The Airport Diary (2024)

Basically a huge advertisement for HKIA

You know… I knew this would be somewhat of a program informing viewers of how Hong Kong International Airport functions, but I was not prepared for episode 1. We get introduced to the main characters and how they worked together, but suddenly, out of the blue, JW’s Wish started to play. This was the love theme for Kenneth Ma and Natalie Tong in Big White Duel, which represented their connection despite being divorced, so why was it playing here? Because Kenneth Ma here is divorced from Sisley Choi. I found that so lazy, like the only thing that could make it lazier would be Sisley Choi divorcing him because of a miscarriage that was her fault and Kenneth not knowing about it. In any case, episode 1 ends in a spectacularly cheesy way with the main cast all staring off into the sun in the distance. Was it meant to be inspirational? Dude, it’s just an airport!

Episode 2 introduces some other supporting cast members and more BAU airport activities, but what I noticed that was not normal was how everybody - and I mean EVERYBODY - brought up Kenneth and Sisley’s divorce so casually as if it was a minor thing and even tries to get them back together. I don’t know if the writers have been around real divorced people who work together but nobody brings it up out of respect as it would make for some real awkward moments if done so. Even if they do it would be every now and then as required, here it is constant “I’m a divorcee” or “hey sis-in-law opps lol not really”… just no.

Do you know what I found really wrong? Some of the depictions of the staff and commuters at the airport. Man, the staff at the check-in desk were really patient and talked to this old gentleman as he couldn’t find his passport, and after some time he found it made some small talk with the check-in staff. Do you know what would happen in real life? He would be asked to stand aside to allow other passengers to check-in while he looked for it as the other passengers in the queue all start asking, “Yo, what’s the hold up?”

And man, the theme song sucks. It is so forgettable it is like why even bother. They could have saved the money and just do an ICAC musical thing and boom done it would have made no difference.

As this is just 10 episodes long in total, there are not many more episodes to see if things improve, but I am not holding my breath. A completely quick cash grab HKIA sponsored load of nonsense so far.

Episode 3: BAU, but Sisley Choi is really annoying in this episode as we see her and Kenneth dancing awkwardly around the fact they are divorced but still have to work together. You can tell Kenneth wants to get back with her but she’s all evasive.

Episode 4: man this episode… like what were the cameramen thinking. Rosita Kwok was wearing a really short skirt to show off her legs, but in one scene the camera was almost an upskirt shot. That had me thinking “what the he…” What made it worse was how unflattering the shot was as you could see all sorts of blemishes on her legs.

Episode 5: this episode had more things that had me call BS. As the episode starts, the airport staff started looking for somebody because they were going to miss their flight and going out of their way to look for them. It turned out the passenger was just shopping and even asked for a few more minutes when they find her. In real-life you know that airport personnel would just let her keep shopping as it isn’t their problem if she missed her flight. I also found Rosita extra annoying this episode as she had dropped her ID card and it was found by Ricco. Ricco tries to return it but she is unbelievably rude to him, even later snatching the card from his hand at lost and found. No normal person would act like this in a professional setting especially to someone they just met when Ricco did not even do anything inappropriate.

Episode 6: not bad.

Episode 7: finally something somewhat juicy is happening with Tiffany and Sisley meeting for the first time, the ex-girlfriend and ex-wife of our charismatic main Kenneth, and only Tiffany knows their status. See this is what I am talking about, but this is introduced too late so I know it is not going to escalate much.

Episode 8: another run-of-the-mill episode. Man, it ends with Rosita in a flight simulator and she’s all wide-eyed and full of wonder. The machine isn’t flying anywhere nor did it have any actuators to simulate movement. It is a stationary cockpit with computer generated imagery. This is like being amazed that the popcorn button of your microwave burns your popcorn.

Episode 9: okay this episode really annoyed me. We finally get the scene where Kenneth and Sisley discuss their divorce and I thought we would get some startling revelation about why they were divorced because they were clearly still in love. And the reason? Sisley: I forgot the reason. Kenneth: same here, must have been trivial. Like wtf, you cannot remember why you guys got divorced? You separated, you signed the papers, and you cannot remember why? I thought maybe it was something traumatic they didn’t wanna discuss and TVB would give us a flashback but no, no flashback no nothing. This show treats marriage and divorce like minor things, and us the audience as idiots if they think we would just roll with that. As this is episode 9 it is clear this will be the only time the subject is approached and the next and final episode they will get back together. Man….

Episode 10: the last episode wraps up the show and pretty much tries to wrap up all loose ends. However, Kenneth and Sisley’s getting back together really annoyed me. Kenneth finally remembered why they got divorced, but Sisley says he doesn’t have to remind her as they shouldn’t dwell of the past and only on the future. So basically we never find out why they were divorced and Sisley really doesn’t want to discuss where they went wrong in the past to improve their relationship going forward. What lesson was this trying to teach its viewers? What was that nonsense?

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