This show is like a cat, and I'm allergic

I really didn’t have high hopes for this project from the get-go. Mixing Thai with Korean BL sounds like a decent idea on paper, but the execution turned out to be incredibly clumsy. Peach Of Time did it first - it felt awkward then, and it feels awkward now. I’m not saying this concept can’t be done. Because Of You actually pulled the mixing of languages off quite well. But that’s because some of the characters in the show were actually multilingual, so it made the entire thing a whole lot more believable because they effortlessly switched between languages, depending on who they were talking to. In this show, however, Uno somehow understands Korean perfectly, but he cannot speak the langue at all. How in the world would you ever get to that point? Listening and speaking skills develop hand in hand. Of course, it is quite common to have an easier time understanding a language than actually speaking it. But I simply don’t see any way in which someone would understand everything as well as Uno does (down to words like 'euthanasia‘ which you won’t find in basic vocabulary lessons unless you attend a very odd language course) without being able to make at least simple every-day conversation. The same goes for Uno’s manager who understands Thai but doesn’t speak it, and his assistant assumably too, because he never speaks to Uno in Thai but understands him without any struggle. It makes no sense and took me out of the show completely. For everyone who isn’t magically able to understand Thai/Korean, the instant translation earpiece was a very cheap way out. I suppose I gotta praise them for at least trying to address the language barrier in some way, it just was a little bit too convenient for my liking. Especially regarding the TV show they were filming. The audience obviously does not have a fancy insta-translator, and when we saw the manager watching the show, there were never any subs. So, how are the Korean viewers supposed to get anything of what Uno was saying?

But anyhow, the language nonsense was the least of the show’s problems.

The even bigger issue is that the world of this show feels completely empty. You know those stories where the places actually come to live and you feel the vibe of the coffee shop, office, house, or whatever through the screen, or even through pages of a book? Well, this was the opposite of that. It never feels like you’re watching people going about their lives, moving naturally around the world they live in. It feels like you’re watching actors on a set. A set that refused to cast any extras. The main place of the show is a dog cafe. But somehow, we see a grand total of ONE dog at the entire cafe, and we never get to see a single customer who isn’t part of the main cast. The same goes for the vet clinic, although, there we actually get to see one other client (I believe), which didn’t add much realism, but at least it was something. It was incredibly strange to watch and ruined the immersion.

But the most glaring issue, by far, is the romance.

You see, the two love interests don’t actually interact (apart from a brief encounter) until half way through the show. I absolutely don’t mind if you take a while to establish the characters on their own first, before you introduce the romance. If well done, that in itself would not be an issue. The issue is that in this show, those first episodes felt incredibly wasted. It didn’t really feel like I was getting to know the characters well. Somehow we spent 6 episodes introducing them, and I still couldn’t connect to either of them. At no point did I feel like I actually know these characters. Uno just felt like a caricature of an aloof, stand-off-ish celebrity. I have no idea how he even got famous in the first place, because that generally requires charisma, and Uno has none of that. Dae Byeol loves animals. That’s all I could take away from his character. And that he struggles financially, maybe. Both of them felt like empty shells who weren’t appealing to watch at all. Much like with the set feeling just like that, a set, the characters also felt just like characters rather than actual people.

When the two main leads finally do get to interact, the romance feels as empty as the characters do. There was no romantic chemistry there whatsoever, and the build-up is clunky as hell. This is yet another show that feels like it should’ve been a bromance, and on the day of filming, someone decided to add some romance into the mix. So, they came up with very few moments that were supposed to be cute, but they come so out of the blue and feel so awkward that I went 'Wtf is going on?‘ Instead of 'Awww!‘ which is definitely not the reaction you want when watching a romance series. It’s not even that they established a friendship that felt believable. They just went from not really liking each other to loving each other without putting in any effort of making the two actually bond for more than a total of five minutes. It was completely wasted, and I was honestly shipping Dae Byeol with the vet and Uno with his assistant more than I was rooting for the two of them. Dae Byeol had more chemistry with the damn dog than he did with Uno.

This series might go down as the show with the most awkward hug scene in BL history. It was actually painful to watch. Uno hurt his foot while they were out looking for their dog. They sit down and Uno goes on an incredibly forced monologue about how his dog trauma came to be (their conversations in general feel clunky and forced, but this one was the worst instance). Then, Dae Byeol proceeds to wrap his arm around him in the most unnatural way anyone has ever hugged anyone ever. It felt like he was forced to hug that one relative he doesn’t like, because his parents told him to be polite, not like he was getting close to someone he apparently has feelings for. It was supposed to be cute, but I had to pause the show because I was laughing so hard at how bad it was. The scene of him applying ointment for Uno wasn’t much better, but it wasn’t quite as horrendous.

Speaking of Uno’s trauma with dogs… He got over that way too quickly. How nice would it have been if the show actually depicted him slowly overcoming his fear with the help of Dae Byeol? But we cannot have nice things, apparently, so instead, he basically healed himself by the power of nothing. If getting over trauma/fears was that easy, it would leave therapists everywhere jobless.

The ending feels unearned and plot lines get resolved way too quickly and without any meaningful resolution. They're just wrapped up because it's episode 12, and we need a happy end now.

In terms of acting, the side characters were actually doing really well and were a lot more likeable than the main characters. Especially Uno’s assistant and manager were both hilarious and nailing their roles, so that was honestly the best part about this whole thing. Mew is a very charismatic person, usually, but somehow, he failed to add any charisma to Uno which made watching him incredibly boring.

If you’re debating whether you should watch this, I suggest you don’t. There really isn’t anything here to get attached to or fawn over. It's genuinely one of the most unenjoyable BLs I've ever watched. It's bad, but not even funny-bad, just plain bad. If you’re looking for a show with cute animals in it, you won’t find it here, and you’re honestly better off just watching dog or cat videos on Youtube. At least those are cute and not as awkward as whatever the hell this was.

Read More

What the hell happened to Aye?

I wanna start this review by saying that I enjoyed The Eclipse. The writing wasn't great (especially nearing the end), but I absolutely fell in love with the characters of Akk and Aye. First and Khaotung are - in my opinion - some of GMMTV's best actors. They have fantastic chemistry and I really enjoyed the progression of their love story. Which is why The Eclipse is very high on the list of my favorite BLs, despite the issues in writing. So I was eagerly awaiting the release of Our Skyy 2, just to see Akk and Aye back together. And what we got was... well... Not really the same Aye that I came to love in The Eclipse??

I'm still slightly confused as to what went wrong exactly. It feels like these two episodes were written by someone who thought Akk and Aye were cute together, but didn't understand the character of Aye at all. It feels like they watched The Eclipse and thought 'Well, Aye is a bit of a troublemaker who follows his own rules instead of what others tell him to do, so clearly that makes him a self-centered idiot!' And that was obviously not the point of his character at all! In Our Skyy 2, Ayan is portrayed as someone who only thinks about himself and doesn't really consider anyone else's feelings. So you're trying to tell me that Ayan, the guy who continuously made sure Akk was voicing his feelings and was there to listen to him all the time, the guy who wanted to meet Thua's mom, just so he could make sure Thua told her about his issues with his stepfather, the guy who was so concerned about other people not being able to be themselves and voice their opinions at their school... You're telling me that this Ayan is now supposed to be self-centered??? Just... how???

A glaring issue in that regard is obviously Aye pretending to have forgotten about Akk's birthday. I'm okay with the general idea of Aye planning to surprise Akk, and thus pretending not to remember his birthday. BUT I'm not okay with him pushing through with this plan, despite seeing that Akk is clearly feeling very sad and hurt about this. I feel like the Aye we got to know in The Eclipse would've given up on his surprise plan as soon as he saw that Akk was sincerely hurt. He wouldn't have kept going for weeks, knowing that Akk was suffering. So for me, that just completely ruined part of his character. The surprise idea is cute, but who would insist on doing it even after seeing their loved one suffer? It made no sense to me and felt like such a silly conflict. Also, the fact that Akk's friends supposedly knew about the plan all along was very stupid in my opinion. If my friend told me he was sad because his boyfriend was being self-centered to a point where he doesn't even remember that my birthday is coming up, and I was aware of the fact that his boyfriend was just planning on surprising him, I would go to said boyfriend and be like "Maybe reconsider your plan. Clearly, you're just upsetting him with this idea." But hey, maybe that's just me and most other people prioritise a surprise over someone's happiness. Aye could've still surprised Akk with the song, even if he hadn't pretended to have forgotten his birthday entirely.

But that's not even the worst part in my opinion. The worst part - by far - was their scene by the water, after playing the guitar. Akk was trying to tell Aye that he was feeling unhappy and unheard, and what does Aye do? He shuts him up by basically saying "Shhh, you know I can't resist you when you're angry" and the kisses him. Why oh why???? The Aye I know and love wouldn't just shut his boyfriend up! He would encourage him to talk about his feelings, like he always has done in The Eclipse. I already dislike the "You're cute when you're mad" trope in general, but particularly with Aye it just felt so wrong, going against the core of his character, which was partially wanting other people to stick up for themselves. Akk previously had such a hard time, voicing his feelings. Aye always encouraged him to do so. And you're telling me that now, as Akk is finally able to talk about his emotions, Aye is just going to shut him up?? Great.

Those are the main issues of these two episodes in my opinion. There were other issues too, such as Kan and Thua supposedly also having a conflict, but that never actually being shown in any way. But that was minute in comparison to the character annihilation of Ayan.

All that being said, I was still able to somewhat enjoy the episodes, because First and Khao still have amazing chemistry and the acting is still great. This is why the rating is still relatively high, despite my issues. So if you're a fan of those two, I'd still recommend watching. But I recommend you just watch it as a stand-alone piece, and not a continuation of The Eclipse. Maybe this is a ViceVersa cross-over, and we're in a different universe, where Ayan is a prick. Who knows, judging by how they're gonna turn My School President into a role-reversal thing, they don't shy away from doing very odd things in Our Skyy 2.

Read More

Do you love this show, or do you simply love GemFourth?

I once said "Gemini and Fourth can save even the dumbest of ideas." As a fan of theirs, I was convinced I'd love this series no matter what, so I was incredibly excited for it to air. However, I got proven wrong.

Let me first clarify that I'll judge this show as a stand-alone piece. I haven’t read the manga, and I don’t recall much of the Japanese adaptation. Some people say those who dislike the show should be mad at the manga instead. I disagree with that sentiment. If you adapt a story for a different media, changes need to be made. What works for manga might not work for TV. I understand being an adaptation comes with limitations on a story level, so I'll give them some grace there, but on a scene level, it needs to be reconsidered. This is what I watched, so this is what I'll judge.

GemFourth have a lot of chemistry which is why they’re one of my favorite ships. Yet, I didn’t enjoy this half as much as MSP or Moonlight Chicken. I don’t think their chemistry has dwindled. The problem is that MLMU didn’t nurture it properly. They’re at their best with slow moments for them to banter, shyly kiss on the cheek, hold hands, or stare at each other lovingly. Think about the dance scene in MSP. The way they look at each other delivers more chemistry in 2mins than most other ships do in an entire show. The problem is that MLMU doesn’t give them enough such moments. My favorite scenes are 1) Kongthap sleeping over, and them bonding over their parents relationships, and love being scary, 2) Atom telling Kongthap about his dream of having a café, and his trauma involving fire, 3) Atom sketching Kongthap while he’s playing the guitar, looking at him with actual sparks in his eyes, and 4) them holding hands on a train and blushing about it. In these moments, their chemistry was fantastic. Sadly, such scenes were few and far between amidst silly conflicts, busy plot points, and unsatisfying resolutions. Thus, Atom and Kongthap never really felt like more than friends.
Their chemistry also didn’t hit as hard because I’ve gotten used to them. When I first got introduced to them, they gave me butterflies and made me feel giddy. I still love them just as much, but now that I'm used to them, they no longer give me that same thrill that they gave me in the beginning. On top of that, they’ve gotten older. They looked like actual babies in MC, which is part of why they sold the puppy love so well. It just doesn’t have that same effect anymore.
Also, GMM knows the chokehold GemFourth has on us. Here, it felt like they’re teasing us by only giving us sweet moments very sparingly. The lack of kisses made sense in MSP because they were underage, and I'm all for protecting underage actors. That excuse is gone now though. I felt like they were deliberately holding back on cute scenes (not just kissing, but also hand-holding, hugs etc.) in order to tease the audience and keep them wanting more. It had the opposite effect on me, leaving me frustrated instead. I don’t need them to make out, obviously. Simple touches would be enough, but it was short even of that. MSP and MC felt a lot more intimate despite them being younger then.
Of course, I still want to see more of GemFourth together in the future. But I've come to understand and accept that no matter what show they’ll be in from here on out, it won’t ever feel the same way it did at the start, and that’s okay. It's just something to keep in mind to manage my expectations.

