Aga’s TV5 show needs to suit its showcase to its star

“PINOY Explorer” first episode falls short of expectations. VIDEOGRAB

Aga Muhlach’s first show for TV5, his new home studio, had its first telecast last Saturday, September 18, and it was a perplexing viewing experience, to say the least.

As its title suggests, “Pinoy Explorer” promises to follow Aga as he flies all over the world in search of great adventures and unique escapades.

However, the production’s maiden trip was to a dinosaur research facility and showcase in the state of Wyoming, USA—where Aga did little more taxing and physical than narrating a “Filipinized” version of a documentary about those extinct giants. What’s so adventurous about that?

Teaching tool

To be sure, the show did have its value as a teaching tool, because it provided viewers with a lot of information about all sorts of dinosaurs. Yes, TV should be used to teach, rather than just inform. But, it would be better if the information were freshly gathered or produced, instead of being just a “Filipinized” narrative based on footage produced for a foreign documentary.

Again, yes, we know that “adaptations” or reworkings of foreign material is sometimes resorted to by local TV people, but to see it being done for a show starring one of local show biz’s most bankable stars is confounding and disappointing.

When you secure the services of an Aga Muhlach, particularly for a show that promises excitement and adventure, you don’t reduce your valuable and popular luminary to being just a narrator or explicator, no matter how earnest your production’s desire to “educate” might be.

Yes, the docu’s visuals were great. Yes, the animated sequences were thrilling. Yes, Aga did his heartfelt best to use his celebrity to educate young viewers. But, it was still a poor use of stellar talent.

Aga is a good choice as host of a TV adventure and travel show, because he’s energetic, interested in people and life, and has the exuberance and charm to interest viewers in them, as well. Alas, his new show’s first telecast chose to make inefficient and insufficient use of his unusual qualities, and we are the poorer for it.

‘Reconstituted’ footage

We hope that the show’s second telecast will finally get Aga really going off on an authentic adventure that uses footage shot specifically for the program, rather than merely “reconstituted” from other sources.

That way, Aga’s unique qualities as an explorer, travel companion, guide and codiscoverer can come to the fore and delight viewers—as they should!

Now is not the time to take the easy or most convenient way out, but to make full use of the Aga Muhlach, an exciting talent despite his having been around for many years, because he hasn’t lost his childlike sense of wonder.

The least his new show can do is to suit its showcase to its star.