Keep it real

PADILLA. Weakly and incredibly staged scene.

TV DRAMA series have been coming up with more exciting plot twists and complications these days—but, their power to shock and move is being blunted by poor, unreal or illogical “follow through” or execution.

For instance, last week’s “Ang Probinsyano” had the character played by Bela Padilla being abducted by a white slavery ring, and then bravely coming to the defense of another sex “slave.”

After the other woman was shot in the arm, Bela’s character grabbed a knife and held it to the neck of the gang’s lady boss (Gina Pareño) in an effort to make a quick getaway, but she was subdued.

So far, so exciting. —But, what happens right after made viewers shake their heads in disbelief: Bela got off the hook with just a stern warning, and the gang’s other captives rushed to the wounded woman’s aid—by giving her some water!

Those developments were patently weak, unreal and therefore incredible on several counts: First, you don’t “help” a woman who’s just been shot in the arm by just giving her a drink!

And, even more incredibly, you don’t hold a knife to a largely feared gang leader’s neck—and get off with just a stern warning. —You would get shot and maybe even killed, that would be more like it!

So, why was the scene so weakly and incredibly staged? Because the show doesn’t think it’s all that important for viewers to implicitly and viscerally believe that the scene being staged is really taking place.

—Of course, it isn’t. Everybody’s just pretending and play-acting on TV, right? Wrong.

If you want viewers to emotionally empathize with what’s supposed to be happening to the characters you’ve created, keep it believable, logical and real!

Yes, this is the business of show, but the drama it stages mustn’t be just for show! So, the characters involved, whether good or bad, have to act like people do in real life—no more, no less.

Otherwise, viewers realize they’re just being taken for a cynical ride—and that’s not a trip they like taking!

When they’re being this clumsily entertained, they end up “entertaining” really dark thoughts of their own—of murder and mayhem!