I loved Fourth as Atom. He’s great at being animated and acting like a whiny, pouty baby. Thanks to his expressive eyes, he also did well in emotional scenes. I think he’s at his best in more heartfelt and emotionally demanding shows like MC, still, he pulls off rom-coms too. I struggled with Gemini's acting though, especially in the first half. He had a lot of charm and charisma in MSP, but here, his delivery often felt stiff and disinterested. I think he was trying too hard to come across as cool/aloof, and like many other BL actors, he equated that to moving as little facial muscles as possible. The stark contrast between him and Atom’s animated nature didn’t help, but only worsened the issue.

The poor character writing didn't help either. Atom felt most cohesive, but he’s a caricature more than anything. First, his whiny, exaggerated nature was endearing, but it got irritating quickly. He over-reacted about every little thing, often with little regard for people’s feelings. For example, when Half struggled to ask Mudmee out, Atom immediately took her side, sulking at Half without ever asking him about his feelings. Kongthap never felt coherent to me. The story adjusted him to be whatever it needed for the given episode, so he never made much sense. At first, he’s this smart, cool guy, then suddenly, he lacks any semblance of emotional intelligence. All in all, he felt like a nice piece of cardboard with googly eyes for Atom. With Mudmee and Half, there were inconsistencies too. Depending on the episode, Mudmee was either a smart, independent young woman, or a stick with no braincells. The narrative didn’t know what it wanted her to be, so during camp she’s bad at anything involving physical effort, but later she’s strong and gifted at sports.
All of them together never felt like a convincing friend group. Other than Mudmee and Atom, everyone just came across as classmates who occasionally talk. None of the characters felt compelling. Traits came and went out of the blue, like Atom being into cooking. Chef Sin said it makes sense why he was tense during cooking club at school. But I don’t remember him being tense. He was thinking about Kongthap, thus burning the food. You'd think someone with trauma would be too tense to think about their crush in such a moment, and that an incident like that would be triggering. But it didn’t seem to affect him. In episode 11, Atom's mom tells Kongthap how he has a fear of being abandoned. Nice idea, but this is the worst case of telling instead of showing, because they never bothered to show us that in the whole show. The only thing they followed through was Atom's fear of heights which luckily didn't just disappear after one successful experience.

The romance arc was unconvincing at best. The issues started from the get-go with Atom getting over Mudmee way too quickly. Since they’re teens, and his undying love was in reality probably just a small crush, I won’t be too hard on them though. This is also where I give them grace for having to follow the plot of the manga. But things only got worse. I have no clue how Atom and Kongthap fell for each other since they never really got to bond. They spent a lot of time together, but it hardly felt like they were talking about meaningful things. Mostly, they just read as friends. Sometimes even like brothers, which is the last thing I want to think about in a romance. I understood at first, because they were clearly written to be awkward around each other. I appreciated that since it’s their first relationship, so feeling unsure of how to act is realistic. But awkwardness doesn’t equal lack of passion. When they became boyfriends, I was hopeful we’d get all the bonding that had been missing so far. Instead, they went straight back to silly conflicts. GemFourth are such naturals at holding hands, kissing on cheeks, hugs etc., but the show never allowed them to do much of that, so there was a severe lack of romantic tension. I actually couldn’t even picture them kissing until they did.

The kiss episode was underwhelming at best and incredibly frustrating at worst. Dedicating a whole episode to a misunderstanding about kissing was very annoying. Not that Kongthap had much of a chance to clear things up, because Atom stalked off angrily to pout whenever Kongthap was about to explain. It was so immature that it made me feel like these two definitely shouldn’t be in a relationship at all. Kongthap’s friend tells him a first kiss isn’t about when, instead about why. By the end of the episode (and by the power of plot convenience) he has magically understood this lesson. The kiss scene that follows was grating. My biggest gripe is it being interrupted by silly sports day shenanigans. This is the emotional climax of your story thus far, stop distracting from it! I know the towel thing happens in the manga, but it just felt like a tease. It did come off eventually, but maybe it shouldn’t have because the kiss was so awkward. It must be a problem with directing because from MSP we know they can actually kiss with passion. I think the director wanted a "shy" first kiss, but the kiss in MSP was also their first one and their lips were actually moving there, yet it still felt very puppy-lovey. Why would you direct two actors with a lot of chemistry to kiss like two dead fish pressed together? It makes no sense on a story level either, because Atom and Kongthap wanted to lock lips so badly. It was the whole premise of the episode! One would think if they were so desperate, there would be at least a bit of fire there, even if they’re nervous.
In the next episode, there was a sudden shift from them being desperate to kiss to not even holding hands. It felt jarring and made it feel like their relationship was stagnant, never really growing deeper or more intense. Maybe their kiss didn’t just look bad, it also felt bad, so they were like "Nah, we’re good. Let’s not do that again.“ (Their kiss in episode 11 isn't much better, feeling stilted and awkward without chemistry. If this was my first GemFourth show, I definitely wouldn't be as obsessed with them. I really hope this is just a problem of directing, and things will look up in another show again because these kiss scenes are just painful to watch. They just looked like they didn't want to be there.)

Because of all that, MLMU often had me rooting for Mudmee and Half instead. You know it’s bad when I’m rooting for the straights.

Another poor choice was limiting conflicts to a single episode. Most story/character arcs would’ve greatly benefitted from being more drawn out, so they can build and conclude them in a satisfying way. Instead, it all felt rushed. Episode 7 is the best example. It would’ve been far better to see Atom grappling with his sexuality over a few episodes, so the emotional climax of him breaking up with Kongthap hits harder. The way they handled it, it felt like Atom’s insecurity came out of nowhere. I would’ve loved to see an exploration of why Atom feels like hiding their love is best, while also exploring why Kongthap wants to be open about it. Atom then changing his mind after a single conversation was way too fast. It’s a shame because I appreciated the message they were going for, about neither Kongthap nor Atom being wrong about their feelings, and everyone opening up at their own pace. But it would’ve made more sense if this wasn’t just dealt with in the span of 45mins. A similar thing happened with Atom realising he wants to go into culinary arts. He didn’t know what to do with his life, then after cooking ONE time, suddenly eureka! I like the idea of his trauma from almost burning the house down, thus having given up on his dream. But cooking one successful meal being enough to get over all that was poorly done. How about he slowly starts warming up to the idea, then working up his courage again? How about having a conversation with his mom? Maybe she could’ve told him she blames herself, because she wasn’t supervising him when he was clearly too young to be cooking alone. It was an interesting idea but clumsy execution.

The show’s very tropey and doesn’t stand out from other campus BLs. That’s not a bad thing necessarily. If you have an interesting aspect or unique/lovable characters, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Sadly, MLMU has nothing interesting to add to the table. Not just on a story level, on a scene level too because it pulls out all the BL clichés: Tripping and falling on each other. A lot of feeding each other, and of course messy eating that requires a thumb to wipe food off, because napkins do not exist in the BL universe. Leaning on someone's shoulder on a bus. Attempts at kissing someone in their sleep (can't believe we're still pushing the narrative that even the attempt at this is okay/normal). Characters randomly pulling a guitar/song out of their ass. A lot of miscommunication. And of course we also need the mandatory episode dedicated to a stupid jealousy plot that goes nowhere.

I understand they need to fund their shows somehow, but the ads only made things worse. GMM's never handled product placement with much subtlety, but in this it’s handled with all the grace of an elephant running through GMM headquarters. Cringe is one thing, but here, it felt like they were actively writing their screenplay based on the products. It didn’t feel like the ads blended in with the show, instead like a long ad with some loose plot strands sprinkled in-between. If all the time spent on ads was used to further characters/relationships instead, this would be a much better show.

Finally, my pettiest issue is how they put the end credits over the final scenes of each episode, taking away from heartfelt moments. At first, I thought this was bothering only me. But clearly even GMM are aware of how annoying it is, because during the kiss scene in episode 8, they deliberately didn't put any credits on (instead putting them on the interspersed sports-day scenes). If you know it's distracting, why not refrain from doing it altogether?

Of course, it's not all bad. A few things I liked are...
- Pushing the message that girls don’t have to be a damsel in destress to be lovable.
- The indirect kiss via fingers was a nice ode to Tinn and Gun.
- Atom’s and Mudmee’s friendship. They're two halves of a whole idiot and it was the highlight of the show.
- The behind-the-scene videos because they showed how much fun they all had on set, and that’s what matters most.
- The soundtrack slaps, though the title song was overused.

A couple of years ago, I would’ve liked this. Back then, I was just happy to see more stories representing my community. However, these days there’s such a flood of Thai BL that a show needs to do something unique to stand out. Mediocre shows just aren’t cutting it anymore. I want well-written stories with exciting characters, unique plots, and scenes that don’t feel like I’ve seen them a hundred times before. Sadly, MLMU had none of that to offer. It suffers from the same problems most GMM shows do, and is dragged further down by the lack of swoon-worthy scenes that usually make even mid BLs an enjoyable experience. So, despite my love for GemFourth, I can’t rate this any higher than a 5. That pains me a bit, but we should be able to criticise things even if we adore the people involved.

MLMU has shown me that not even my fave ships can save a lacklustre show. A new ship might distract me from bad writing by giving me enough butterflies. But with already established ships I love, and the thrill of that gone, I now know this is not the case. I’ll keep this in mind for the future, so I can manage my expectations better. That's easier said than done, of course, so we'll see how well it goes. I’ll be practicing with Heart Killers, the new FirstKhaotung show, because they are my other favorite GMM ship. At least now I know not to set the bar too highly, because the higher the hopes, the harsher the fall. And this one really hurt.

Read More

Sky x Prapai: Island Paradise Edition

So far, I haven’t really vibed with any of Mame’s shows, so I went into this with pretty low expectations. Turns out that was a good thing because she sure never disappoints on romanticising problematic behaviour, and writing characters whose only personality trait is trauma. Though this wasn’t as bad as some of her other shows (cough TharnType cough cough), it sure had its fair share of problems.

Let’s start with the acting, shall we? The highlight was definitely Fort. He’s got so much natural charisma that he carried this whole thing on his shoulders. Personally, I prefer him as Mut a lot more than as Prapai. The role of the cheeky, simple island boy suited him much better than that of rich businessman, and his acting has definitely improved since Love In The Air. His emotional delivery has gotten stronger which I appreciated a lot. It wasn’t an Oscar worthy performance just yet, but I think he’s on a great way of getting better and better.
Peat’s acting was a lot weaker. He was fine with the whole acting like a tsundere, but his skills definitely aren’t strong enough to carry emotionally intense moments. I don’t know why he keeps getting put into these trauma-heavy roles when he can’t even squeeze a single tear out. Because of his lacklustre emotional delivery, heavy/intense scenes fall incredibly flat. I also had a hard time telling Rak apart from Sky. Part of that is not his fault, because he basically had to play the same role twice. However, I feel like more skilled actors would still be able to portray two similar characters differently. I’ll give Peat some credit though, because he too has improved since Love In The Air. He’s still overacting sometimes, but it’s not to the same cringe extent it was then. We’ll see where his journey goes from here. I just hope he’ll get to play a different character for his next project.
As for the side characters, Chanya was pretty solid as Vie. Aya as Mook was doing way too much. She overacted to the point of her character almost being unbearable to watch. The child actress who played the role of Meena deserves a special mention. She did very well.

In terms of chemistry, Fort and Peat are definitely one of the stronger ships. It was the saving grace of Love In The Air, and it’s the same here, being what ended up carrying me through the show. The chemistry between the GL side couple was pretty solid too. Not enough to set a house on fire, but at least better than many other GL ships we’ve seen so far.

The character writing was on the more consistent end, but sadly, they were consistently awful and/or insufferable. Apart from Mut. I actually really liked him — at least I did when he was still living on the island. He’s basically the Moana of BL, and I was here for it. Him loving the ocean, being a helpful part of the community, being environmentally aware, and being content with the simple life he’s living was a breath of fresh air. I also appreciated how he had a sad backstory, but that wasn’t the main focus of the character. It was a real shame that he ever left the island, because as soon as he set foot in Bangkok, he felt like a completely different guy. From that moment on, he basically didn’t have a personality anymore, instead only acting as Rak’s personal caretaker/maid/stay-at-home-hubby/sex doll. The story stopped giving a damn about who he is, and centred itself around Rak only. It was incredibly frustrating to watch, because it’s rare that I actually feel like a BL character is unique these days.
Rak on the other hand is your stereotypical BL boy who doesn’t believe in / is afraid of love. He’s as tsundere as they come, but not in a cute way, just in a very annoying way. The guy often comes across as a privileged jerk, which didn’t help. Mut is better than me, because I wouldn’t have put up with that princess attitude for even a day. Rak is a famous writer, but we hardly ever get to see how that impacts his life. He’s also a toddler in a grown man’s body who wouldn’t be able to function without Mut and his secretary, and who throws hissy fits. First, he’s as hot and cold as Sky from Love In The Air. Then he becomes a whiny, pouty baby who is characterised by nothing more than having trauma, also like Sky. He’s basically just Sky 2.0 with a slightly different shade of trauma, and a worse attitude.
Mook was incredibly irritating to watch — in part because she’s super whiny, in part because of the over-the-top acting performance. I did feel sorry for her though, because everyone basically treated her like a doormat to walk over, or like a slave to boss around. It was actually hard to watch sometimes. Vie didn’t have much of a personality other than being famous and manipulative. The girl lied to Mook about her grandmother being dead, just to get her to do whatever she wants. I think that tells you enough about what a delight she is to watch.

