Quadruple weddings, anyone?

“MINSAN LANG KITA IIBIGIN.” “Comfortingly predictable” approach.

Right after our article on the last telecast of “Mula sa Puso” came out, a TV buff contacted us to say that she agreed with our comments about the double wedding and the bus explosion – but, did we know that, at around that same time, “Minsan Lang Kita Iibigin” also ended its run with a double wedding and an explosion?

Her point was not that great minds run in the same channels, but that the paucity of fresh ideas on the local teleserye scene has become depressingly endemic.

She went on to ask, “What’s happened to creativity, a sense of surprise and the genuinely unexpected? Don’t writers and directors of teleseryes want their work to stand out? Don’t they know how competing shows’ plotlines are progressing?”

Some answers:

Format

Yes, makers of teleseryes want their shows to excel, but the local drama series format and ethos practically demand that they punch all of the “traditionally expected” buttons, for fear that their shows won’t rise to “satisfyingly melodramatic” heights.

This helps explain why local adaptations of past foreign telenovela imports still click with local viewers, despite the over-familiarity of the material. And, even “original” series are expected or even required to pretty much hew to the same melodramatic matrix, so viewers feel that they’re in “safe” hands.  – No far-out, artistic “experiments,” please!

It’s like popcorn: You can play around with the flavors up to a point, giving buyers a choice of cheese or barbecue, but it still has to be popcorn.

As for TV people finding out how the competition is shaping up, some sleuthing is being done, but teleserye finales are kept secret – and, besides, by the time they unfold, it’s too late for other shows to change their endings to compete with them on point of impact.

These notes may turn some people off, because they sound so wearily jaded and cynical. After all, there are some shows like “100 Days to Heaven” and “Amaya” that do try to be different in certain ways.

Sadly, however, they are in the distinct minority, and many other series prefer to go the safely pushbutton way, because the ratings numbers “prove” that viewers approve of their “comfortingly predictable” approach.

Back stories

As a TV veteran puts it, “The teleserye viewing experience is a lot like junk food. Viewers enjoy the convoluted back stories and twists in the unfolding plots, as well as the entertainingly over-the-top performances – but, that’s all there is to it.

They love the experience, but only for the moment, and they generally don’t expect it to add up to something powerful and profound. An hour later, you’re hungry again, and it’s time to get your fill from watching another entertainingly excessive teleserye!”

If that sounds jaded and cynical, it’s coming from an industry insider, so it isn’t criticism, just a description of the way things are – and, in the “comfortingly compatible” view of some TV people and viewers, how they should be.

— Quadruple weddings, anyone?