More complicated than needed

DE LEON. Poor use of her exceptional gift.

GMA 7’s new drama series, “Hiram na Ala-Ala,” promises to be a bit different from the usual romantic-revenge shows on the tube, adding action-drama and psychological elements as it tells the story of some graduates of the Philippine Military Academy and their exploits in the field.

However, its first telecast frustrated action-drama fans, because it chose to focus on the series’ back story, with its lead players first introduced as kids.

The initial telecast was, in our view, more complicated than it needed to be, with its principal female character having to cope with her parents’ stormy relationship —plus a snitty mother-in-law to make the domestic drama even more turbulent.

The drama spent too much time detailing this early part of its back story; worse, the problems detailed (drinking, gambling) were all too predictable, making this frustrated viewer grumble, “Speed it up, please—we know all about it, and we really don’t care all that much!”

Back stories

Did anybody “hear” us? Of course not. But, our point was, the new show is particularly interesting due to its PMA and psychological elements, so the faster it can get to the nitty-gritty present, the better for everyone involved. We really wonder why TV drama series are so fixated on “back stories,” some harking back several generations back into the distant past.

We know that it’s meant to intensify the roots of the conflict and motivation for vengeance that will fuel the drama when it gets to its present tense, but the revenge motif doesn’t seem to be the biggest bone of contention in this particular series, so why the long, drawn-out and overly detailed back story at its very start?

It also doesn’t help that the child actors cast in the first telecast weren’t great, charismatic finds. As for the adult performers, Lotlot de Leon is a fine actress, but the predictable problems her character was made to contend with make poor use of her exceptional gift.

On the plus side, the first telecast had some good action and battle scenes, and the sequences set in a cave in Baguio were strikingly and dramatically lit and shot.

But, these visual treats weren’t enough for us to conclude that the new drama series’ first telecast had been a success. Here’s hoping that its fortunes will improve—by speeding up its storytelling—in the days ahead!