As for the romance, this is also just felt like Sky x Prapai 2.0, because everything’s only about Rak, and Mut’s only job is to baby him, and help him through his trauma. However, it didn’t start that way. I actually thought the beginning of their story was a decent idea. A writer being sent to live on an island for a while, where he meets a simply guy who makes him believe in love for the first time sounds like a fun premise. Sadly, that’s just like three episodes of the show. The rest of it feels like a completely different series.

The romance was incredibly rushed, making it feel very insta-lovey — which isn’t great when the point of one of the characters is that they are afraid of love. Rak opened up and connected to Mut way too quickly. And Mut was ready to leave the life he loves behind for a guy he met like yesterday. I mean, Rak stayed on that island for two weeks, then Mut is willing to give up his entire life to follow him to Bangkok (without saying goodbye to anyone or even a suitcase in hand). Maybe it would’ve been a bit more believable if Rak treated him well during his time on the island, but he was being an entitled douche for most of the time…
I think the whole story would’ve been a lot better if it just focused on their time on the island. It’s called Love Sea after all, not Love Bangkok. If Rak was sent there to finish his novel and had stayed for a few months, things would’ve made a lot more sense. That way, they could’ve bonded slowly but surely, fitting the character of Rak a lot better. In my opinion, at least 6 episodes should’ve been spent on that island, and only a few remaining ones in Bangkok. Rak could’ve brought his assistant and his best friend along, so their story could’ve played out too. Or Vie could’ve had a shoot on that same island, being the reason Rak went there in the first place. There definitely was a way to make this work.

The above mentioned problematicness of it all comes with the whole money aspect of Rak and Mut’s relationship. It made me feel incredibly iffy and uncomfortable. It all felt very Fifty Shades Of Grey minus the BDSM but with the added element of cash. It all starts with Rak asking Mut how much he needs to pay for them to have sex. That alone was icky enough, but it only got worse when he basically bought the guy to go back to Bangkok with him. In Bangkok, they then made this incredibly inhumane contract which basically makes Mut Rak’s slave, having to do whatever Rak wants him to in exchange for money. That he could just kick him out whenever he feels like their good time is over. Yikes. I know Mut seems comfortable with the whole money thing, mainly because he never cares about the money since he’s clearly head over heels for Rak. However, it just rubbed me the wrong way. Especially since it is often mentioned how Rak is this fair-skinned, older, famous guy while Mut is a younger, darker skinned Southerner who’s making a living by completing tasks for others. That just made things worse because it definitely has very problematic implications. I mean, just imagine that Mut was a woman instead, or a black man. Yeah, yikes… The fact that Mut was often referred to as Rak’s "dog“ only made things weirder.

The romance between Mook and Vie is no less problematic. I absolutely hate how their arc romanticises manipulation. For the most part, Vie treats Mook like a slave, often by outright lying to her just to have an excuse for her to come over. She makes her do all these things she clearly doesn’t want to do, and that she’s not obligated to do because she works for Rak, not Vie. Vie lied about her grandmother being dead and never felt remorse for it, instead it’s treated as this comedic thing. She also made the poor girl drive 90 minutes just to deliver something unnecessary. The list goes on. It felt like such a weird and uncomfortable power dynamic. At one point, there was a storyline introduced about Vie practically forcing Mook to be her fake girlfriend, in order to squash rumours of her sleeping her way to the top. That would’ve been a lot more interesting to make the main focus of their romance, but it just got dropped, vanishing into thin air before it even really started. In the end, their arc never got any resolution which was a big disappointment. All in all, they definitely didn’t make me root for them, which is a shame because I was excited to see another GL couple.

There are things I appreciated about the show though, so let me end on a positive note:
- The scenery of the island was absolutely beautiful. What a shame we had to leave it behind so soon.
- Whoever did the styling on this deserves a raise. It was immaculate, especially with Rak. But really, there wasn’t an outfit out of place in this whole show. Bravo!
- The relationship Mut and Rak’s niece formed was adorable. I did not like the part where a 13 year-old girl calls her uncle "sexy“ though. That was… a choice…
- I really appreciated how the bad guy of the story, Rak’s dad, wasn’t actually the moustache twirling supervillain I expected him to be. The take-away being that he’s just a pathetic loser, not a murderer, was great.
- There wasn’t as much miscommunication and stupid conflicts in this. When Rak’s dad forced him to break up with Mut, Mut didn’t believe it for a second. I was worried we’d dive into a whole silly conflict about him believing that Rak doesn’t want him in his life anymore. But no, he had enough emotional intelligence to be aware of Rak actually liking him. More of that in other BLs please.


This series isn't as poorly written as some other BLs I've reviewed, but because I find the romances to be problematic, it still gets a low rating. I guess this might be my favorite Mame series, mainly because it doesn’t have sexual assault in it. The bar is really low, I know. But it definitely wasn’t an enjoyable watch either, and if it weren’t for Fort, I would’ve just dropped this after it became the Rak show. I wouldn’t recommend you watch this, and I certainly won’t ever rewatch it either, but I’d choose it over TharnType any day. There’s a good story in there somewhere, and for the first three episodes I did appreciate how it felt like something different than your usual BL. Sadly, it all fell apart somewhere on that journey back to Bangkok which is a real shame. If someone else wants to give me the Moana, child of the island, story of my dreams, I’d appreciate that greatly.

Read More

16 episodes, no plot in sight, and I'm eating it up

I imagine the conversation about how this show came to be going something like this…

Writer A: Guys, I have an idea for a new story!
Writer B: Oh, fantastic! What’s the plot about?
Writer A: Ah, the plot? That would be good to have I guess. But screw it, we’re not doing a plot this time.
Writer C: Uh, okay… So if there isn’t a plot, what is the show about?
Writer A: Well, I had all these scene left over from other shows that didn’t make the cut, so I just kind of strung them all together to create a show. It’s about this large group of friends who are a bunch of idiots but a lot of fun, and cute boys will fall in love!
Writer B: I guess people love cute boys falling in love, so that works for me.
Writer C: Yeah, sure. So, since there isn’t a plot, maybe we should keep it short and simple? Maybe go with 8 episodes instead of the usual 12.
Writer A: I was thinking more like 16.
Writer C: But why? If there isn’t a plot, wouldn’t it be better to keep it short and sweet?
Writer A: Absolutely not. We have four couples in this, so we need more episodes.
Writer B: Oh, great! So that means we’ll have four incredibly well fleshed out couples that all get about an equal amount of screen time?
Writer A: Don’t be silly. We’ll spend a lot of time on two ships, and give the other two some scenes here and there.
Writer B: Are you sure about this? The whole thing kinda sounds like a very strange show to make. Will people really watch it?
Writer C: I guess they will if we get phenomenal actors. Maybe we should hit Khaotung and First up.
Writer A: Nope, we’ll get a bunch of mediocre actors and just make them do cute things and do puppy eyes very often, so people will look past the fact that some of them *cough Phuwin cough Marc cough cough* aren’t the greatest at portraying emotions. Not that the show really needs great actors anyway, because there isn’t really any meaningful conflict, so there aren’t many scenes of heightened emotions.
Writer B: I’m not sure, dude. But I guess if we come up with new scenes and stuff and avoid dead-ridden tropes, it might be a breath of fresh air.
Writer A: Don’t be silly. Why fix what ain’t broke? We’re going to use all the cliche scenes and tropes and we’ll run wild with them. Or do you guys have a better idea?
Writer C: Nah, thinking of something new and unique sounds like a lot of work. I say we run with what you got.
Writer B: Works for me, now let’s go eat something.
Writer A: Ah yes, eating. They do that in the show too. Like a lot.

This series is nothing new, nothing unique, it has no real plot or meaningful conflict, the characters aren’t really interesting, some actors are really struggling (mainly Phuwin and Marc, but Pond and Winny certainly won't win Oscars any time soon either), and one of the romances is dragged out beyond any point of reason. In short, it has everything I don’t like, and I ABSOLUTELY ATE THAT SHIT UP. If you ask me why, I honestly couldn’t tell you. Despite it dragging a little after a while, it was incredibly entertaining and adorable, and I honestly have not much more to say than that, so this will not be my usual in depth review.

The best part of this is by far the friend group. I’m convinced they all share one collective brain cell that hops from head to head, depending on the episode, and I love it. Okay, Fang may get his own brain cell, but the rest are definitely sharing. They’re just a bunch of idiots who do dumb stuff, but they’re so supportive of each other and they all bounce off each other incredibly well. The chemistry between the actors was great, so this felt actually believable unlike the friend groups in other shows. It also didn’t fall into the trap of forgetting about the friends as soon as the romance begins to pick up. The title fits perfectly because they really are, they just exist, which sounds incredibly boring and like a slog to get through, but it really wasn't at all (at least not for me). It was a joy to watch them and I could’ve probably gone for another five episodes just because they were so hilariously over the top and stupid and cute.

An honourable mention goes to Satang as Toey. He absolutely nailed the role and Toey is so insanely adorable that I squealed every time he was on screen. I just wanted to put him in my pocket and protect him from the world, and I loved how his friends felt the same and spoiled and protected him. So cute. Aou was phenomenal as Tan as well and despite the character being an annoying cringe fest, I found myself loving him.

That’s honestly all I have to say. If you’re a plot driven person, this show might drive you crazy because nothing really happens in it. But if you enjoy a bunch of idiots being idiots and having a great time together, then this might be for you. I honestly expected not to like this series at all, but it ended up on my list of shows I’d rewatch any day (if it weren't for it being such a large time commitment). This is not an objective 8, it's an 8 in terms of subjective enjoyment and entertainment factor. Objectively, this isn't anything great. So if you want to enjoy this, you’ll just have to give up on trying to watch this under a critical perspective, and instead embrace it for what it is, aka chaos x 100.

Read More

A boss, a babe, and a lot of bad writing

I really wanted to like this, and in certain moments I did. But only if I turned my brain off enough in order to enjoy the fluff. This is gonna be a long one, so strap yourselves in.

To start this off, let’s talk about Force and Book. When I first saw them in Enchanté, I liked them as a pairing, and I still do. But I think that’s only because I’ve seen plenty of behind the scenes clips of them, and thusly know that they love working together, and enjoy each other’s company. They’ve been great friends for a really long time, then got cast in a BL together, which is a very heartwarming story. If I didn’t know all that, I probably wouldn’t enjoy them together as much as I do. Objectively speaking, I don’t think they have much romantic chemistry. They do have chemistry, don’t get me wrong. But whenever I see them together, it mostly feels like two best friends - which granted, they are, but you shouldn’t be able to tell that while watching the show. It becomes especially apparent when physical intimacy is involved. They’re solid with hugs, but anything that goes beyond hugging just feels slightly off. I don’t feel any sexual tension between them, which makes scenes of that sort very awkward to watch. It feels more like someone dared them to make out in a game of truth or dare, and they are awkwardly being peer-pressured into it.
When it comes to their acting ability in general, I don’t think they’re the greatest actors, but I think they suit the roles of Gun and Cher really well. Since the show doesn’t ask for many moments of intense emotion from them, they’re doing a pretty decent job. The acting gets rough during supposedly sad and moving scenes. Clearly, they just need a bit more practice. And I feel like maybe it would be good to try pairing them with different acting partners in the future. I feel like there might be more romantic chemistry there, and they could thusly unfold their potential better. They’d probably be great at playing brothers who love to annoy each other tough. And by that I mean playing actual brothers, not step-brothers who get romantically involved or something like that (Yes, I’m looking at you HIStory 4 Close to You).

The acting or the lack of romantic chemistry, however, isn’t my main issue. In regular, light-hearted scenes with a bit of humour, they’re doing well enough to make me smile at their oftentimes cute interactions. My main issue with the series is the writing. And it started to show from the very beginning.

