Win some, lose some for new TV5 shows

ALWYN Uytingco (left, with Vin Abrenica) is empathetic in “Beki Boxer.” Photo from facebook page

At first blush, TV5’s new “action sitcom,” “Beki Boxer,” “smells” like yet another one of those loud, livid and “flaming” gay romps that are played mainly for exploitative cheap kicks—and shrieks. Happily, the new weekday show is turning out to be more than that.

Its young protagonist (Alwyn Uytingco) has gay proclivities but opts not to act on them because his beloved father (Christian Vasquez) is a boxer. Unfortunately, he’s forced to throw a fight and he and his entire family are scorned by his disillusioned fans.

To redeem the disgraced father’s honor, his secretly gay scion decides to become a “straight” boxer himself, and the new show crisply segues into its “training” phase with the trainee being mentored by his secret crush, a handsome and buff hunk portrayed by Vin Abrenica.

Thus far, the series is unfolding well—it’s funny without having to strain and shriek to generate laughter. Both Christian and Alwyn are appealingly empathetic, and Vin’s “clueless love interest” portrayal is coming along nicely, as well.

Let’s hope that the weeknight series keeps its storytelling thematically eventful in the weeks to come, and doesn’t get itself into confounding plotting knots just to sustain viewers’ interest.

This is a real danger in weekday shows like this, which require so much developing material that subplots and additional characters keep getting introduced, eventually resulting in a big, unpretty mess in the end.

We trust that this promising show will instead be able to clarify certain “secret beki” issues that viewers can think about with more informed and judicious smarts.

‘Confessions of a Torpe’

Another new TV5 show, “Confessions of a Torpe,” is having a harder time getting its bearings, despite its more impressive star value (Ogie Alcasid, Alice Dixson, Gelli de Belen, et al.)

Ogie plays the show’s resident middle-aged torpe, and he has a huge, unverbalized crush on Alice, completely oblivious to the fact that it’s Gelli who loves him to bits.

To date, the new comedy series has yet to get its act together because Ogie’s character keeps getting sidetracked and distracted by the generally unfunny schemes thought up by his well-meaning but inept “advisers” and sidekicks. So far, so trying-hard.

This is a decided pity, because Ogie and Gelli are proven standouts in comedy performance. They should reassert their stellar supremacy over the “sidekicks,” and insist that their characters be made stronger and more active elements in the show’s scripting. To date, all they do is react to the sidekicks’ bumbling and bungled ploys and schemes—a passively unfunny state of things all around.

Stars may agree to play torpe for comedy’s sake—but they have to be stellarly smart when they’re doing it!