‘Sweetie’ sitcom plays pregnancy card too soon

JOHN Lloyd Cruz and Toni Gonzaga fail to create needed chemistry as newlyweds.

John Lloyd Cruz’s latest weekly sitcom, “Home Sweetie Home,” is only a few months old, but its April 5 telecast already played its “pregnancy” plot card. This is much too premature for a “newlyweds” series like this—but, there it is. (In contrast, another series now about a married couple, “Be Careful With My Heart,” took practically forever to get its resident “wife” character in the family way.)

Of course, it later turned out on the “Sweetie” show that Toni Gonzaga’s being in the family way was a frustrating “false positive” outcome, but it isn’t likely that Toni’s character will be “infanticipating” anytime soon, since the sitcom has already played that usually productive card too whimsically. Why it’s opted to do that is beyond us, but let’s not make too much of a minor irritant.

Randy riot

A more significant area of discussion involves Rico J. Puno’s character in the weekly comedy series. In most of his other TV shows, Rico J. is a randy laugh riot, eliciting delighted giggles and whoops from otherwise unpromising plot situations, especially when he pushes his penchant for “going green.”

In his current show, however, the veteran singer-comedian is uncharacteristically low-key, even sedate. What’s going on?

As for male lead JLC, we see him energetically at work, trying to make his scenes funnier than they may initially seem, so we know that he’s giving his new starrer everything he’s got.

Something’s amiss
But, his impact here is similarly less delightful and sassily effervescent than usual, so “something” is definitely amiss.

Could it be the show’s scripting, which involves too many regular and “guest” characters in its weekly conflicts? In the case of the “fals e pregnancy” plot line, for instance, practically everyone was made to come up with all sorts of speculations about Toni’s eagerly awaited date with the stork, diluting the focus on the newlyweds, who should be the stars of the show.

The script’s “comedy of errors and wrong interpretations of clues” is fine for the other cast members, because it gives each of them his or her own “moment,” but at the expense of the show’s protagonists, whose thoughts and feelings should hold sway.

Another significant problem presents itself in John Lloyd and Toni’s relative inability to create the needed “chemistry” between them that will make the show truly involving and endearing. After all, the characters they play are newlyweds, which should mean that they’re still “crazy” about each other.

It doesn’t show

But, it really doesn’t show, or not enough to carry viewers along for the heady ride.

Now, we all know that these two stars are “loyally” involved with other luminaries off-cam, but that shouldn’t get in the way of their all-important obligation to depict young, married love in all its heady, intoxicating exhilaration! True, there are limits to what you can show and do on prime-time television, but in this “sweet” sitcom’s case, those “dangerous” boundaries have definitely not been reached— or breached.