More ‘stretching’ needed

Daniel Matsunaga (left) and Arci Muñoz

Many local performers don’t like having to step out of their comfort zone and do something new and difficult.

Their “logic” goes: The audience likes me doing what I do best and often, so why should I try harder and risk its disfavor?

The trouble with that safe and laid-back kind of thinking is that the star or starlet ends up becoming predictable, and thus boring his or her heretofore loyal followers.

That’s why even the most popular entertainers are urged to occasionally do something new and harder for a change, to stretch their limits.

In that regard, we’re supportive of the new TV challenge, “I Can Do That!,” which requires its eight celebrity contestants to learn a new performing skill per week.

On its recent opening telecast, Pokwang and Gab Valenciano did a fancy routine involving jumping rope, Daniel Matsunaga and Arci Muñoz performed an aerial dancing act, Cristine Reyes and Wacky Kiray came up with a hectic and frenetic “slapstick comedy” number, and JC Santos and Sue Ramirez did a juggling act.

While we applauded this initiative to work hard and stretch their performing limits, some of the acts they came up with merely passed muster. So, “more practice” and “stretching” are needed in the tilt’s subsequent telecasts.

It’s one thing to get a new skill “right” (no obvious mistakes), and something else to perform it so feelingly, enthusiastically and well that the audience is thoroughly delighted!

Thus, some of the tilt’s contenders need to raise their standards and expectations of themselves, so that the show becomes as popular as it deserves to be.

The act adjudged best of the week was the “aerial dancing” feat performed by Daniel and Arci, but we also particularly liked Cristine and Wacky Kiray’s slapstick skit. The edge they had was their utter commitment to the routine’s hectic and frenetic requirements.

Hopefully “constructive” notes: The tilt’s judging process should be reconsidered.

At the moment, the contestants themselves help select the winner, plus inputs from the studio audience.

We feel that the contestants’ views could be too subjective to be relied upon, while the audience vote has “validity limitations” of its own.

For talent tilts, the best judging mechanism is still a panel of experienced and acknowledged industry veterans and experts, whose credibility has previously been established.

It may not appear to be all that “democratic,” but the important thing is to set the most credible standards of excellence, so viewers have reliable touchstones to go by.

Finally, the show shouldn’t waste viewers’ time with mistakes. Last week, there were flubs in the juggling act, but they weren’t edited out.

We’re all for “honesty,” but viewers don’t need to suffer through errors, so the act should have been done again and again until the “celebrity jugglers” finally got it at least technically right.