Gun is supposed to be this tough, cold, unapproachable guy who is feared by his employees. That in itself isn’t the problem. The problem is that the Gun which characters tell us about does NOT exist. We’re being told one thing, but shown a completely different thing. Gun took an instant liking to Cher, opened up to him incredibly fast, and Cher basically had him wrapped around his finger by episode two. This completely clashes with the image of the stern, unapproachable, antisocial boss we were sold. Judging by what we were told, Gun should’ve taken a long time to warm up to Cher. He should’ve treated him very roughly at the start. But instead, he basically turned into a love drunk puppy whenever Cher was around. At no time did I believe in the image of Gun that was sold to us. If you wanted me to believe that he was this hard-to-please, bitter boss, you would’ve had to show me that for more than maybe one or two scenes. And now you may say "Well, he had a reason to open up to Cher so easily! After all, he’s been listening to his ASMR videos for a while!“ While that is true, it is no excuse to me. After all, it’s not like he really knew Cher from his videos, he only knew his voice. I do believe that this may be a factor, why he could’ve taken a quicker liking to Cher. But quicker doesn’t mean basically melting whenever Cher’s around from like day two. Or even in the last episode, Cher said that Gun apparently doesn’t say what’s on his mind, when that’s entirely untrue from what we’ve seen. The thing is, all this could’ve been easily avoided. Just don’t have characters talk about how scary and hard to approach the boss is. Have him be a regular boss. Then it would’ve been way more believable that he’d take a liking to Cher that quickly. If you don’t want to show a period of time where he’s being cold towards Cher in the beginning, don’t write it into your story. Simple as that. Then again "regular boss easily falls in love with his new intern“ doesn’t sound like quite as intriguing of a story.

The next issue, in my opinion, is the way this show writes conflict. We have a few different conflicts, such as Cher taking the blame for that one employee who gave the evidence to the boss of that other company, or the whole "I’m just an intern, you’re a company owner“ conflict. Both of those were handled very poorly. For example, when Cher takes the blame for his co-worker in the first scenario, Gun (who doesn’t know Cher is innocent yet) is obviously very upset. They end up having a fight in Cher’s condo during which Cher suddenly bursts out saying "My life has been a big mess ever since I met you! It’s freaking exhausting! We should’ve never met!“ This made no sense to me at all. It was never really shown that meeting Gun really messed with Cher’s life at all. Sure, he had to face his own feelings, but what else happened? Gun was being nothing but welcoming and nice to him up to that point, so this came so out of the blue. It seemed like the writers just wanted to have some dramatic lines in there, so they threw in that dialogue, even if it made no sense given the context.

The whole intern dating the boss conflict was handled poorly too. First, I have to give credit where credit is due though. I usually really dislike boss-employee (especially intern) relationships, because of the imbalance in the power dynamic. And I still think it’s problematic, but in this show, it didn’t really irk me all that much. That’s because despite Cher being the intern, it never felt like there was a power imbalance in their relationship. Sure, Cher is more child-like and immature than Gun, but he has a lot of moments in which he’s serious. So I never felt like this was something to be concerned about. Nor did Gun ever use his position as the boss, to take out his mood on Cher in the office after a fight or something (for example by making him do silly tasks or such). So I was positively surprised by that.
However, the conflict that came from the whole boss-intern-dynamic could’ve so easily been avoided. Cher was only working at the office for a very limited amount of time. By the time the two got really close, he had like a month or two left, I think. First of all, Gun should’ve just waited to make any romantic move on Cher until his internship was over. Just because that’s what’s objectively the right thing to do. But even if he didn’t, at least when it very obviously became an issue for Cher, they should’ve just paused their relationship. If it is such a big deal for Cher that people are talking, then why not just wait to actually be together until your internship is over? You only had like a month to go. Couldn’t you have kept it in your pants for that long?? I just don’t get it. Since this conflict could’ve been so easily avoided or solved, it just felt silly to me.

Then we have the conflict of Gun’s mother not wanting Cher to be with Gun. And this is the part of the show that made me really furious, because it turned the character of Cher into an inconsiderate asshole. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Cher altogether, simply because he’s pretty annoying in my opinion. But he had his moments. I was fine with him, until this conflict turned him into an absolute idiot with no regard for Gun’s feelings. So, the issue at hand is that Gun’s mother tells Cher that she doesn’t think he’s worthy of being with her son. That’s an interesting conflict! If you were in that position, what would you do? Talk to your significant other about what their mother told you? Tell them that you feel unworthy without mentioning their mother? Tell them that you need a bit of time to become someone you’re proud of, to then be the best version of you in your relationship? Well, not our boy Cher! Instead, he leaves a note on the pillow, saying that they aren’t suitable to be together after all, at least for now, and to please not come looking for him. At this point, I was screaming at my computer screen because WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING, CHER???????? Gun has at multiple times voiced his fear of losing his happiness, aka Cher. Cher kept telling him that he needn’t fear, because he’d always stay with him. Even when Cher already knew that he was going to leave, he still told Gun that. Clearly, Gun was very insecure about this, and had a fear of abandonment that he was very open about with Cher. So you’d assume that Cher wouldn’t just leave him like a fucking asshole. I understand that Cher was in a difficult position. And I’m not saying he should’ve stayed with Gun if he didn’t feel comfortable (yet). But what he should’ve done is be considerate, and tell Gun that he has to do certain things before they can be together. That he doesn’t have to worry, because he’ll be back. That maybe in the meantime, they can just be friends or something. But nope, he just left a note and walked right out. It is justified later by Cher saying, that Gun wouldn't have let him go if he told him the truth. But I don't buy it.
This whole thing actually would’ve been a super intriguing plot to explore! Having Gun revert to his old grumpy and closed-off self (which we didn’t see much of, as mentioned before, but you get what I mean) would’ve been very interesting. Seeing Cher struggle to keep away from Gun as he tries to find out what he needs to become, in order to feel worthy of being with Gun. If this had happened half-way through the series, and was then explored, it would’ve made for an interesting plot line. But of course that didn’t happen. This happened in episode 11, leaving no room for exploration. The conflict basically didn’t even last a whole episode, because by the end of it, thanks to the power of montage and time-skip, Cher was back at Gun’s office, asking him to be his boyfriend. Sigh.
I would rate this series much higher, if Gun had just been like "I’m definitely not getting back together with you“ and slammed the door in Cher’s face. Which would’ve been the logical thing for him to do. He let Cher in (which apparently was hard for him, because of his fear of people leaving, which wasn’t portrayed properly but oh well), just for him to hurt him like this. It would make sense for him to revert back into his shell, not wanting to let anyone close ever again. But of course this is episode 12, so we need to resolve this quickly and get to a happy end. And thusly, Gun immediately takes Cher back, proving once again that Cher has him wrapped around his finger and that there’s nothing of a tough, hard to warm up to boss anywhere in sight. Of course Gun's mom is now suddenly on board with Cher too. I'm not saying she couldn't have changed her mind, but I just don't think winning an e-sports competition would really impress this woman.

I think part of the problem is, that the writers weren’t interested in exploring conflict in a meaningful way. They wanted to make a cute, light-hearted show, but figured they needed conflict of some kind, to keep it interesting. I honestly would’ve preferred if they just fed us fluff for 12 episodes straight (or well, gay), instead of shoehorning in these stupid conflicts and then not doing anything with them. Or even better, they should’ve turned this into 8 (or at most 10) episodes, because it felt very repetitive and it was just dragging by the end.

There were more issues, that I’ll not dive into as much, because this review is already way too long. But some of those issues are:
- Why the hell was there one random scene of Jack and his mom, and then we never got a scene from Jack’s perspective again? That should’ve just been cut and told to us through dialogue.
- The whole storyline of Tian having been sexually abused by her stepfather had no point being there. It wasn’t explored at all, but just served as some shocking twist that wasn’t needed. If you’re going to throw in such a serious issue, do it properly or not at all.
- Similarly, I struggled with the inclusion of Jack suffering from depression. I’m all for including mental illnesses in BLs, even if they aren’t at the forefront of the story. It’s important to do so, even. But the way they went about it in this show felt off to me. It didn’t feel like a sincere portrayal, but rather like someone in the writer’s room was like "Imagine how much praise we’ll get if we include some sort of mental illness!“, so they threw this in to fill some woke quota, rather than being genuinely interested in depicting it in a sincere way. Maybe that’s just my subjective feeling though, I can’t quite put into words why I’m feeling iffy about it in this case specifically.
- Also, the whole Thoop storyline just came to an abrupt and unexplained end. What happened to his drug case? What happened to the step-father? It felt like it resolved itself magically because well, this is episode 12, and everyone needs a happy ending now! Similarly, we never got an end to the whole storyline with Gun's former friend, Time. That plot thread just vanished into thin air.
- The last episode was filled with excessive cringe. I love some amount of cringe and a lot of fluff, but this was A LOT to handle. When Jack spit his drink in Cher’s face, saying he’s choking on his public love declarations, I heavily related. He’s now officially my favorite character in this mess.

I’m aware that my review sounds rather negative. But there definitely were really cute moments in this show that I was able to enjoy. So despite getting angry at the writing, I still found myself smiling quite a lot. Still, I cannot rate this any higher than a 5 due to the mentioned issues. I feel like we need to hold BLs to a higher standard if we want to get more out of them than just mindless entertainment on a Sunday afternoon, when you got nothing better to do. The show is cute, but if you pay attention to the writing, it’ll lose its charm pretty quickly. If you like Force and Book, you’ll probably enjoy this despite all the glaring issues. If you aren’t a fan of them, I’d recommend skipping this entirely. Or at least just fast-forwarding through it. If you’re interested in office romances, you’ll probably find a better one, after all there’s plenty of those out there.

Read More

Promising, but sadly lacking in plenty of ways

Not gonna lie, this is a weird one. Mainly because what I liked about it most, was also what I liked about it least. And that might make no sense, but let me explain…

This show definitely isn’t your typical BL. It’s much less filled with all the cliches and tropes, which was quite refreshing. Actually, it's what I enjoyed most about it. No sponge baths, no accidental tripping and falling into a kiss, no treating a little cut like an injury equivalent of someone in need of heart surgery. Having seen so many BLs serving us the same old scenes, just slightly varied, really is beginning to get boring, so I appreciated that this show wasn’t leaning into it as heavily as most other BLs. However, there was one big issue. The point of all these cliche scenes is to create cute and meaningful moments for the characters to connect, and to make the viewers feel all smiley and giddy about. So if you don’t add any of those cliche BL scenes, it seems rather obvious that you need to come up with original scenes that serve the same purpose. You need to somehow create swoon-worthy, cute moments that make us root for the characters as a couple. However, this show didn’t really do that? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a BL with as few cute moments as this one, which led to me not really care about the romance at all. They had plenty of scenes together, don’t get me wrong. But only very few of them actually served the purpose of them having an adorable, wholesome moment. Or deeply connecting on an emotional level.

This can maybe be excused with the fact that this is a series about two grown men, not high schoolers. So it does feel natural that you wouldn’t get as many moments that make you feel giddy and fluffy, because aww look at these two kids in love! However, if you have almost none of these moments, it just leaves the audience asking themselves "Are they actually in love?“ You could take many of these cliche scenes and alter them to fit a more adult narrative, and make them appear more mature. But in my opinion, they didn’t really do that. Mostly, it just felt like two best friends going about their lives, and every now and again giving each other a sweet look. Then suddenly, apparently their love is mutual and they kiss. It just wasn’t enough to get me invested in them as a couple.

It didn’t help that the leads didn’t really have much romantic chemistry in the first place. That, paired with a drought of cute moments, was, in my opinion, the show’s biggest downfall. Even their kiss scene was disappointing. You’d expect quite the passion if one of the two people involved has been pining over the other guy for well over ten years. But nope, no passion, no spark, no nothing. In fact, they spent more time on showing us reaction shots of side-characters, rather than showing us the actual kiss. I assume that’s because even the director saw that there was no chemistry between them. And after their kiss, they didn’t even let the characters have a few scenes of happiness, and being cute together. Instead, the next scene after the kiss is Phu’s grandmother dying, so that’s that for the honeymoon phase, I guess.

I’m sad to say all of that, because I really wanted to like this show. I’m always happy to hear when a BL is being released that isn’t centered around the lives of high school or college students. We’ve seen so many of those already, so anything different is refreshing. However, as much as I was trying to enjoy this, I ended up not really liking it. It wasn’t incredibly bad. It didn’t have as many plot holes as other BLs, the characters were mostly consistent, and it wasn’t romanticising toxic behaviors. It was just very boring. Despite this being only 10 episodes, instead of the usual 12, this series drags a lot. Nothing really interesting ever happens in it. The revelation that Phu abandoned Nan because he was secretly in love with him, was predictable from episode one. All in all, it was very predictable, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but with a show that already doesn’t have a lot going on, it certainly doesn’t help. By episode 4, I started fast-forwarding through it. I think the show would’ve greatly benefitted from being even shorter. 6 episodes would’ve been enough.

Another thing that irked me was the whole set-up. We’ve seen this plenty of times before: Pretty Boy A is secretly in love with Pretty Boy B. They get drunk one night, and kiss. In a fit of gay panic, Pretty Boy A does the totally sensical thing of vanishing into thin air - leaving Pretty Boy B a sad mess. In this case, Phu was the one to leave Nan behind, after them having been best friends since childhood. He didn’t respond to Nan’s messages, and they didn’t see each other for 10 years. Of course, when they coincidentally meet again, Nan is not furiously upset with Phu. Because that totally wouldn't be a logical reaction at all to your best friend abandoning you with only a post-it note left behind. Nope, instead Nan is super happy to see Phu and immediately wants to rekindle their friendship. Eventually, the pent up anger does come out, which was nice to see. But I couldn’t help but imagine how much more interesting this whole thing would’ve been, if they started off with Nan being extremely pissed at Phu. Seeing Phu try to win back Nan’s trust would’ve made for a much more appealing story than them instantly going back to being best friends. If you haven’t seen or talked to a person for 10 years, you’ll probably have grown apart quite a bit, so this really didn’t feel realistic.

