All sorts of ‘teleserye’ gambits (From the inspirational to the ‘desperational’)

For a number of TV programming seasons now, we’ve had our fill of all sorts and types of teleseryes, from the inspirational to the “desperational”—and then some.

They’re expensive to produce, but our three major TV networks go in for them in a big way because they fill the need for melodramatic, romantic or fantasy entertainment.

And, what local producers can’t supply, the networks buy from Latin America and other countries in Asia. That’s how big the demand has grown, as the wide, hungry maw of the medium keeps moaning for more, more, more!

Insatiable hunger

In the process of filling the insatiable need and hunger for teleseryes, however, producers have been committing “sins” of all sorts, in the name of giving the audience what it is perceived to “want”—while still making a lot of money for the extended drama series’ financiers.

Some of those “sins” have been so frequent and flagrant, they’ve been practically “institutionalized” and found cropping up, again and again, in many series.

Viewers have become so habituated to them that they can see them coming a mile away, and lazy scriptwriters have more or less come up with a list of clichés and stereotypes that can be relied on to push the right buttons in people’s viewing psyches, to elicit the desired response.

Let’s all listen in on a fictive teleserye producer and head writer as he harangues his troops at the start of the writing week:

“Okay, you guys, our show’s ratings have been dipping, so shape up or else we’ll all lose our jobs. When in doubt, remember these surefire plot and character development techniques, walang kupas, viewers keep lapping them up, even if they’ve seen them a hundred times on many different shows.

“Don’t start your story at the very beginning of your protagonist’s life— start way before that, when his grandparents were babies! Why? That way, you can plant the seeds of the deep enmity between families or preferably even entire clans that will rear its ugly head generations later to make the life of your newly born hero or heroine truly miserable.

“Next, surround your protagonist with 10 or more family members who are there to complicate his life and make it more pathetic and terrible. It would also help if a deep, dark mystery surrounds the baby’s birth— like, whose son is he, anyway, I mean, really?

Like glue

“If you plant the seeds of doubt early enough, you can profitably reap a rich harvest later on, when you reveal that he is in fact the love child of another couple—or even a third set of parent! Now, that will keep viewers glued to your show!

“Oh, and make sure you give the baby a birthmark, a piece of jewelry or clothing, or an ‘identifying’ lullaby that will trigger an important memory that will solve the puzzle surrounding his true parentage, 20 or 30 years later! Viewers really love that kind of symbolic and emblematic gimmick, they’re pushovers for it!

“Now, about the baby’s parents: Make sure that at least one of them ‘dies’ early in the story—that will make the child sad and lonely and result in many heartbreaking crying scenes that neurotic viewers can’t seem to get enough of. Then, when the ‘dead’ parent resurfaces years later, that will be good for even more melodramatic and three-handkerchief complications and crying jags!

“For even greater misery, make sure you surround the growing child with many villains and other nasty people whose sole purpose is to make his life more terrible still. Viewers love to hate characters who make children suffer, because it makes them recall their own miserable lives as children, and our teleserye will be appreciated because it’s giving them an outlet for all of the pain, resentment and volcanic anger they’ve kept pent up inside for years!

Addition, convolution

“When our hero or heroine grows up, villains can similarly be relied on to make the bida’s love life also miserable and complicated—and, if the kontrabida is rich and sexy, it will enable our show to go into slightly racy bad scenes in expensive resorts, to add to our production’s requisite ‘eye candy.’

“You get the picture? Writing for teleseryes is a game of addition, complication, convolution—throw in everything including the kitchen sink and the bathtub, as long as it gets a reaction or response.

“And, when the storytelling is about to be concluded, make sure you add all sorts of accidents, natural disasters, diseases, murders, kidnappings, or chases, hostage-takings—anything to end our show with a big bang!

“Don’t worry if it doesn’t make complete sense, it’s the high, the melodramatic and emotional high, that counts!”