An exceptional viewing experience

AIKO Melendez (left) and Xyriel Manabat in “Maalaala Mo Kaya” photo: MMK facebook page

As expected, the “Maalaala Mo Kaya” episode last Dec. 20 was an exceptional viewing experience—and not just because it was a “medical” drama about an extremely rare disease, progeria, which radically speeds up the aging process and distorts patients’ appearances to something awful.

To its everlasting credit, the show did hook viewers into watching with its unusual come-on—but went beyond that knee-jerk appeal and ended up as a compelling and insightful dramatic experience in its own right.

The keys to this “beyond-medical-drama” achievement were the production’s un-exploitative scripting and direction—and the exceptionally insightful lead portrayal of the progeria patient, Rochelle, by our best juvenile actress Xyriel Manabat.

Xyriel didn’t just totally change and “uglify” her appearance, but went on to comprehensively understand the many complex emotions her tragedy-scarred character was feeling, from childhood to age 15.

Since our “bold” predictions have “amazingly” been coming true of late, we’re going out on an even longer and more tenuous limb and “recklessly” predicting that Xyriel will sweep the TV acting awards derbies next year with her show-stopping and jaw-dropping portrayal in “Salamin!”

On the other hand, the production hit a few sour notes that should also be highlighted because they’re some of the “minus” elements that made the episode just a good drama instead of the great TV achievement it could have been.

The first low blow was struck by the decision to cast the lovely but “prosperous”-looking Aiko Melendez as poor Rochelle’s mother. The fact that Aiko looks like a movie star, and is frankly too plump, robbed her portrayal of the realism and believable “ordinariness” it should have had.

Rochelle looked so ugly and Aiko looked so idealized and stoutly beautiful that there was a huge clash and disconnect that the drama couldn’t sufficiently recover from.

Another minus point was the inclusion of a “crush” or a “love” element in Rochelle’s story—made worse by the decision to cast a really handsome teen actor in the role of her “love-is-blind” swain.

Now, we all know that a few handsome men do end up falling in love with plain or downright ugly women—but it was still a bad and improbable fit for the show, which should have been acutely and rigorously believable, from start to finish.

Despite these sour notes, “Salamin” did move and enlighten viewers with a number of effective and insightful scenes, like the one right after Rochelle’s 15th birthday, when she was so happy to realize that she was still alive (youths stricken with progeria generally don’t make it to their mid-teens)!

Also exceptionally moving were the scenes that showed Rochelle gutsily fighting for her place in the sun, as well as the respect of others, despite society’s stupidity, cruelty and blinded bias against what it refuses to understand or accept.

For these and other reasons, “MMK’s” “Salamin” episode is our choice for the viewing highlight of the entire month of December.

Xyriel and company, take a long, deep and well-deserved bow!