Vice Ganda is the exception to the rule

VICE Ganda

After our initial review of “Magandang Buhay” came out, we’ve continued to watch ABS-CBN’s new morning show and have these follow-up observations to share:

In general, our key point that the program is too slow and thin and needs more features has been borne out by succeeding telecasts—with the sole exception of the show that focused exclusively on Vice Ganda and his “close in” friends and relatives!

That particular telecast was so full, tight and eventful that it needed nothing else to keep viewers interested and entertained for a full hour.

Vice was a standout guest because he was candid, forthright, colorfully articulate and not just willing but eager to share his stories and feelings with viewers. Not many show biz personalities can do this, so the whole hour was a special treat.

In addition, the program was creatively structured, with different people making sequential entrances, so a feeling of “accumulation” and progression was sustained.

Best of all was the portion in which Vice’s two “sister-brothers” were featured.

They turned out to be interesting people in their own right, and the anecdotes they shared about their famous sibling were especially insightful and choice.

After that standout show, however, many other telecasts have left us occasionally bored, and hoping for more.

To illustrate, on April 25’s full focus on Alex Gonzaga ended up as a chatty but tedious viewing experience.

Alex may be ditzy and antsy, but she’s also a bit too full of herself and loves to prattle on and on about her likes and dislikes, etc.

Unfortunately, the show’s hosts didn’t know how to rein her in, or perhaps they weren’t even aware that all that prattle and tattle was getting to be a drag and sag.

A particularly testy moment was the really long “sharing” in which Alex recalled how she accidentally ended up wounding Luis Manzano—all about how she was flossing and he was trying to get her attention, and there was a smelly T-shirt involved, and she hit back, and her nail bruised his arm—etc.

Yes, it was that detailed!

That’s what happens when a show has too much time on its hands, its main guest is excessively talkative and the hosts don’t feel that there’s a need to shape, pace and edit the conversation.

We hope that hosts Karla Estrada, Jolina Magdangal and Melai Cantiveros will quickly learn to do that—and the production itself would also help a lot by (most of the time) inviting two main guests with separate topics per telecasting day.

To end on a brighter note, we did appreciate Alex’s “tips” on love, dating and “moving on,” when she talked about her latest “Dear Alex” book for teens.

She may still be quite young, but her “from-actual-experience” advice is sound and insightful.