As an act of love, earlier this week I made a supercut of the EarthNew aka WaiApo storyline from Water Boyy, a show that made me feel like I was actively losing my mind when I skim-watched it last year. I had genuinely blocked out a lot of the storylines except for the fact that Wai is homophobic because his dad started dating Wai’s best friend, who was on the swim team his dad coaches along with Wai. I still unfortunately find this hysterical.
I would never in a million years want to see a remake, but I am curious about how differently it would be made now. That might be a fun thought experiment for another time—who would GMMTV put in their remake? I’ll have to think on this.
Currently Watching (on air)
Jack & Joker: Episode 10 was fucking batshit. It starts with a very horny lead-in to a fade to black that cuts to them discussing marriage and then one scene later they adopt a daughter. This was the first sign that the pacing issues the show has had the entire time were about to hit their zenith.
Like I said previously, this show is essentially a comic book come to life, so I’m willing to suspend a certain amount of disbelief when it comes to, like, the special ring that somehow enables you to have full command of Bangkok crime, but this episode had so many things happen in the canonical space of about 36 hours, max, with most of it happening within maybe like 4 hours?? As a friend said, it was very AO3 wip of “oh shoot I need to wrap up all these plot threads.”
I think maybe this is a lesson to me that I need to temper my expectations a bit, because the pacing of this show has been uneven at best, but I still feel weirdly disappointed by how it’s gone. With a week to process it, I no longer feel as poleaxed, so maybe the last two episodes will win me back.
Fourever You: Every episode I feel us inching closer to learning more about Tonfah and Phoon and I just keep reaching for my screen begging them to show us more. The LOOK on Phoon’s face every time they interact…it’s very [touches earth] something is happening here.
No hints yet of Dao and Arthit, who I’m worried will steal my heart, especially since I know now that actors Oat and Ngern have known each other for close to 10 years, as they were both in Love Sick 2 (at ages 15 and 18). At this point I’m going to egg Director New’s house asking for a sequel series focusing on the two background couples, because I’m dying here.
Perfect 10 Liners: As a friend said, spiritually this was episode 7. A first kiss so early? It had me wondering if our assumption that it would be evenly split 8-8-8 between the 3 couples was accurate or if it’ll do something similar to Fourever You where the stories start happening concurrently. I suppose we’ll see! No framing device this time, but maybe we’ll get back to it.
Any bets on who will be playing Tawan? Some of our guesses: Tay (Tawan); Pompam; Podd or Papang; or New. (Watch it be someone totally random now.)
Love in the Air Koi: I have no issue with this show and am enjoying it perfectly fine, but the problem is I am also currently rewatching the original, and so can’t help but compare. Arashi and Rei are cute and their dynamic is great, but it just makes me look at Phayu and Rain and go, damn. Truly no one can recreate that insane level of chemistry, huh.
Caged Again: The two actors for this did a cute fake on-the-street interview promo for this show which had me intrigued. Panther and penguin turned human boys? Sure!
It’s unsurprisingly delightful so far, and perhaps more surprisingly pretty good. The main two are great for being rookies, and they’re supported by the actors who played Almond and Latte in Knock Knock Boys, the latter of whom is great, especially at comedy, which is what they have him doing. Unsure what the long-term plot is though, so curious to see where it ends up going!
Your Sky: The premiere was very much a set-up episode, but what a set-up. Teerak and his group of friends are already very cute and funny, and it’s very obvious that Muenfah has had a horrible crush on Teerak for some time. Fully-grown adult man Mike playing a college student is KILLING me, but at least he’s the antagonist. There’s clearly a story with him and why everyone is so firmly against Teerak dating him, unless it’s literally just that his vibes are rancid. Thrilled for fake-dating shenanigans to begin next week!
Pluto & Kidnap: Have not yet watched this week’s episodes! Will be doing so after I send this email.
Currently Watching (completed)
Why R U?: We have finally gotten through episodes 11 & 12, and honestly I forgot just how long the nc scene in 11 goes on. They do so much, even by 2024 standards. It’s truly so funny how much the side characters completely vanished, and how much cleaner and more focused the show seems without them.
Dangerous Romance: Kang really has such a journey in this show. I think one of the funniest parts to me, though, is how little he agonizes over his sexuality. It’s more that he just hasn’t figured out that he likes Sailom, because once he decides he’s all in. Very Pete in Kiss Me Again.