The story had potential. If it had been executed in a better way, it might have actually been enjoyable. As I said, it would’ve been more appealing if Nan stayed angry at Phu for a while. Similarly, it would’ve been a lot better if the story didn’t start with a summary of their childhood and college days. It should’ve started in the present day with Phu and Nan meeting, and Nan being so upset that he refuses to even talk to Phu. The audience isn’t stupid. We would’ve understood that these two have some sort of history. It would’ve been much more intriguing to figure out the pieces this way. I think the revelation of Phu having had feelings for Nan for so long would’ve hit much more that way too. Not that it would’ve been very surprising either way, because this is a BL after all, but you get what I mean.

Another thing that bothered me, and this might be a bit random, but… Can we stop normalising people breaking into their love interest’s condo? Such a scene happened, and was played for laughs. I understand that Nan only sneaked into Phu’s place to check on his cat (Which he just left with Phu, without any instructions??), but still. He could’ve checked on the cat and then left again. But nope, he snooped through Phu’s belongings, such as opening boxes etc. And Phu was not mad about this at all? I love my best friend to the moon and back, but if she went into my apartment without my permission and looked through my stuff, I’d at least sit her down for a serious conversation.

The characters weren’t really likeable to me. The only one I actually enjoyed was Party, Nan’s jealous best friend. At first, I was annoyed that we’d be doing this trope again, but it was done in a pretty decent way. Party was never portrayed as a villain, but as someone really likeable and mature. Other than that, I didn’t care about anyone. I probably could’ve liked Phu if it weren’t for him having abandoned his best friend without a word. His grandmother was decent, but I didn’t feel emotionally connected to her, so when she died, I didn’t even feel slightly sad.

Another issue was the humour. It didn’t land at all. Only one scene got a chuckle out of me. And them trying to make fun of the overweight child was in very poor taste.

The acting was fine. Not noteworthily good or bad. In emotional scenes, the actor portraying Nan was actually quite good with his delivery. The actor portraying Phu on the other hand was lacking a lot in those scenes. I didn’t really buy his emotions which also didn’t help getting invested in the whole thing.

Now for a few things that I actually enjoyed:
- In flashbacks, we saw that during their college days, Phu was the one taking care of Nan. When they reunited 10 years later, Phu immediately fell back into that role, and went to clean up Nan’s entire place. They could’ve done more with this, but that was actually a scene I liked. It would’ve been awesome if they went with the storyline of Nan being super upset and cold with Phu at first. Then they could’ve had a dramatic line like "I’ve taken care of myself for the past 10 years, so there’s no need for you to do this now!“
- The relationship between Phu and his grandma was very wholesome and cute.
- That one scene where Nan comforts Phu who’s having a nightmare. If there were more moments like this, I might have actually rooted for them. This was by far the cutest moment in the entire show. Like one drop of water in a drought.
- The birthday fish instead of birthday cake was actually funny. That was the only moment I chuckled at.
- As I said, it doesn’t feel as trope-y as most other BLs, which is refreshing. If only the execution was better, this could’ve actually been very easy to like.
- Party.

I’m not actually sure whom I’d recommend this to. I feel like it’s just not what most BL viewers want out of their BLs. Usually, viewers either want a lot of cuteness and fluff, which this show had very little of, or they want a great storyline, which this show also didn’t have. Ideally, there's both fluff and a solid storyline. This one had neither. It was dull and boring. So I guess I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone, really. It wasn’t offensively bad, but I would’ve preferred it if it had been, because at least then it might have fallen into the so-bad-it’s-funny category. But this was just 10 episodes of boredom with no substance, and without much cuteness. So if you skip this one, you’re definitely not missing out on much. And that is my promise to you.

Read More

Another one for the 'adults behaving like teenagers' list...

Going into this show, I was expecting a mature story about romance and the hardships of adult life. What I got instead is yet another show about adults behaving the way high-schoolers who are in love for the first time would. Let's talk about it, shall we?

I'll start with the good things first. Both the acting and the chemistry are fantastic. I love Great and Inn together. They've got really solid chemistry in any scene they're in, which is really refreshing when we get so many ships whose kiss scenes are almost painful to watch. They're both great actors as well, always delivering the necessary emotion or humour in any given moment. They're so good in fact, I think their potential is wasted in this series. I believe a more emotional show, something darker and grittier would suit their talent a lot better than a romcom — maybe something like Only Friends, or Moonlight Chicken. Since I'm a very chemistry-driven BL watcher, I managed to get quite a bit of enjoyment from this series because of these two. They definitely carried the whole thing on their shoulders, and I hope to see them in better projects in the future.

The side-couple was cute, and the characters seemed interesting, especially Yak's brother. However, I'm just not really interested in already established couples, so despite their solid chemistry, I didn't find myself loving them all that much.

Now for the rest of the show... Well, sadly it's yet another very mid GMMTV production, suffering from all the same flaws most of their other shows do. Shallowness in the exploration of themes and characters, bloated conflict, unsatisfying conclusions — it's all there. At least this one didn't feel as cliche as most other of their shows do, so I'll give them that. But still, it suffers from GMMitis.

First of all, the characters feel superficial and their arcs aren't explored in a valuable or even satisfying way.

Dee is a heartbroken doctor with mommy and daddy issues. That's pretty much all there is to his personality. There are interesting ideas there, like him remembering everyone's birthday and wanting to make the day special for them because he never felt special. However, that gets brought up once or twice but doesn't affect the story in any other way than a throw-away line. I couldn't really tell you what the guy likes to do in his free time or anything like that. I couldn't really tell you what he does at work either. We get to see him at the hospital a lot, but he never does any work other than being nice to children and examining Yak's shoulder. Don't get me wrong, I love how sweet he is with the kids, but I expect more from a story centred around a surgeon. It would've been such a great chance to explore the immense pressure healthcare employees are under, the responsibility that comes with his work, how sometimes you cannot save people, and how exhausting it is to work long hours. We didn't get to see any of that, sadly, and it felt like a very beautified reality of a taxing job. Other than being a doctor, his character is defined by believing that his parents never loved him. However, it never truly feels like that influences his character in a meaningful way — at least not unless it's relevant for the plot to be plotting along. Dee seeing one video of his parents being super happy after he was born was apparently enough for him to be healed of his issues. He didn't need to work through it, he just needed to be shown this video. A video he probably should've already seen a long time ago. He has such a close bond to his grandmother (which I loved), so why in the world would she never have shown him this? Either way, one would really think Dee feeling unloved by his parents would affect him heavily in how he forms relationships now as an adult. Maybe he'd feel undeserving of Yak because he struggles with self-worth issues. Or maybe he'd cling to Yak desperately because he's afraid of losing the love he finally receives. But the whole thing didn't seem to influence his approach in relationships much at all. At least it wasn't depicted well that way, or maybe I just didn't see it. But then it's honestly on the show for not making it clear enough.

The exploration of Yak also felt lacklustre. He feels a bit better fleshed out as a character. At least the trauma of losing his mother seemed to affect him more. I really loved the inclusion of him having hallucinations, but those also only ever appeared when the plot wanted them to. Otherwise, it was forgotten about which is usually not how mental health issues like this work. His nightmares also never felt like they were a careful representation of sleep issues, but like a cheap way of getting scenes of him and Dee cuddling. Of course higher stress levels (like before a fight) can cause such symptoms to worsen, but it felt more like a situation of plot-convenience than an accurate depiction. I wish we would've seen more of his therapy sessions or how he usually copes with these things, but the show clearly wasn't interested in any of that. It feels a lot like they just threw the mental health issues and the "you should go to therapy" in there for some woke-points. I genuinely did like his relationship with his brother tough. And I did like certain seeds of what could've blossomed into a beautiful exploration such as Yak refusing to fake-date Dee because he was afraid of what it would mean for him to be outed as queer in the very heteronormative and toxic-masculine environment of boxing. That could've made food for thought and meaningful character development. Sadly though, this was just dropped after 0.2 seconds. In the end, Yak even kisses Dee at the boxing ring, in front of everyone. This could've been a heartwarming and satisfying conclusion to the arc that should've existed but didn't.

Then we have the relationship between these two shallow characters which in turn doesn't end up being much deeper. Firstly, it progresses way too quickly. I don't mind them having a one-night stand immediately, or even becoming regular hook-up partners. Physical attraction like that is a thing. But they didn't just feel like two guys having sex from the get-go, they felt like they've known each other for years. Basically, they acted way too comfortable around each other and way too intense, like Yak giving a guy he basically knew for a week his necklace. Because it all felt so intense from the start, there wasn't any progression of their relationship. Their bond feels the same way in episode 3 as it does in episode 10. It was super obvious that they've developed feelings for each other from the start, so the shoehorned in conflict of Yak liking his friend from college just felt silly considering how every one of his actions pointed at how head over heels he was for Dee. Dee refusing to be Yak's boyfriend when he already acted like he was the entire show also felt annoying. Maybe this was their attempt at showing that the struggles with his parents have affected him, but that was never made clear. Dee was ready to be in a relationship with Dr. Ter, so what is the holdback now? Sure, being turned down by Dr. Ter might have scarred him, but it's not like he had anything to fear with Yak who was very clearly head over heels for him. In the end, their actions just didn't make much sense.

That aside, their relationship was incredibly frustrating to watch. Don't get me wrong, they were cute together. I loved how Yak always keeps it together around other people but lets his guard down in front of Dee. However, the two of them were too adorable for my liking. I do love myself a good dose of fluff in my BLs. But these are two grown men, two adults. Their relationship did not depict that at all, instead making them feel like two high school students who have never dated anyone before. I'm not saying adults can't kiss each other on the cheek and do cheesy stuff like that, but it was way too much. Just think of this: What if you put Tinn and Gun from My School President in the roles of Yak and Dee. It would not feel like these two are too young to play the parts, instead, it would be very fitting (minus the sex). There isn't any difference in how Yak and Dee act to shows depicting love stories between high schoolers or young college students. In fact, even some shows of younger couples have more actual kiss scenes (like We Are or even Only Boo). It's especially odd since their relationship started with sex. You would expect two guys who have the hots for each other to actually kiss on the mouth instead of asking for sniff kisses all the time. The whole 'saving my first kiss for the one I love' trope is getting tiring, especially with a character who's fine with having sex with a stranger. It only added to the immaturity factor, but I was okay with it. It's just that once that initial first kiss does happen, Dee immediately falls into the category of BL boys who treat kissing as some sort of sin that can be done only VERY sparingly. It's supposed to be teasing, I think, but it doesn't come across that way. Just feels like he doesn't want to kiss. Which would be fine if he was the asexual character, but he's not. It's just strange.

Speaking of the sex scenes... They felt incredibly cringe and didn't fit the premise of the show. One would think that a show centred around a friends-with-benefits story puts a big emphasis on the sex scenes. That they'd make them intimate and passionate. Instead, this show fades to black after a few seconds of cringe neck sucking. I don't need sex scenes in BLs at all, but if you do make a show with sex at its forefront, it's just a bit strange to handle the scenes in the way they were handled here. Feels like someone wanted to do a spicy show but was forced to make it PG13 instead, so it's a weird vibe. The relationship of the side couple felt a lot steamier than that of the main couple. Oh, and the worst crime this show has committed: having The Eclipse play in the background of their first make-out scene. I was literally yelling "Don't involve my AyeAkk in this!"

The show's humour didn't land with me at all. It felt overly cringe and borderlined on secondhand embarrassment many times. It also clashed too harshly with the more emotional emotional themes it wanted to explore but ended up sidelining. Which is once again the most frustrating part. Another show with great potential has gone wasted. I loved THAT they included mental health struggles, but I don't love HOW they included them. It felt superficial, but it's a start I suppose. Again, exploring bisexuality in the boxing world would've been a deep ass pool for them to dive into, but they chose to remain in the shallow end with it. The same thing goes with the way they handled the Dr. Ter situation. Exploring what it means to fall in love with someone who doesn't love you back and how that influences you could've been great. But instead of doing that, they just made Dr. Ter despicable which made it easy for Dee to move on. It would've been interesting to see how he gets over a truly great guy, and how that affects his ability to open up to Yak. But nope, Dr. Ter is just a douchebag now.

I do want to give an honourable mention to them including an asexual character. As an ace person myself, this felt HUGE. When I watched the first episode which talked about Dee's friend finding it hard to find a boyfriend since he's ace left me super excited. I thought we'd explore that, even if he's a side-character, but we didn't. Which really shouldn't be a surprise at this point, but I still have hope. Despite it not being explored, the representation still is important and I'll take all the crumbs I can get.

