Unexpected combination of ‘holy and hunky’

GMA 7’S latest teleserye “Pari ’Koy” is making big waves not just because it’s the only show about a parish priest on primetime TV, but also because the title role is being played by one of our handsomest and hunkiest male stars, Dingdong Dantes.

DINGDONG Dantes plays the character pretty much like himself.

The unexpected combination of “holy and hunky” makes for surprising and “eventful” television, so other TV producers are edgily awaiting viewers’ verdict on the new show:

If it quickly generates a strong following, expect other “realistically spiritual” series to be rushed to production. “Holy” could be hot! Our initial notes:

Dingdong plays a young priest in the province who is loved by his parishioners because he tells—and prays—it like it is.

Suddenly, however, he’s reassigned to a much less placid and challenging parish in the big city, where street smarts are not just preferred, but absolutely required! Can our cool and handsome padre survive the abrupt uprooting?

Early on, Dingdong makes an interesting but risky acting choice: He has decided to play the priest pretty much like himself, with few adjustments for the role’s “holy” aspects.

On one hand, this is a good decision, because it keeps the show rigorously real. However, it can also be risky because viewers may feel after a while that the drama isn’t spiritual, inspiring or deep enough. We’ll see how that key dichotomy pans out as the storytelling warms up.

We figure that the series will stump the new priest with the negative realities of his new parish, which appears to be controlled by an unholy mafia of manangs and manongs who have their own little rackets or accommodations going on—with or without the previous parish priest’s awareness or consent. Will Dingdong’s character be able to sort them out and put them in their proper place?

Series of subplots

Another major expectation is that the new priest will have to handle more urgent and complicated parishioners and problems than those he easily and breezily dealt with in his previous more bucolic assignment.

Given his looks and appeal, he could even be (unsuccessfully, we trust!) the object of a seduction attempt by a woman of the world or of the night. And, to appeal to young viewers, problems related to their especially libidinal concerns could require a lot of the harassed priest’s attention.

If this “series of subplots” scenario pans out, the series should make it a point to line up exceptionally good actors for each of its sequential case studies or anthology dramas. In the new series’ initial telecasts, this was a problem, since some of the supporting actors who figured in them were less than choice.

This kind of episodic drama series also requires greater focus and more disciplined editing than usual, because individual conflicts have to be resolved in a brisker, clearer way than if the series had just one or only a couple of major conflicts.

To date, the show’s editing has been a problem, like its long “farewell” sequence when the priest left his previous post, which was made too tediously repetitious by numerous individual adieus.

Still, we wish “Pari ’Koy” well, because local viewers need all of the inspirational viewing inputs they can get to make spiritual sense of the complex, coopting world we live in today!