‘Teleserye’ updates
DANTES. The street toughie he portrays is really an angel.
THE plots continue to thicken on current and/or concluding teleseryes, some in an alarmingly hysterical way. As a series is about to end, it piles one shocking scene on top of another, until the original storyline is well-nigh obliterated, and villainous characters attain monstrous heights of insane infamy and evil!
Why do they get so completely carried away? Well, if you’ve gotta go, do it with a big bang, to make sure that your ratings will be at an all-time high! —Even if the storytelling ceases to be believable and human? Even if.
Well, we trust that viewers aren’t all that dense, and can tell when they’re being taken for a self-serving ride. Knock on wood (not on wooden noggins)!
On “E-Boy,” the resident robot has acquired a face, and his inventor (Ariel Rivera) has just been released from jail. But, the big deal about the show these days is how it’s added new tykes to its cast of child characters, resulting in a glut of cuteness, friskiness and loudness that is quite off-putting.
Worse, the kids speak all the time, lines and lines of dialogue that’s patently too old for them. We jotted down one to illustrate: A tyke talking to another kid screams, “‘Yan ang hirap sa ’yo, masyado kang mapanghusga!” When was the last time you heard a real child talk like that?
To make things worse, “E-Boy” is by no means the only series that errs in this regard. Writing believable dialogue for children is an art—that some TV writers obviously don’t care to practice.
Another “kid-heavy” show, “Biritera,” is similarly deficient, but its main flaw is the fact that its storytelling has detoured, and is now focusing on the intramurals involving adults related to the child singers in the show. Yes, this does happen in the biz, but don’t dwell on it so much and so long, and let’s get back to the competing kiddie talents, please.
Persona
On “My Beloved,” the angel played by Dingdong Dantes has inhabited the persona of a streetwise toughie, Benjie, but still doesn’t quite know what hit him. He poses as a carver in the shop Marian Rivera’s character runs, and he’s woefully inept at the job—but Marian doesn’t even notice! Only when the real carver shows up does she realize that Benjie has been deceiving her. —Does the show really expect viewers to believe that?
On “Walang Hanggang,” Susan Roces has told Richard Gomez that he has a son by Dawn Zulueta, but Dawn lies through her teeth and denies it. The show’s regular viewers know better, of course—her son is none other than Coco Martin’s character, only she doesn’t know it (she was made to believe that the kid died as a babe). —Well, that’s part for the teleserye course.
The good news is that the storytelling has finally stopped focusing on Coco and Julia Montes’ subplot, and has gone back to Dawn’s “vengeance” scenario, which should be more eventful and viewable—especially because viewers are waiting for the Dawn-Richard tandem to catch “passionate” fire again!
