Upbeat inputs and confounding downers on TV

KATHRYN Bernardo and Daniel Padilla play students concerned about the environment in their show.

First, the upbeat images: On the ABS-CBN series “Got to Believe” recently, we were heartened to hear Daniel Padilla’s character discussing a significant subject in a classroom scene: He talked about environmental concerns and the need for “carbon capture” initiatives to save the planet. Later, Kathryn Bernardo’s character chimed in with a reference to the Kyoto Protocol.

Now, we all know that this was just a scripted scene for a TV drama, but the mere fact that actors playing students were saying something sensible and topical, instead of just making the usual “pa-cute” remarks and resorting to the same old “for the fun” antics made the scene noteworthy.

It showed that the TV medium can be used to inform rather than simply provide shallow diversion, and we urge other TV productions to occasionally follow suit—as long as it’s natural and logical for the scene at hand.

Also on the up-and-up is the news that Lourd de Veyra is hosting a new show, “History” on TV5, that seeks to make historical events, personalities and facts meaningful to today’s televiewers. Lourd is a good choice for the program’s host, because he combines sense, wit and with-it appeal.

Apocalyptic

LOURD de Veyra makes history meaningful for today’s viewers.

Similarly, we’re looking forward to watching the “apocalyptic” series, “Genesis,” because it has Lorna Tolentino portraying the president of the Philippines.

We should also note that, when it comes to TV drama scripting, the rising star appears to be Suzette Doctolero, thanks to the “sleeper” (unexpected) success of “My Husband’s Lover.” We see her writing and/or consulting credits on other shows these days. When it rains, it pours!

On the other hand, we note with befuddlement that some TV drama series these days boast of some six “layers” of writing or creative credits—“brainstormers,” writers, head writer, creative consultant, creative head, head for drama—etc! Very impressive indeed—except for the fact that the sum total of all of their pooled literary or creative efforts is often—uh, not all that great….

Also quite curious and strange is our TV dramas’ excessive reliance on “coincidence” as their facile way of bringing characters together from different parts of the country, and even the world, when they’re needed to interact with each other for a key scene!

Improbable

It happens all the time on TV, even if it’s well-nigh improbable in real life, and makes viewers wonder if all of Metro Manila isn’t just a tiny street with a kanto at the end, where 15 million people live, one on top of the other!

Similarly weird is the relatively new visualization style that’s being employed on some GMA 7 teleseryes—the use of soft-focus shots with foreground “framing” to make the scenes look “artistic.” This “style” used to be reserved for TV musical productions, where it helped create mood and feeling to “support” or “highlight” some songs’ presentation or interpretation.

So, it’s really quite perplexing to now see it being resorted to in TV dramas, which are supposed to be more realistic than musicals. The self-consciously “arteestic” style calls too much attention to itself —so, it’s inappropriate use in TV dramas should cease forthwith!