Cool TV action-drama cat has proverbial nine lives

Scene from “Ang Probinsyano”

“Ang Probinsyano” has been extended up to the end of 2017—that’s over two years of just about nightly telecasting.

So, its storytellers have been hard-pressed to keep its proceedings interesting and involving for the long term—hence the additional twists, turns and tweaks that its plotting has been compelled to effect.

In particular, its resident hero, played by Coco Martin, has had to contend with all sorts of challenges and ordeals that would break any other man.

But Ricardo Dalisay is no ordinary teleserye hero. In fact, he virtually comes across as a superhero—without the tights, cape and mask!

If memory serves, he has been reported to have been killed several times in the past—but, lo and behold, after an amazingly brief and “tragic” exit, he has “miraculously” reappeared, ready to foil a new set of bad guys, practically as good as new!

In fact, if he gets into some more “fatal” scrapes before the action-drama series is finally concluded at year’s end, he could be described as a feline hero—a cool TV cat with the proverbial nine lives!

These thoughts come to mind because, just last month, Cardo again “perished” during a big, all-out battle with a rebel force involved in dastardly terroristic acts that claimed many victims, including Cardo’s own child.

In the bloody battle that claimed many lives on both sides of the deadly confrontation, Cardo was shot point-blank several times, and fell “lifeless” into a river, the rushing eddies of which served as his watery “grave.”

But after many minutes of total immobility and lifelessness—what do you know, a twitch of a finger informed relieved viewers that, for the nth time, Cardo had beaten the odds and foiled the Grim Reaper from doing his worst!

Hooray for “feline” action heroes—may their lives continue to increase and multiply!

We understand, of course, why heroic TV dramas “have” to flout the rules of probability to keep their resident good guys alive and feistily fighting, despite the fatal encounters they must contend with.

In addition, some action-drama fans don’t care if the wool is often pulled over their eyes, as long as they get their regular weeknight “fix” of implausible thrills and squeals.

But what about viewers who aren’t so easily placated, and want more reality and logic in the entertainment they get, so they can react more genuinely empathetically? Do they have to suspend their disbelief to the point of extinction as they watch a shallowly explicated action-drama “resurrection”?

Speaking for this less cluelessly predisposed group, we remind TV scriptwriters that there are more effective and convincing ways to make gratingly improbable plot twists more believable. They just take more work and talent.

So, it could be time to beef up “Ang Probinsyano’s” stable of writers, to help make the impossible more plausible for dissatisfied viewers!