I didn't have a bad time watching this show, even if my review sounds very negative. The chemistry between the main couple was enough to get me through it, but that alone just isn't satisfying to me anymore. I used to be over the moon as long as I got cute scenes of a couple with chemistry and enough fluff, but these days I'm just desperate for BLs to do more than that (she says after having enjoyed We Are, but I've already talked about that in my last review). I don't need the most exciting storylines. I'm totally fine with a friends-with-benefits and/or fake-dating storyline. I actually really like fake-dating. But if you do such a simple premise, at least put in the effort to explore themes beyond scratching the surface. This is another GMM show that would’ve had the potential to set itself apart, but ended up feeling just like any other GMMTV show, just a lot more cringe. I’m all here for adult relationships being depicted instead of all these campus BLs, and I was looking forward to them doing this here, but again, these guys didn’t feel like adults. Inn and Great are great (pun fully inntended (see what I did there?)), but I wish their talent would’ve been put to better use.

Read More

Workplace harassment is not cute. Do not let the fluffiness fool you.

It's difficult to rate this one. If you look at it from far away, the show is pretty cute. But if you look at it from close up, there's a pretty problematic message there.

I understand the appeal: Lee Jun has been hurt by love in the past and thusly, completely closed himself off to feeling any romantic emotions. Ha Ram, the new employee at the company, falls in love with him at first sight, and is eager to change Lee Jun's mind about love. It sounds sweet when you put it that way, and they definitely pushed a sweet narrative with plenty of cute moments. The issue however is, that sexual harassment in the workplace is not cute. Ha Ram is pretty aggressive in his pursuit of getting Lee Jun to fall for him, even if Lee Jun turns him down plenty of times, and tells him to stop his behaviour. If this happened in real life, it wouldn't be cute or swoon-worthy at all, and it wouldn't be comedic either, like the show often portrayed it to be. It would be an absolutely horrible situation to be in, and action would need to be taken. But because this is a BL, the show just looks right past that and romanticises the harassment. We've seen this happen in so many BLs before, and it's about time that we stop just accepting this as something that is cute or normal. It's disgusting behaviour, and even trying to hide it in-between adorable scenes, cute boys and comedy does not make it okay.

The story could've been a heartfelt tale of regaining hope if they had handled it differently. Had Ha Ram and Lee Jun started off as friends, and then gradually fallen in love simultaneously, this could've been extremely adorable. They had all the ingredients to make this into something really great: The acting was really solid, the two main leads had plenty of chemistry, the side-characters were likeable (aside from the villainous ex, of course), and they know how to create comedic as well as cute moments. Everything was there, they just needed to create a story surrounding it that doesn't push a toxic narrative. Because the message of this show ends up being "Just harass your co-worker for long enough, and they will eventually fall for you as well!" which is obviously extremely messed up.

There's something I really did like about the show though. Right now, there's a boom of office romances. They're kinda replacing campus BLs at the moment. I don't really take issue with office romances if there isn't an inappropriate power dynamic at play. But what I do generally dislike about office romances is that the characters still feel like college (or even high school) students most of the time. It's like they had all these ideas for campus BLs, but people got tired of those, so they just put the characters they had come up with into an office setting, without altering the characters to behave like actual adults. With Love Mate, I was positively surprised about how the characters actually felt like adults, especially Lee Jun. He was hardened by life, behaved maturely, and kissing as well as sex weren't played up to be a huge deal. I really enjoyed that, and I hope we'll see more office romances that take into this direction. Hopefully with less problematic messages though.

The best thing about the show was Lee Jun's female co-worker. I have a massive crush on her. She's so kind, pretty, and cute. This has nothing to do with my review of the show, but I just needed to get that out of my system.

I cannot in good faith rate this any higher than a 2 since it promotes such a problematic message. I do want to give credit to the acting, the chemistry and the comedy though. With a less problematic execution, this could've easily been a 7 or 8.
Would I recommend this to people? Given the toxic message, not really. But I do know that many viewers look past problematic behaviour in BLs, just to enjoy the sweetness of two cute guys falling in love. So if you're one of those people, you're probably gonna like this. If you want BLs to stop romanticising toxicity, then maybe don't support this show in any way. If you want a cute office romance that is way less problematic, watch Our Dating Sim. Both shows were produced by the same studio, so they have very similar vibes.

Read More

Fourth and Gemini can save even the stupidest of ideas

When I saw the teaser for the Our Skyy episodes of My School President, I almost cried. Yes, that might have been a big over-reaction, but let me explain.

I absolutely adore My School President. It is one of my favorite BLs ever. It’s not perfect at all, but it has a very special place in my heart. And that is mainly because of Fourth and Gemini. They were amazing in the show, had fantastic chemistry and are just so cute that you cannot help but smile at whatever they do. So yes, I’m very emotionally attached to both Gemini and Fourth as well as Tinn and Gun. I spent hours, imagining what the Our Skyy episodes would be about. Maybe a time skip to them in college? Maybe they’re preparing for another music contest? Maybe the band is getting more successful and Tinn is feeling insecure about all of Gun’s fans? Those are only a few ideas I had. And then I saw the teaser, and I wanted to scream. Making this into a role reversal storyline was, in my opinion, a really stupid thing to do. We got attached to the characters of Tinn and Gun, and were eager to see a continuation of their story. But what we got is the same story, apparently set in a parallel universe, where the roles are reversed. What a let-down. And despite my urge to cry and scream at my wishes not being fulfilled, I was excited for the episodes to air. Because I already knew I would be smiling like an idiot as I watch Gemini and Fourth work their magic yet again.

I was right.

I still don’t like the concept of this role reversal. Not even slightly. It’s not interesting, it doesn’t add anything meaningful to the original story or the characters. It feels like a fanfic someone wrote, because they wanted it to be GunTinn instead of TinnGun. It’s dumb and useless and I freaking loved every second of it. And that is one hundred percent because of Fourth and Gemini. It felt really weird seeing them in the opposite role, but they still nailed it. They brought their natural cuteness, chemistry and comedy to these two episodes, and turned a stupid concept into a super enjoyable spin-off. Would I have preferred a meaningful continuation of the original story? Absolutely. Am I going to rewatch these two episodes 100 times? Absolutely.

If you liked My School President, you’re probably going to like this, even if at first you think you might not. I liked how Tiw and Por were given more screen time here. They’re really cute together. The whole cast is doing as great of a job as they did in the original series, making this a very enjoyable experience despite the silly concept. It also makes you appreciate how well they cast the actors in their original roles, because this definitely feels off in all the right ways. None of these guys are perfect actors yet (some a bit weaker than others), but for this kind of series it’s definitely more than good enough. The music is still great too. And on top of all this, these two episodes were refreshingly self-aware. It felt almost like a parody of the original show (and other BLs/tropes) in certain moments, and that only added to my enjoyment. Gun talking about how maybe in a different universe, he was more courageous, was a bit too on the nose for me, but I still appreciated the humour of it all. It hurt a little how some of TinnGun’s iconic lines were given to other couples/characters, but at the same time, I enjoyed them doing that. The dance sequence was too long and felt incredibly awkward due to the choreography. It would've felt much more sincere had they just sticked to regular slow-dancing.

I would rate this a 10 if I didn’t hate the idea behind it so much. Not an objective 10, but a very subjective 10, because I can’t stop smiling at Fourth and Gemini. They’re absolute pros at cuteness overload. However, I can’t rate this a 10, not only because I disliked the concept, but also because within the two episodes, certain things didn’t make a lot of narrative sense. For example, the whole conflict between Tinn and Gun in episode two, felt extremely stupid, considering nothing severe had actually happened between them. Gun being unable to tell Tinn he likes him didn’t warrant such a reaction in my opinion. Then again, they only had two episodes and needed to push the story forward somehow, so I’ll excuse this at least to a certain degree.

If you’re looking for a more objective review than that, maybe read some others, because I’m heavily biased when it comes to these two.

All of this being said, I want to pose one question: What the hell was going on in that writer’s room for Our Skyy 2?
Either they were drunk, high, or purposefully trying to make this series as fanfic-y as possible. And I don’t mean that in a bad way, I love fanfiction! It’s just that they chose to execute most of it like a badly written fanfic. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Bad Buddy episodes were about Pat and Pran flying to Mars, where they get sucked into a wormhole that sends them to yet another parallel universe, where everything is gender-swapped and the BL turns into a GL. And maybe in the episodes about A Tale of Thousand Stars, Tian is revealed to be the long lost prince of a magical mountain realm of elves, and he needs to claim his position as royalty with Phupha acting as his bodyguard. And Gun and Cher are probably gonna accidentally swap bodies while sneezing at the same time, thus making the boss the babe and the babe the boss. Anything is possible at this point.

EDIT: I saw the teaser for the A Boss And A Babe episodes, and I wasn’t far off!

Read More

The BLification of a non-BL story

This is a difficult one to rate. As a short story about the hardships of life, this is an easy 8. It has great acting and is filled with emotions. As a BL though, it's basically a 2.

Let me explain...

Had someone told me to watch this without me knowing it was a BL, I would have never suspected the two characters being in love. Their kiss came so out of the blue, I thought it was a dream sequence for a moment. If you ask me, this story would've worked a lot better if it were about brotherly love (not the borderline incest kind BLs seem to be obsessed with). It was emotional, and the two guys reuniting after a long time and becoming the warmth and color in each other's lives once more would've been very cute and touching. There was no need to force a romance into a space where there wasn't any place for it.

It's not that the actors didn't have the potential for romantic chemistry. They easily could've had some, but it's just that the story wasn't written for it. It feels like someone wrote this without any romance in it, and on the day of filming, one guy on set was like "BLs are popular. Let's make this a BL!" So, the director was like, "Alright. At the end of this scene, just kiss." So, the actors did what they were told, but both were confused about what the hell is going on.

I don't have much more to say. It was a sad little story with a glimmer of hope in the form of human connection. That connection should've just been two guys who once were forced into being step brothers and became the love and light in each other's lives, then drifted apart, and at the worst time, they reunite and choose to be brothers once more, even if their parents are no longer together. It doesn't solve all their issues, but it gives them a reason to keep going. The story didn't need anything more than that.

Read More

Maybe getting beaten up has knocked all braincells out of Min

I went into this show very cautiously. GMM struggles to write even simple campus BLs in a sensible way, so my faith regarding a high stakes story was very limited. It's not as bad as I feared, but it's also far from being good. So naturally, I’ll go on a rant.

As expected, Ohm is doing really well as Min. He’s still a pleasure to watch and his emotional delivery is great. Leng, though, is really struggling. He has solid moments, but he would’ve benefitted from gaining some experience in a side role first. Q is an emotionally demanding character, and I wonder what the creators were thinking when they cast a newbie. While Leng does have good moments (the kidnapping in ep 11 was a highlight), he struggles with many scenes. Especially in romantic moments, Leng has this confused, irritated look on his face, like when Min covers Q's ears in front of the TV. That one moment when Q licks chocolate from Min’s finger was one of his best moments in terms of delivering genuine and fitting emotions. He does get less awkward in the later episodes as well, and I do have faith for his future. Leng’s a hard worker, so I’m hopeful he’ll improve quickly.

The chemistry is hard to separate from the acting. I do think they have really solid chemistry but Leng’s stiffness is severely taking away from it. In moments where Leng’s acting is at its best, their chemistry really shines. In moments like that awkward ear covering scene, the sparks are nowhere to be found. So, my conclusion is that once Leng feels more comfortable in front of the camera, their chemistry will become more apparent. Behind the scenes, Ohm and Leng have a ton of chemistry, and they look visually stunning together, so I’ll give them time. Especially since they do have cute moments that had me giddy in the later episodes. Unlike other GMM ships (cough PondPuwin cough), they also have solid kissing chemistry. And I do like that the show allows them to kiss a lot. I'm tired of them treating kissing between two adults like some sin that can only be done on very special occasions.

As far as characters go, I’d say this is one of GMM’s better series. At least when it comes to Min, who’s very caring and protective, brave, and doesn’t shy away from doing morally gray things to make a living. Despite having a playful side, he’s very serious when it comes to things he cares about, and he has clear motives (at least in the beginning). Since Ohm portrays him, he also gets a ton of natural charisma.
Q doesn’t get nearly as much. He's defined solely by his trauma and the difficult relationship with his father. He’s supposed to be a spoiled rich kid, but that goes flying out the window as soon as he enters Min’s house and only comes up again in ep 11 when he fails to cook. Q's also incredibly stupid, which I don’t think is done on purpose, making him frustrating to watch. I do like his strong desire for someone to care about him, but other than that, he just feels too much like a stereotype. Like every other BL character, he suffers from nightmares, has daddy issues and likes to sing/play guitar. He also likes to play keyboards that aren’t plugged in. At least his actual job is producing music, so him serenading Min feels in-character for once. That doesn’t make it any less cringe, though. On top of all that, Q doesn't really grow or mature. Viewing himself as a burden is his whole stick, so you'd expect that to change over the course of the story, but he's stilly pouty about the same thing in episode 11. It feels like we've gotten the same scene of Min reassuring Q seven times over.
The side characters don’t get a personality. Mhen is the sick brother, Yada’s the evil villain, Jeen has a crush on Min, and Q’s dad makes no sense at all. The acting is overall solid. Whoever decided to cast the two Ohms as brothers deserves a raise. They work so well together, and their dynamic is my favorite part of the story. The way Mhen ships Min and Q is adorable (and a nice change since usually, it’s the girlies in BL who are the crazy shippers), and the relationship Mhen and Q develop is cute as well. They make a sweet little family.

