‘MMK’ – the next 20 years

CHARO Santos-Concio’s weekly drama anthology is an exception to the desultory rule.

Local TV’s premier weekly drama anthology, “Maala-ala Mo Kaya?” is celebrating its 20th anniversary this month. To more meaningfully highlight the big event, it’s come up with a documentary special that included interviews about the show’s significance with “people who matter.”

Some weeks ago, we were asked to join that “special” group, but we were unable to comply. So, in lieu of our physical presence, we’re appending this written appreciation of the program and what it’s been trying to do for the past two decades:

Significant stories

In the ’60s and ’70s, teleseryes still weren’t the rage, so the drama anthology programs held sway – “Balintataw,” the drama shows of Nora Aunor and Hilda Koronel, etc. Like “MMK” today, they gave viewers significant stories vivified by felt and insightful portrayals directed by the finest megmen.

The shows were justly celebrated for not hewing to the commercial line, and instead favoring genuine drama over “melodrama.”

From the ’80s onward, however, drama anthologies were upstaged by extended soap operas.

Today, “MMK” is an exception to the desultory rule of the new kings and queens of primetime television, the melodramatic and fantasticating teleseryes.

To its credit, “MMK” has generally avoided the melodramatic trap—and curse— that has made TV dramas today so gauche, shrill and unedifying. So, the long-running program does have a lot to celebrate at the start of its third decade.

But, this doesn’t mean that it should simply stay the way it is. From time to time, we’ve observed that its dramas, which are supposed to be culled from the real-life experiences of letter-senders, are too “enhanced” with “creative” inputs and adjustments by other people to be rigorously actuality-based.

At times, too, the performances are too high-strung and self-consciously “artistic” to be genuinely moving and transformative. Even the country’s best thespians have to be reminded that less is more, and that true art hides itself, rather than dazzlingly and loudly proclaiming its vaunted excellence.

But, the show’s worst suit has to do with the way it is scripted: Since its dramatic format is the narrative culled from the letters sent in to the show, the way that its plot, conflict and character development is presented is too “aware” and “pointed” (for thematic or “moral lesson” purposes) to be genuinely moving.

This is especially problematic toward the end of each episode, when the final events sometimes turn out to be less than climactic, because they end up as excessively facile and narrated denouement, rather than the actual dramatic resolution of the central conflict.

We take pains to underline this “too narrative” tendency, because it often ends up robbing “MMK” of the real drama it needs to genuinely move viewers. If the show rigorously faces and resolves this key deficiency, the next 20 years of “MMK” will be even more authentically worth celebrating.