Upbeat start for Marian’s new ‘fantaserye’

Last month, Marian Rivera’s new fantaserye, “Super Ma’am,” had a big, blithe start on GMA 7, assuring the success of its leading lady’s comeback bid after becoming a mom.

The new show had an upbeat opening because it wisely began its storytelling more or less in the present tense, without first fielding its “explicatory” backstory, as many local TV series are wont to do.

Instead of first showing Marian’s character as a kid, she was already a teacher who saved her student and other people from the onslaughts of nasty super-elemental, Tamawos, called by unleashing her own superpowers as “Super Ma’am” to foil their dastardly schemes.

Right off the bat, therefore, she was fighting with an evil super-opponent portrayed by guest star, Ai-Ai delas Alas, who graced the series’ buena mano telecast to hype up its “star value.”

Unfortunately, Ai-Ai turned out to be a merely perfunctory super-nemesis, with her or her action double’s “amazing” displays of superpower looking desultorily pat and predictable. So, her stellar contribution to the new show was merely nominal.

Still, Marian worked so feistily on her action scenes that she kept the series’ opening gambit bright and sprightly—and we looked forward to the show’s next installments.

Unfortunately, subsequent telecasts of “Super Ma’am” didn’t live up to expectations—because, what do you know? The show did go into “backstory” mode, showing how unhappy Marian’s character was as a child, how she got the drive to help others by fighting against all evil forces, both natural and elemental, etc.

We hope that the series will go back to “present-tense” storytelling as soon as possible, so Marian’s dynamic vivacity, which is one of the series’ main viewing factors, will kick in again.

In addition, we trust that Marian’s costars will strive harder to add to the show’s dynamism, instead of just relying on her to do much of the heavy lifting and audience-pleasing.

Fact is, “Super Ma’am” has a relatively strong stellar and character complement, including Dina Bonnevie, Kim Domingo, Jackie Lou Blanco, Jerald Napoles, Meg Imperial, Jillian Ward, Helen Gamboa and newcomer Matthias Rhodes.

But, some of them have not (yet) been effectively utilized, or have been underperforming, so they need to boost their moxie and mojo level.

In Jerald’s case, it isn’t a lack of talent, but focus that’s keeping him from strutting his stuff.

He’s supposed to be Marian’s “sort of” leading man, but has generally been lumped together with the other stellar players as of this writing—so, he needs to be given more and better scripted opportunities to shine.

Thus far, the stellar cast member who’s making the strongest impression, aside from Marian, is Jackie Lou, who’s edgily effective as the Tamawo queen who disguises herself as a human to conquer mankind and force it to do her bidding.

Marian needs more proactive costars like her, so underperforming cast members should break into a sweat, and lift their share of the load.

After all, it’s their show, too, right?