Tom Rodriguez sets the pace in ‘My Destiny’

FANS expect great chemistry from Tom Rodriguez and Carla Abellana.

Carla Abellana and Tom Rodriguez made “controversial” thespic waves in last TV season’s hit gender-bending drama series, “My Husband’s Lover,” so they’re the main stellar focus of the new romantic drama, “My Destiny.”

Early on in the new series’ initial telecast, a mysterious, old fortune teller predicted that a boy (Tom’s character’s juvenile persona) would meet the woman he was fated to love at a wedding. In another scene, the same old crone (Lollie Mara), who turned out to be the grandmother of Carla’s juvenile persona, told her that she would be Tom’s “fated” love!

At this point in the new show’s storytelling, of course, nobody knows this except for the series’ viewers—who are naturally expected to be increasingly excited as Tom and Carla’s adult personas “fatedly” fulfill the romantic prophecy that had “physically” bound their hearts together since childhood!

To make the “psychic attraction” plot and theme’s development less predictable and more diverting, Tom’s character here is a breezy, colorful, life-loving individual— very unlike the emotionally “clenched” character he portrayed in MHL.

The breezy departure is quite welcome, and it suits the actor well, because he projects dash and playfulness better than he used to do “clenched and contorted!”

For her part, Carla is cast as the “old-maidish” ate of Rhian Ramos’ own pert and breezy character, so it’s possible that Rhian and Tom could get to interact romantically in the course of the series.

But, aren’t Tom and Carla the ones who are fated to end up with each other? Uh-oh, problem …!

If that possibility pans out, the storytelling could go into magparaya mode with the ate subsuming her love for Tom to make her younger sister happy. Well, let’s keep watching and find out! (Another complication: A serious illness is about to be revealed.)

Thus far, it’s Tom’s character who is registering most strongly onscreen. He’s been given a hot girlfriend (Pauleen Luna) who believes “in sex, not love” (!) and is ready to give him a fun time in bed on his 21st birthday—but Tom inexplicably postpones the delicious prospect because he’s physically impelled to immediately and finally meet his prophecy-promised love! Well, you can imagine how his hot and wanton GF feels about that!

Not much backstory

Other early notes: We’re glad that the new series, megged by Joyce Bernal, doesn’t go into a lot of “backstory” and quickly tells its story in the present tense. However, some individual scenes feel slow and overly verbose, like a sequence with a balloon vendor in which all sorts of peripheral characters keep yakking away.

Aside from that, we’re optimistic that Carla will soon catch up with Tom on point of the “interest value” of the character she’s playing here, because their fans expect great “chemistry” from them, after their strong showing in MHL.

As for Rhian, she’s lovely and diverting and all that, but she has to work on the substance of her TV drama portrayals, which have tended to be not all that warmly empathetic thus far.

Could this be the show where she’s forced by the stellar company she keeps to finally come into her own as a true thespian? Hope springs!