TV5’s ‘golpe de gulat’ and ‘golpe de lipat’ moves

DOLPHY

TV5 has been making waves in the entertainment industry by using big-bucks persuasion to get a number of talents in an exclusive capacity. Aga Muhlach, Dolphy, Willie Revillame, Sharon Cuneta, Nora Aunor—these stars are major players, so their presence in TV5 programs have added to the “third” channel’s luster.

After that series of “golpe de gulat” and “golpe de lipat” moves, however, it’s time for TV5 to focus on building up its own stable of homegrown, bankable stars. That’s the bigger challenge for a relatively new TV network and can’t be postponed or shirked indefinitely.

It has been making some moves in this direction, but they haven’t been particularly noteworthy, to date. For instance, it gave Alex Gonzaga the big build-up treatment by way of its “Babaeng Hampaslupa” teleserye, but she didn’t or couldn’t take full advantage of the opportunity she was being given to prove her worth as a dramatic actress.

The channel is trying again to boost Gonzaga’s dramatic career with its new series, “PS I Love You,” but the young actress is again falling short of the mark.

SHARON Cuneta

What seems to be the problem? The way we look at it, Alex has been made to believe she’s an unusually “versatile” performer to whom everything comes easy—when the evidence on the screen in her various shows belies that overly generous assumption.

Before she was “repackaged” as a dramatic star, Alex was made to do comedy, cohost a show biz-oriented program, act in teen romances, etc. As she went from here to there—and everywhere—she made only slight adjustments in terms of acting and performing styles.

So “versatile” she definitely is not—yet.

In the future, it’s possible that she will finally come into her own as an exceptional, all-around player, but that hasn’t happened.

Perhaps it isn’t entirely her fault. Perhaps her handlers have made it seem too easy for her, so she’s gotten used to facile portrayals, not realizing that truly professional comedic and dramatic performances take a lot of time, thought and work.

WILLIE Revillame

The problem has been made even more glaringly obvious by the two big breaks she has been given, on “Hampaslupa” and “PS”

Big breaks result in similarly huge expectations and demands—so before Alex was repackaged as a dramatic star, she should have been workshopped and honed until she was good and ready.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t, and her credibility as a major young comer has been sorely compromised, as a result.

We hope that the young star can still get her act together. Thinking more expansively, we trust that TV5 will work much better to discover and hone other young comers so that the faces that appear on its shows can have more than just a “borrowed” or “transferred” or “sold” look to them—and can proudly project the unique, “homegrown” look of TV5.