Love in the Air: We’re almost through the first half, which means Rain has just walked into his own kidnapping. Truly iconic of him! Despite having seen this show several times, the nc scenes (which I have learned means “no censorship”) in 4 & 6 continue to shock me. I always think I’m exaggerating how intimate the one in 4 feels, but I’m truly, truly not. It’s one of the most “I feel like I shouldn’t be there” nc scenes of all time.
Finished
Memory in the Letter: If I had a nickel for every time I watched a BL that ended with the philosophical question of “is a 25 year age gap still problematic if we were the same age when we originally met but aren’t anymore because of time travel/dimensional shenanigans” I would have ten cents. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird it happened twice.
I’m not a huge anti age-gap person, but I did find it somewhat distracting the entire final episode knowing that Kyo was, like, 45, especially because the actor is only now 33. I also think there was way more chemistry between the younger actors, although there wasn’t nothing between the older one and Aksorn.
I think the show felt the same way because they only have one kind of awkward kiss and then are pretty chaste from there on out. I do think the older actor did a decently good job of conveying the personality of the younger one, but then I’d be like, he’s 45 and maybe shouldn’t be acting like an 18 year old. I don’t know! Really, I think this maybe should have been a movie with the last episode being condensed down to 10 minutes of denouement so the audience doesn’t think about it too hard. I was watching the WeTV uncut version, so I don’t know what the cut version was like.
I will say this show included the thing Past-Senger did not, which was Kyo showing up at his friend’s house and being like hi. I’m dating your son. And for that, I respect it.
All in all, I wouldn’t recommend this—it’s fine, but not anything you need to see. I do hope that the younger two actors get more work, preferably together, because I liked both of them and thought they were good. It was actually the better of the two parallel universe shows I watched this year, though!
From the Vault
My School President: It was very fun rewatching part of this with my new, deeper GMMTV knowledge. It’s still wild to me how Tinn truly spends the entirety of this show looking like he wants to eat Gun whole. I’m like, Gemini, you’re seventeen. Take it down a notch.
Other BL News
GMMTV has been gearing up for GMMTV 25, and of course everyone has been eyeing the announcements of who will be there with rabid curiosity. Of interest to me specifically:
Fluke and Thor are confirmed
Aou and Boom are confirmed
Sky and Nani are confirmed (and clearly both took their photos for the announcement post while in their costumes for High School Frenemy)
I will unfortunately be seated come Sunday morning with my bingo card ready to go.
Starhunter also announced some of their upcoming projects, which includes another MosBank show from the author of Big Dragon. I have spicy opinions about those two, specifically that Bank can’t act and looks physically uncomfortable to be on camera 90% of them time, and I do not think he has been helped by both of their shows to date being extremely weakly written. I don’t know why Starhunter keeps choosing books that are mostly porn (and also two books that have completely unexplained mpreg) to adapt because then they have to do so much work to find a plot; I don’t know if this book is any different, but I’m not holding out hope.
Idol Factory has started filming the new BillyBabe series which promises to be tragic and therefore will probably automatically get slapped with the high art label. (I’m sure it will be, I’m just also bitter about how people always treat tragedies and dramas as more artistic than comedies.)
Peaceful Property Corner
The last PP corner…I had so much fun with this show. I think it was really smart writing for TV specifically, with each episode being largely one self-contained mystery to be solved, with most of them ending up tying into the larger plot. Do I have questions? Sure, but none of those questions affect the arc of the main plot or my understanding of the characters. I think it’s fine for a work of fiction to leave things open or unanswered; people like to call those plot holes, but if they didn’t make the plot fundamentally not work, then that’s not what that is. IMO.
The ending did provoke a lively discussion of subtext versus queerbait. I personally find this to be in the subtext area no matter what Dome says about it not being originally intended, because whether or not he realizes it, he wrote a love story, romantic or otherwise. I do, however, have a weakness for implicit love stories in general and think that the ideal world for free queer expression means we can have this and also Heart Killers. From the same network, in the same time slot.
Anyway, I had a great time. I might actually buy this on DVD when it comes out! It would be a great yearly Halloween watch.
This corner might end up becoming High School Frenemy corner which is also not a BLTM, but I think maybe also I should just spare all of you from that. No one needs to see how insane that show makes me, not even god.
urs,
hk