‘Dark’ possibilities make action-drama series viewable

PADILLA. Topbills “Kailangan Ko’y Ikaw” with Kris Aquino and Anne Curtis.

We made it a point to catch the first telecast of the new teleserye, “Kailangan Ko’y Ikaw,” because the possibilities of its combination of lead stars intrigued us:

Despite the passage of many years, the presence of Robin Padilla still means an “action drama” factor will be woven into the storytelling. The stellar appearance of Kris Aquino indicates that the story’s setting is bound to be high-end. And the fact that Anne Curtis is on hand suggests that some sultriness, plus occasionally impetuous behavior, are decidedly in order!

—True enough, when we were introduced last Monday to the new drama series’ characters, they did turn out to be pretty much as expected: Robin is a cop, Kris helps her dad (Tirso Cruz III) run a big security-guard business, while Anne is her youngest sibling who has a penchant for getting herself into sticky situations, some of them illegal.

To complete the lead cast, Ian Veneracion plays Tirso’s only son, who feels under-appreciated, because Dad dotes on Kris so much.

Judgment

Thus, with only a few broad strokes, the new teleserye efficiently presages the key storytelling and thematic threads that may be developed in succeeding telecasts: Anne will run afoul of the law, Robin will try to straighten her out, lonely Kris will find herself also falling for him despite her better judgment, resulting in a love triangle being feistily formed—while resentful Ian plots his next move!

Now, we don’t know for sure if all this will indeed come to pass, we’re just trying to read the general signposts along the road.

But, we could be onto something because, when we first heard about Anne’s “black sheep” character, we intuitively guessed that her first run-in with the law would happen because she would cynically get herself involved in some sort of “kidnap me” ruse, so her family would have to spend millions to ransom her.

—What do you know, in last Monday’s premiere telecast, that’s exactly what happened, and the program ended with Anne being brusquely sent to jail by Robin, to teach her a lesson she should have learned long ago.

Preternatural prescience aside, what else initially strikes us about this new show? More or less, we can anticipate what most of the lead characters may do, at least in the next two weeks, but Ian’s character intrigues us, because his resentment could boil over into unexpected actions that could take some of the series’ scenes into potentially chilling and thrilling territory, especially when they pit him against Robin.

Plot twists

Tirso’s character could be another “dark” factor in the story. The fact that he runs a big security business and is shown early on to be a sharpshooter suggests that he’s more than just the standard TV paterfamilias, and could initiate some of his own violent and propulsive plot twists, for maximum melodramatic effect!

What about the prospects of the series’ resident sisters falling for the same man? That bears watching out for, as well—but, we wonder how Kris will credibly compete with Anne for Robin’s heart and bod!