Net 25 show offers welcome relief from formulaic TV dramas

QUAN. Life lessons.

There’s a “little” show on Net 25 that more people should watch, because it offers much more than the usual TV drama series. It’s titled “5 Girls and a Dad,” which should give you an idea what its stories are about.

That’s right, the series scripted by Lualhati Bautista is about a widower (Richard Quan) with five daughters. He tries to bring them up as best he can, teaching and learning life lessons all the while.

In addition to the show’s splintered nuclear family, a lolo (Leo Martinez) and lola (Vangie Labalan) are on hand, and their constant bickering helps keep the series peppy and ornery.

We’ve caught “5 Girls and a Dad” off and on for several weeks now, and we admire its penchant for tackling family topics and issues that other sitcoms or dramas dismiss as not “fun” and entertaining enough to click with viewers.

Problem

For instance, the youngest girl is autistic, so her efforts to communicate keep everyone on tenterhooks. When she finally starts licking her problem, it’s a major celebration – not just for her family, but for empathetic viewers, as well.

The show’s resident daddy-mommy is similarly challenged by the fact that his other daughters are fast becoming “courtable” young ladies.

What can he tell them to prepare them for this new stage in their lives? What does he tell himself that will enable him to better cope with the pangs of insecurity and jealousy that nibble at his heart when he sees his house full of strange and untrustworthy boys gone a-courting? —Help!

In addition “5 Girls” is significant because it reflects the growing phenomenon of single-parent families. It also deserves to be encouraged as Net 25’s first teleserye. It provides welcome relief from the excessively formulaic dramas on the bigger networks.

But, the show could do better in certain areas. We occasionally note a certain repetitiveness in terms of situations, like the bickering grandparent separately having their say on the topic or theme at hand.

Context

There are also too many indoor scenes, so the show doesn’t sufficiently “open up” to the outside world and the essential context it should have to prevent the series from looking like an abstracted think piece or a social-psychological hothouse experiment.

Most urgently of all, “5 Girls” should differentiate and individualize its female characters. Too often, except for the youngest kid, they are presented as a group, rather than as distinct characters, each with a specific driving need within the warp and woof of their family’s matrix.

We also wonder what new and greater excitement could be provided if the widower gets attracted to somebody – and what his daughters would have to say on the subject!

Thus far, he’s been such a saint, thinking only of them and their welfare. But, what if reality intrudes and complicates the family’s shared situation in this or any other way? How would this expand the possibilities in terms of what viewers can empathetically “learn” from the show? – What if?