In terms of the romance, I’m conflicted. Firstly, the whole thing feels pretty Stockholm-syndrome-ish. Since Min is the worst kidnapper in the world, though, and since I’ve seen a lot worse, this doesn’t bother me all that much. What bothers me more is how their arc moves very quickly and gets way too intense way too fast. By episode six, they are both ready to die for each other. The unclear time frame makes it hard to understand how much time has passed since they met, which doesn't help the case. I’m willing to forgive the fast intensity for a few reasons though:
For Q, it makes sense to get attached so quickly. His entire personality is basically wanting someone who takes care of him, loves and protects him. Min is doing exactly that, so it’s understandable Q would fall hard and fast. It also makes sense that he’s willing to put his life on the line for Min since he doesn’t really have anything to lose. When it comes to Min, a sense of responsibility might come into play. He’s the reason Q got kidnapped in the first place, thusly starting the whole thing. So he might start caring for Q very quickly because he feels responsible. Paired with him being naturally protective and caring adds up. Also, the initial kidnapping and everything that followed was traumatic for both of them, so they're trauma-bonding hard.

So, my main issue isn’t necessarily how quickly their bond is growing, or how easily they both risk their lives for each other. My issue lies in the depiction. Outside of the bad guys being after Q, and Q’s mental health issues, they hardly bond. It doesn’t feel like these two actually know much about each other in the first place. I mean, it isn’t until episode 6 that Min learns what Q’s job is. I really would’ve liked for them to have more conversations about who they are as people. The show does this a little too late with Q realising he doesn't know anything about Min, and starting to make a list. I always understood he likes Min for his caring nature, but I still kinda struggle to understand why Min likes Q. Also, it often feels a bit too one-sided with Min taking such great care of Q, and Q basically just existing and getting into stupid situations.

While I do love the amount of kissing, I do have a bit of an issue with their first kiss in particular. After all these BL kisses where it looks like they don't want to be kissing at all, I appreciate how their first kiss was very passionate, but it felt like such a stark contrast to the rest of their relationship. The sudden horniness felt very out of character for both of them, and I was incredibly taken aback. It just didn’t seem fitting, especially after they’ve both just had such a rough day. Personally, I would’ve opted for a gentler, sweeter approach. I would’ve had them kiss in bed for the first time since this is where the major part of their relationship has taken place (because 70% of their bonding scenes were nightmare based). I think that would’ve been more fitting and meaningful. The kisses that follow are fine for the most part, apart from a few stiff lip-presses like in the aquarium. But I assume that's a thing about directing since we've seen that they clearly don't mind kissing with passion.

All in all, I think this show would’ve greatly benefitted from a side-couple. I know there’s the storyline of Mhen liking Jeen, but that doesn’t count. Maybe have two of Yada’s guards fall in love or something. Anything to get a bit of a breather from Min and Q, because especially Q can get a bit insufferable with his constant pouting and self-pity.

While I do like that there’s always something going on, I do think the show moves a bit too quickly for what it is trying to do. There’s a severe lack of downtime for Min and Q to just hang out in the first half, aka where their bond was supposed to grow most. I think this show has an identity issue. It’s not sure whether it wants to be an action show or a romance show first, so it's doing both half-heartedly. The romance feels lacklustre because of all the action, and the action plot makes little sense. Then suddenly, the action takes a complete halt for a few episodes, just to pick up again in episode 11 with a veeeery rushed kidnapping and resolving all lose plot threads (like the relationship between Q and his dad which was so broken that it should've taken them years to fix...). Everything happening so quickly and being wrapped up in a neat bow just ruined any stakes that could've been build. Why not drag this out into your final episode? Or why not start that whole thing sooner when you previously had two episodes of fluff and honeymoon phase that made the show feel like an entirely different one?

Now for the major issue with this show: potholes and characters acting incredibly stupid to further the plot (specifically in episode 6 and 7)...

First off, Q is an idiot. I know he has little to live for, but is it really necessary to put yourself in danger all the time? He wanders around the streets while he knows someone’s out to kill him. He follows Min into an abandoned warehouse, knowing he’ll meet the guy who wanted him dead. He just follows suspicious and dangerous people around, hoping it’ll go well. The boy acts without thinking, thus doing things that put both him and Min in very dangerous situations. It makes him feel like a complete idiot, and it gets increasingly more frustrating to watch.
He’s not the only one suffering from being dumbed down, though. In episode 6, Yada threatens Q’s father, Q, and by proxy, Min and Mhen. Q’s dad says he needs to get his son to a safe place, and offers Min money to keep his distance. Min turns down the money, but why in the world didn’t Q’s dad just send all three, Q, Min and Mhen, to safe place together? Min is a gifted fighter, so he could act as Q’s bodyguard. But nope, when Min turns down the money, Q’s dad just leaves. We don’t even see the end of that conversation, but I just assume he was like "Well, it was worth a shot. Guess I’ll go now.“ Also, he’s a police officer who just walked in on a crime scene where Yada’s men clearly beat Min black and blue. I’m pretty sure he could’ve arrested them, or at least taken them to the office for interrogation.
Then it’s Min’s turn to act like a prick. Instead of grabbing Q and Mhen, and travel somewhere far away, they act like nothing happened. Like their life wasn’t just threatened. No packing suitcases in a tizzy and frantically trying to get away. Nope, this is the perfect time to play guitar and follow Q to his music studio where they have a make out session. Thus leaving Mhen alone at home like he didn’t just get very frightened. It makes Min feel inconsiderate and goes against everything he stands for. His motivation for everything has been to protect his brother. But now, he just leaves him home alone, and puts himself into dangerous situations to save Q, which could result in Min’s death and leave Mhen all alone — sick, without money and family. The three should’ve ran away together. Q is a rich kid who has a job and probably a whole ass trust fund. He could’ve afforded a hotel for all three of them. But instead, they ruin all sense of suspense and ruin Min’s character in the process. Honestly, when Q told Min "You're stupid" for wanting to be with him still, I couldn't have agreed more. Maybe getting beat up really knocked all the braincells out of Min... If they just ran away, Q nearly getting beaten to death and Mhen panicking in the bathroom in episode 7 could've been avoided. I'm glad that by the end of the episode, they finally came to their senses and Q agreed to go to Vancouver. However, the breakup was unnecessary. Apparently both Q and Min are the type to "go all in", but a long-distance relationship isn't even crossing their minds? Not that they needed to do long-distance because Q never ends up going to Vancouver and their whole break up happens for useless and confusing reasons that I still cannot fully explain. If Q was just sitting around at home, why didn't he try to go see Min sooner?
I might have been a bit too harsh on Q, because it seems like he’s inherited his stupidity from his mother. In the flashback to the two of them getting kidnapped, Q’s mom successfully frees them both. She then proceeds to tell her son to run away and call for help while she stays behind. What the hell is the logic in that? Clearly, when the kidnappers return and see your son gone, they’ll take it out on you, and kill you. Sorry, woman, but getting shot was pretty much your own fault. If you ran with Q, you would’ve at least had a chance at living.

All in all, I find the show entertaining and it has its sweet moments. From episode 5 on, the quality goes down the drain — from unplugged keyboards to characters acting stupid and somehow, everyone's motivations go flying out the window. I'd say episode 5 to 7 and Q's constant back and forth about wanting to be with Min but then realising he's a burden that follows are the most frustrating things to get through. If you make it past that, most of their troubles just disappear for a while and it feels like you're watching an entirely different show where there aren't any stakes at all anymore (they pulled the same thing with Never Let Me Go, so I already saw it coming). It’s sad to see yet another GMMTV show suffer from bad writing, but I’m not surprised at this point. The chemistry isn't giving enough to make up for the poor rest of the show, and though the series feels at least somewhat original, it’s dragged down by checking all the tired BL clichés. Trips to the ocean and the aquarium, sponge baths, nightmares, wiping food off each other's lips — you name it, it's all there. And of course we need to shoehorn in a stupid jealousy storyline with zero purpose at all because that's obviously more important than spending time on Q's relationship with his father or something otherwise important...
If you’re looking for a similar show that does everything a lot better, go watch Jack & Joker instead. It's better paced with more intriguing characters and dynamics, and it's also a lot better paced.

Read More

This is just Cher’s role-play fantasy come to life, and you cannot convince me otherwise

I definitely didn't have high hopes for this one, considering everything else the Our Skyy 2 writers have done so far. But to my surprise, I think this is my favorite part of Our Skyy 2 so far. That comes very unexpected, considering how I didn't like A Boss And A Babe all that much. But I'm pleased to say that these were two really enjoyable episodes.

The story opens with a scene of Cher being the boss, and Gun being the babe, or well, the intern. Immediately, two thoughts came to my mind: Either they’re pulling another parallel universe bullshit, or this is Cher and Gun role-playing. I was pretty much waiting for Cher to rip off Gun’s clothes, and then the scene cutting to actual Cher having a daydream. That didn’t happen though, and I was both relieved and disappointed at the same time. I’m glad it didn’t turn into another parallel universe storyline, like they did with My School President. But honestly, I would’ve laughed my ass off if they had just gone down the role-play pipeline. You could see that Cher was definitely enjoying himself, bossing around Gun for the second episode. They should've just committed to it. Especially with the end, were both of them agreed to give 5 orders to each other. Instead of Cher's cheesy last order of Gun loving him forever, he should've just been like "I order you to do whatever I tell you to tonight." The episode was screaming for that to happen, and you cannot convince me otherwise. Then again, I stick by what I said in my review of the original series, about Book and Force not having any sexual tension between them. So it would've probably felt awkward if that had actually happened. But still, it would've been funny.

Overall, the story was lighthearted, entertaining and cute. Gun and Cher actually make a really good pair in these two episodes. If you forget about all the stupid conflicts of the original series, they seem pretty perfect for each other. Sure, everything was overly simplified and they didn't have time to dive into the storyline very deeply. But it was fun and pretty damn wholesome. They didn't pull any plot lines of characters losing all their brain cells like the Vice Versa episodes, they didn't pull a character annihilation like the Eclipse episodes did with Aye, and thank god, they didn't pull another parallel universe out of their asses like the My School President episodes. This was easy to enjoy and had plenty of comedic moments. They definitely leaned more into the comedy than throwing just pure cringe at us (cough Star In My Mind episodes cough cough), which I was very fond of. Considering on how cringey of a note A Boss and A Babe ended, I was fearful I wouldn't be able to stomach this. But to my surprise, it had just the right amount of cuteness mixed in with the silly storyline. I did see my life flash before my eyes though, when Aoi suggested, Cher should call Gun by an endearing nickname, like 'daddy'. I'm so thankful Cher didn't follow that advice, or I don't think I could've watched this without being in permanent, cringe-induced pain.

I also want to point out that Book did a really great job in this. I've always liked him as Cher. But him acting as Cher acting like the boss was phenomenal. He still portrayed the original character so well, even while pretending to be someone else.
Force was still great in the role of the boss, too. Actually, I really enjoyed Gun in these two episodes. He showed much more of the behaviour that I would've liked to see in the original series - being stern, cold and scary. It would've been great if this was the Gun we had been met with in A Boss And A Babe, but sadly, that didn't happen.

All in all, I really enjoyed watching this. It wasn't anything impeccable or extremely creative. But it fit the vibe of the original show, and it was an easy watch. I'd probably even watch this again someday, if I need a laugh. It does feel like a bit of a fever dream in certain moments, but it's definitely the right amount of silliness for these characters. Nice job.

Read More

Icky Power Dynamics x Bad Vibes

This is another show I should’ve probably dropped after a few episodes, but I was hopeful it might get better, so I pushed through. Get better it did not. In fact, I’d say it only got worse…

The acting is probably the least offensive part of this series. None of the performances are award worthy, but nobody stands out as too over the top or too stoic. The chemistry is also one of the better aspects. For the side couples, it’s not great. I can’t really put too much blame on the actors though, because they weren’t given the necessary scenes and dialogue that would’ve allowed any chemistry to shine. The main couple consisting of Mos and Bank is much stronger on the chemistry spectrum. However, they also got cursed by cringe dialogue which made many of their scenes hard to watch.

