Interesting and instructive mix of mentor-judges

JURORS (from left): Aga Muhlach, Yeng Constantino, Sandara Park and Vice Ganda —ohdarafiles.wordpress.com

Our recent review of “Pinoy Boyband Superstar” intentionally glazed over the performance tilt’s jurors, because we felt that they “deserved” a separate and special focus. Why so?

In our view, they comprise the most interesting and instructive mix of talent tilt judges and mentors on the tube this season.

The returning Aga Muhlach tops the panel of jurors, because (aside from gracing the TV tribute to Charo Santos some months ago) this is pretty much the first time that the still popular star has stepped out of self-imposed (temporary) retirement.

He’s kept away from the public’s gimlet eye to focus on losing weight and get back to fighting and shooting trim, so he can resume his stellar performing career.

So, does the “new” or trimmed-down Aga pass “visual muster” on the new talent tilt?

Uh, not quite. He’s still good-looking, perky and charismatic, but he hasn’t lost enough excess poundage to really get his fans excited about his leading-man prospects again.

Aga does look trimmer than the last time we saw and talked to him at Charo’s bash, but he needs to sweat, diet and huff off another 20 more pounds to get the girls and gays all hot and bothered once more.

As for his judging prowess and “entertaining factor,” there’s no problem there, since he comes up with helpful and insightful evaluations of the tilt’s young hopefuls and his droll way of expressing his opinions still hits viewers’ sweet spot. Just work harder on the “visual K” quotient, OK?

As for Vice Ganda, he’s a welcome addition to the panel of jurors, not just because he’s “colorful” both visually and verbally, but also because his no-nonsense and occasionally “painful” honesty helps the tilt’s young comers realize their real strengths and weaknesses.

As for Yeng Constantino, she’s been in the biz for a full decade now, and has acquired the performing experience needed to astutely evaluate new talent. She cut her judging teeth on “Tawag ng Tanghalan” on “It’s Showtime,” but it’s more focused and honed on the “Boyband” search.

Finally, we’re glad that Sandara Park has also made her own comeback to the local TV scene by way of this assignment. We’ve always felt for her ever since she was poorly treated in local show biz some years back, prompting her to (very successfully) make it in her home country.

Now that she’s become a certified star performer there, her local comeback is a sort of vindication for her, so her previous detractors can just bite their own tails.

Sandara’s own good and bad experiences in the biz, both here and in South Korea, have made her a good judge and mentor, so she’s an asset to the talent tilt.

The fact that she’s also become a confident and “knowing” evaluator of talent served her well recently on “Boyband,” when she stood up and “saved” a young comer who had been found “not good enough” by the panel of jurors.

We hope that the young comer will end up vindicating Sandara’s “faith” in his potential—but, even if he doesn’t, the mere fact that she acted so decisively speaks volumes about what she’s become.