoyed the scenes she was in. She was a straight forward, no nonsense kind of character, but she had moments of vulnerability that just made me want to give her a hug. The scene where she talks about how she came back for her brother and she was willing to sacrifice her freedom for him was a powerful one. I thought it was so sad that her parent's didn't realize what a gem of a daughter they had.
-I also liked Pao and Khana. They were such a study in opposites which I think is part of why I liked their relationship, minimal as it was. Pao, the golden child that everyone loves and compares others to, who has so perfected that façade, even his friends aren't aware of it. Everyone thinks he has such a great life and he has his life together, while under the surface he's depressed, he's struggling to the point that he turns to drugs. And then there's Khana, an apparently former drug addict, who's turned over a new leaf and is striving to become a better person. My heart went out to both of them and the struggles they faced and, again, I would have really liked for them to have more screen time learning about each other and helping each other grow.
-The other characters really didn't leave much of an impression. Phloen was cute but forgettable and Tin's friends were by and large annoying.

The acting was pretty subpar all around. Tiger, besides playing such an obnoxious character, was boring to watch which didn't help matters. There was no nuance to his acting, it all just felt very, very repetitive. He needed to massively tone down his character but it seems over the top is what he went for. Run wasn't much better. I've seen him in other dramas and liked him. He's the main reason I even watched this drama actually. But he was also pretty boring to watch with many of the same facial expressions appearing again and again and very little emotion a lot of the time. You can play a quieter character without being boring but he apparently didn't get that memo. The chemistry between the two was non-existent. Their kissing scenes were just awkward to watch. They didn't seem fully comfortable with each other and that definitely translated to the screen. The rest of the cast wasn't quite as glaringly bad, but no one really stood out to me. I will give credit though to Lee and Tong because they actually did have chemistry. Again, I wanted more of them!

The production value was pretty meh. There was a number of awkwardly cut scenes where there was just no transition, it would abruptly jump from one scene to a completely different one with no reference as to what's going on. It made following the story at times much harder than it needed to be. The music was another forgettable aspect. I honestly don't remember anything about it.

This drama is just bad all around. It's simply not worth the time or energy to watch it. This isn't one of those dramas that's so bad it's good, or is at least moderately entertaining. You gain nothing from watching it other than a desperate desire for it to end. Seriously, don't bother with this one.

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