In terms of character writing, this show doesn’t really deliver much. Though most side characters are more interesting than the main leads, they’re not really fleshed out either. Most of them can be described by a single character trait (or two if we’re generous). In my opinion, Sam had the most potential, being the younger son of the company owner. He went undercover as an intern and it was actually refreshing to see how he acts really down to earth for someone of massive wealth. Sadly, we didn’t get to see much of him, and when his mother found out about what he was doing, she immediately put him in a higher up position. I have no idea how he even has any qualifications for the job, but I guess they’re at least depicting nepotism accurately.
Sun, one of the main leads, is basically a slimy piece of cardboard with a lot of money. We don’t know anything about his qualifications either (or I missed it because this show made me almost fall asleep several times), but he suddenly gets put in charge of the company when his mother steps down. The series depicts very little about his work, but we don’t really know who he is outside of work either. His main personality trait is being whipped and horny for Lin. Oh, and he’s a horse boy.
His love interest, Lin, doesn’t have much more to offer. He’s also rich, and he’s dedicated to his job and jewellery. Though he has one thing going for him: He’s by far one of the most inactive main characters I’ve ever seen in a BL — it’s actually impressive. The guy literally does nothing throughout the show, and he’s getting great opportunities thrown at him, making him one of the biggest Mary Sue characters in BL. Essentially, his entire arc can be summed up as "privileged pretty boy gets everything he wants with the help of his even richer boyfriend.“ Lin doesn’t have to solve any of his own problems, making him redundant in what’s supposed to be his own story. Instead, Sun or Lin’s friends do the dirty work for him. I’m not exaggerating. The guy gets an internship at one of the most pristine jewellery companies where he’s immediately inspiring change by calling out their designs as "too similar“ — a problem apparently none of the experienced designers working there could fix. So, Lin immediately designs something so beautiful (despite nobody really training him on 3D design or anything. Seriously, nobody ever wants to help the interns, so why hire them in the first place??) that his design is the one used to be presented to a very important client. When there’s an accusation that he stole said design, Lin doesn’t lift a finger to disprove the claims. He cries for a few minutes, then it feels like he just forgot about the entire thing while his boyfriend and friends try to solve the mystery. Of course he doesn’t get fired over this either. I know he didn’t rip anyone off, but if he wasn’t so privileged, firing him would be what most bosses consider. Then again, the boss is his boyfriend, so… That very boyfriend then takes Lin to see the important client. Of course Lin has another "exceptional“ work ready to present which the client chooses right away, immediately trusting a company that was just accused of plagiarism. And as if all that’s not enough, of course our precious darling angel Lin also gets chosen to be her model. Must be nice to have life go your way like that.

The story as a whole is pretty boring. It’s your standard workplace BL that doesn’t really have anything interesting to offer, other than the added element of visions and dreams of Lin’s soul realm — which we don’t have any grasp on yet even though the show is almost over. That mystery element doesn’t mash well with the rest of the show, making it feel like someone accidentally added scenes of a different series into the mix. The whole thing really could’ve been eight episodes (or preferably stayed in the drafts) because there aren’t really any overarching plots going on. Some plot strands are just forgotten about (such as Lin’s friends just forgetting he’s seeing a guy he met online) or they’re not explored whatsoever (such as Yo’s family having to deal with debt collectors).

We have four couples in this show which is too many. You could argue that Juladis and Chan don’t really count since they’re already established and don’t get much screen time. However, they still take away a few minutes each episode that could’ve and should’ve been spent on fleshing out one of the other ships, because they needed it.
The GL couple is executed pretty poorly with Pim being dumped by her boyfriend, then immediately kissing Prim like a day later. It’s also incredibly unoriginal because it follows the "I’ve loved you since we went to school together but never confessed, and now we meet again at work“ trope. It’s also incredibly frustrating because Prim lets her feelings get in the way, basically refusing to teach Pim, the intern, anything. That’s why I just don’t generally vibe with office romances — at least not if the two are in different power positions.
The BL side couple of Sam and Yo is my favorite. I can’t even really tell you why though because it’s not well done. They have a cat and mouse dynamic, which I like, but it’s not executed well. They get hot and cold for no reason, making it feel confusing more than anything. They also got together without any meaningful build up. We mainly just saw them bickering at work and boom, they’re suddenly dating. Sam having lied to Yo about who he is was also dealt with in a useless way. Yo pouting for an episode and then immediately forgiving Sam without him even really explaining much is not solving conflict, that’s just magically making the conflict disappear. Ugh.

Lin and Sun having met through online dating is actually a somewhat original premise. However, they meet at the end of the first episode, so that doesn’t last for a long time. They don’t start dating right away because they don’t know each other well enough. Great, I thought! That makes a lot of sense, and I’d appreciate it if it weren’t for the fact that they act like boyfriends right away. They might not have a label yet, but they’re all lovey-dovey. It doesn’t feel like they’re getting to know each other, it just feels like they’re all in from the start. They do wait a while to kiss and have sex though. Sun is presented as some noble man who doesn’t give into his lust, instead waiting for Lin to be ready to get intimate. I hate how we have to praise him for the bare minimum but I digress. Anyway, the two of them are incredibly cringe together. Don’t get me wrong, I like my BLs sweet but they are over the top, especially for their age (more on that in a bit), and their dialogue feels so unnatural and slimy. So despite their solid chemistry, they just gave me the ick. Especially because of their age gap, paired with the power imbalance of Lin being an intern at Sun’s company. Sun immediately made use of his power when Lin was angry at him for having lied about his work. Sun sends Lin on a work trip and manipulates the whole thing so he can go with him. He uses his position to get closer to Lin when Lin had explicitly told him he didn’t feel like speaking to him. It’s not cute, it’s creepy. It was obvious that Lin felt uncomfortable with their relationship because he wanted to hide it. When Sun asks Lin to be his boyfriend, Lin says they should wait until his internship is over. I was so happy when he said that, just to be hit in the face seconds later. You see, Sun doesn’t accept this, instead tells him to stop thinking about what others will think and just act on his feelings. So they do start dating. Great.

In Wandee Goodday, I complained about the adults acting like teenagers. I’d like to formally apologise because in comparison to this, Dee and Yak are oozing maturity. Despite Sun being almost thirty and the rest of them being in their early twenties, they all act like a bunch of teens, or even pre-teens. It’s incredibly irritating. Lin’s friends act like high school kids who are way too involved (and borderline obsessed with) his love and sex life. They also worry an unhealthy amount about him. Sun gets horny from every little thing Lin does like he’s just discovered what sex is. When Yo and Sam start dating, Sam asks Yo for a kiss. Yo’s just like "Are you crazy?“ like kissing isn’t a normal thing adults do. He does give him a little peck in the end, but it feels reminiscent of someone sneaking a peck at the back of the school where the teachers can’t see. Of course Lin has never kissed or slept with anyone before either because he needs to be pure for our hunky, horny, experienced love interest. Sun keeps talking to Lin in baby voice which made me want to crawl out of my skin. All in all, he treats him like a kid, so when Lin asked to call Sun "Khun Dad,“ I honestly couldn’t blame him. Still made me want to die though. I’ll never get the whole daddy thing, but each to their own I guess.

Where the show fucked up by far the worst is playing sexual assault for laughs. At the bus stop, an older man grabs Lin’s ass. This is a horrible thing to happen, and something many people suffer through in real life, often resulting in trauma. Portraying this kind of thing happening to a man (when often, people assume victims are just female) could’ve been a powerful message. However, they didn’t handle this with any grace. The only reason the scene even exists is so Lin can humorously kick the guy in the face, and so Sun can play the role of worried boyfriend. Other than that, this serves no narrative purpose and has no impact on Lin’s mental health. Good for him, but that’s not usually how that goes. If you’re not going to send any sort of message or at least make an important plot line out of it, then don’t add something like this. It’s not lighthearted entertainment, it’s a real issue for many people, and you’re just making fun of it. That's in really, really poor taste.

I also hated Lin’s and Sun’s first meeting. Lin goes to meet Sun at a hotel room after talking online a bunch, having never met him before. That’s soooo dangerous! Yes, his friends came along, but they stayed in the car where they couldn’t have intervened at all if something were to happen.

As for the positives… There aren’t many. The only thing I can really think of is that the show looks visually stunning. The sets are beautiful, the costumes are fitting, and the camera work is pretty. That gives it some brownie points at least.

All in all, I really think I’ve wasted my time with this one. I was hoping things would improve, but clearly I’m too hopeful for my own good sometimes. So the moral of the story is that I need to learn how to drop shows a lot sooner. I will not be watching the remaining episodes to get at least a little of my time back. Maybe my review will keep some other people from wasting their time on this, so at least I’ll have done a good deed by pushing through for this long.

Read More

Cute with a lot of wasted potential

GMMTV has done it yet again and produced a perfectly mediocre show that could've been great if they had just focused on the right aspects. This is becoming increasingly frustrating because it seems to be a problem with almost all GMM shows. Yet, I was enjoying this one quite a bit. Let me explain...

Keen as Moo definitely carried this entire thing on his shoulders. He's portraying the character incredibly well and he made me love Moo a lot despite him being a bit annoying and cringe. It's like the role was written for him, and I can't wait to see what projects he does next. Sea is cute but I don't think he was ready for a main role just yet. His acting feels stilted and he struggles to carry emotions, which is fine considering he's very early in his career. This is not supposed to be any hate towards him, because it's not his fault. The production company should've either prepared him better or put him in side roles first before offering him the main lead in a show.
The two of them together are a cute pair. They do have chemistry, but I think it fell flat sometimes because Sea just seemed to be very focused on his acting. Once he feels more comfortable and natural, I definitely think they have great potential to become a wildly beloved ship. They've got a lot of chemistry behind the camera as well, so I think it's really all up to more acting classes, but I definitely wouldn't mind seeing them together in the future. I call this the JoongDunk effect, because they also have overflowing chemistry behind the scenes that fell flat in their first project together because of their acting struggles. It got a lot better in their second show, so I have hope for Sea and Keen too.

My main gripe with this series is (once again) the story. The first half of it is pretty boring. If it weren't for Keen stealing my heart, I probably would've given up on watching and just fast-forwarded through the whole thing once it's all finished. That part of the show was just your stereotypical GMM BL with all its usual tropes and cliches - plus the added element of wanting to become an idol. That in itself isn't a new concept for a BL either, but it's new for GMM, so at least there was a breath of fresh air. However, for a show centred around dancing and singing, I wish they would've gotten actors who are better dancers. The music was great, but I almost died of cringing every time they rehearsed their TikTok dance and at the audition. Like please, if that's the focus of your show, get people who can dance well and give them an actually solid choreography instead of whatever the hell that was (Edit: The dancing in the final episode was a lot better, so maybe it was just the choreo that made it feel so awkward). But anyway, the second half of the show then centred more around that idol aspect, but it was done in a very unsatisfying way. There were so many interesting ideas there, but we barely saw anything of the contest apart from all the contract drama about not being allowed lovers. That was explored a little bit but sadly not enough, and then suddenly they were a boyband and mega successful by the power of a one year time-skip. It's such a cheap way out when really, the story would've just started to get interesting. Why not show the repercussions of becoming famous, and what that means for your social life other than not being allowed to date? Why not show how large of a struggle it can be to make it big? Why not delve further into what it means to get shipped with your fellow band member, and what implications that has for the relationship with the person you actually like, or how it can compromise a friendship? Why not explore more about Moo's status as a nepo baby and how that's giving him a hard time being liked by the public? The list of what would've been interesting to explore goes on, but since they refused to delve further into any of that, I digress too.

If you ask me, the whole first half of the show should've been cut to focus on the idol life instead. Establish Moo struggling to pass auditions in the first episode, have him meet Yos and Tae at a dance studio or something, and have them land a spot in the idol competition by the end of episode one. Kang could've just been the caterer at the company and that's how him and Moo meet. Then they would've really had time to explore interesting ideas rather than spending half of the story replaying the same old uninteresting cliches. If Moo knew from the get-go that he wouldn't be allowed to date, him building a relationship with Kang would've been much more interesting in the first place.

They had something really good on their hands with Yos and Tae that would've been super interesting to dive into on a deeper level, especially after they became part of the same band. But sadly, they didn't do that. There were a few scenes in the last two episodes that scratched on the surface of shipping culture, but it wasn't nearly enough. I did like their storyline for the most part (minus the kiss while Tae is asleep, can't believe we're still doing that), though that's probably just because I'm a sucker for friends-to-lovers with a lot of pining. That's mostly why I liked them, not because their relationship was set apart from others or because of overwhelming chemistry.

All in all, this was pretty adorable. Sometimes a little too cringe for my liking, but a lighthearted watch with many aww-worthy moments and solid music. Though it makes me a bit mad at what this could've been and what it ended up being in contrast. Sadly, this doesn't set itself apart from other GMMTV shows as much as it should've and could've. I'm starting to think that in the GMM writers room, whenever an interesting concept that requires careful and thorough exploration is suggested, someone's like "Nah, people just want to see two cute boys kissing. Let's solve it with a time skip and get back to the cuteness," which is very sad. They're standing in their own way of producing actually interesting and unique storylines.

Read More