First time’s the charm for ‘100 Days’

XYRIEL Manabat

THE NEW ABS-CBN teleserye, “100 Days (To Heaven)” had a good start last Monday, May 9, with its pilot episode characterized by crisp storytelling and attractive portrayals turned in by lead player Coney Reyes and child star Xyriel Manabat. We hope (against hope) that the show can sustain its momentum through the coming weeks, despite some local shows’ tendency to “relax” after they have made a good first impression.

In the new series, Coney plays a really vicious and cynical businesswoman who trusts nobody and loves to demolish the competition. How did she get to be such a “monster”? The series takes great pains to provide her back story, all the way to her childhood, when her dad (Mark Gil) deprived her of love in order to “toughen” her up.

It’s later revealed that he became sour and cynical when his wife left him for another man. Despite his best efforts to protect his daughter (played as a young woman by Shaina Magdayao), the same thing happens to her when she falls in love and is left high and dry (and pregnant) by her faithless lover. She gives birth to her love child, but has no motherly feelings for her baby, so she immediately gives it up for adoption.

Flash forward to the present: Now played by Coney, the vile protagonist is a very wealthy manufacturer—quite ironically, of children’s toys and specializes in crushing the competition. Her employees hate her, but she couldn’t care less.

Then, the unthinkable happens: Just as the nasty, cynical businesswoman is at the height of her success, she dies in an explosion! Instantly, she finds herself begging St. Peter at Heaven’s gate to give her a second chance. He agrees, and sends her back to earth as a little girl (Xyriel).

We expect that, as the show’s story continues to unfold, she (and, empathetically, the program’s viewers) will learn loads of “lessons” about remorse, loss of pride, loving others, etc.

If done well, “100 Days” could turn out to be this season’s “May Bukas Pa” a hit show with a similarly “instructive” and “inspiring” bent that viewers took to their hearts. Various “chapters” could deal with different groups of characters and their problems, some of whom were already introduced in the first telecast.

That’s all to the good, but the main bone of contention should turn out to be how well both Coney and Xyriel embody the change from bad to good that is the show’s thrust and theme. Judging from the initial telecast, Coney should do just fine. She’s an assertive performer who likes to go for the jugular, but that’s OK for the character she plays here.

As for Xyriel, we still have to see her playing a pint-sized version of Coney’s adult “monster,” but we daresay that she could have an even tougher assignment, because it would be really tough and dodgy to achieve the delicate balance between the innate softness of a child and the toughness of the character she and Coney are “co-playing.” Let’s hope that Xyriel is up to the tall order.

Aside from the two leads, the actor who stood out in the first episode was Mark Gil as Coney-Xyriel’s cynical dad. Unfortunately, he was “killed off” right from the bat, so all we can do is hope that ABS-CBN gives him a longer role in another show—he’s that good.