Star and Sky: Star in My Mind

Forgettable...

The series is... very forgettable. I'm writing this not to be mean or exaggerate in any way, I've watched this show very recently, watched another, and then already forgot abt SIMM's existence.
There's nothing extraordinary about it. I'm the type of person who would scream and swoon for fluff (so I really don't need anything mind-blowingly dramatic to keep a series replaying in my brain). And yet nothing much was retained in my mind after I finished the series. The plot is pretty much the usual with misunderstood protags who just have 0 communication skills. So you know how that goes. Like I remember the 1st 50 seconds when Dao got rejected and Kluen said to 'have a good trip' and then the rest is just mush. The end. The acting is OK I think?? Music isn't WOW (especially when I watch MSP afterward it's just day and night).
But truly, it is mediocre and I just kinda forgot about this show.

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A supposed-to-be meteor shower that did not happen ?

Ok so first of all, these two mini series under the title Star & Sky got me intrigued. It's just like GMMTV put it right ahead Enchanté suddenly or idk. It felt like rushed to be released, seemed like it. Not gonna lie, the story is basic and not that exciting. The interaction of the main leads felt awkward like getting along easy with the one you confessed your love which the latter replied Good luck with your flight (or something like that). I was disappointed that why Khabkluen held back his feelings before for Danouea when he once knew they like each other before. It's frustrating, but I mean I get it there's seemed to be a lot of pressure replicating the same feelings with someone you like. The story never went anywhere, it just revolves around the past clinging to present and nothing more. I don't know if it's just me or anyone feels it too. I felt no attachment to the story and the characters, it's just like ‘can it go somewhere better', like I need something else to make the series interesting. Feels like damn, every episode is 45 minutes and each episode has its own cliches and shit that I wish it was shorter. Everytime I watch an episode, I was like please end the episode right there, I'm ok. The acting tho, don't come at me hehe, I was not that impressed but I like Dunk's acting and nothing else. Khabkluen character gives me Sarawat vibes from 2gether. Maitee (Win) is a little bit eyecatcher for me as well as Nay (Winny), anything else ok.... Osts are good. Overall the drama is not over the top and will I rewatch it? Nah, not for me even if it's cute. Just the story is repetitive going from past to present vice versa. I don't think they got me. I was surprised that this is just 8 eps. I think with much time spent more of making this will make it a good watch. It feels like it was rushed because there are no BLs besides Cupid's Last Wish GMMTV has to offer this like month.

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Sigh, the Drama We Didn't Need.

First, I'd like to say that I had a hard time watching this one.

Plot: Dao(nuea) falls in love with (Khab)Khluen in high school and confesses his love right before he goes to Germany to study abroad. He returns to Thailand for university only to meet Khluen again in the school's pageant. He swore he was over Khluen but after seeing him again, his previous feelings return. This is compounded by the fact that they're housed in the same room during the pageant's preparation. Khluen plays a quiet guy who seems cold, can't express himself clearly, and often times I wonder can he speak at all. Dao on the other hand, is full of emotions. He constantly tries to understand what Khluen is doing; "Does he like me? Or is he toying with me?" After a series of miscommunication's, the two finally admit they like each other, and get together.

Pros: Honestly, there weren't really any pros to this drama. I mean, the actor who played Dao is cute and I loved his voice. Hearing him speak was one of the things I liked about him. I also liked Maithee because he was basically hitting on every guy.

Cons: The story's plot made no sense. Khluen knew that Dao liked him in high school and knew that Dao was doing his homework for him but selfishly never said anything. He knew Dao had confessed his love for him and still never said anything. He played hard to get, played it cold, and really sent conflicting messages for most of the story for what purpose except for them to make the drama? It was just pointless. Like getting jealous of Dao flirting with other guys without ever expressing yourself was lame. Finally like I know the actor that played Khluen grew up in Turkey and that he might not be the best at speaking Thai, but h had ZERO emotion in this drama. He didn't come off as mysterious, he came off as just a bad actor.

The scene where he drops everything to save Gia instead of telling Dao how he felt was so stupid. It was like such a ridiculous plot scene. I've never felt so bored watching a drama since Enchante lol. I'm worried that GMMTV's dramas are going down the drain.

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Star in Their Own Minds

Star in My Mind is unique in that despite the fact that it has a decent sized cast, everything revolves around a single character. There are no side couples here, no side stories even, everything and everyone is solely focused on this one person. It's a unique take and with a better character and stronger actor, it could even work. The problem though is that Dao isn't the most interesting or likeable character and this was Dunk's breakout role and he simply didn't have the experience to essentially carry the entire show. It's not bad, it's simply mediocre and at times, incredibly frustrating.

Such a laser focus on a single character is really the only unique aspect of this drama. Otherwise, it's a pretty standard college BL story with a lot of the standard BL tropes. The story is simple enough in that you have two characters in love but one of them doesn't know how to express their feelings and the other, having been rejected in the past, is afraid to confess those feelings again. Miscommunication is the name of the game here and it pervades nearly every aspect of the drama. If Dao and Kluen had simply sat down and had an actual conversation, this drama would have been done in maybe two episodes. But where's the fun in that? No, it's much better to have our leads running around in circles for six or seven episodes before they finally get their heads screwed on straight and get everything sorted out.

Initially, the lack of communication isn't terrible. Dao and Kluen meet again after being separated for a year. Their last meeting involved Dao confessing his feelings for Kluen and with Kluen responding by telling him to have a safe flight, thus breaking his heart. The kicker here is that Kluen is, in fact, in love with Dao as well, he just royally sucks at expressing himself and giving voice to those feelings. So when they meet again, Dao is faced with the fact that he still has feelings for the guy who rejected him and Kluen is continuing to say nothing while getting irritated at all the guys hitting on Dao. Speaking of which, having three guys pursuing Dao was a bit much, plus Papang, can't forget her. Don't get me wrong Dunk is cute, but not quite to that degree and the character of Dao wasn't nearly interesting enough to garner that level of attention. In any case though, the miscommunication just keeps ballooning to the point that everyone else is aware that these two have feelings for each other, except for Dao who is oblivious.

I've seen a lot of people give the character crap for being so obtuse, but I can understand where he's coming from as well. As far as Dao is aware, Kluen essentially rejected him previously. Not explicitly, but he also didn't accept Dao's feelings. Why would Dao expect that a year had changed anything? Even with the signals that Kluen was sending, I can see why Dao would second guess whether he was reading those signs correctly. And then Kluen tells him that Typhoon is a good guy and essentially tells Dao to be with him. There was also the matter of Gia. As far as Dao was aware, Kluen and Gia were still together and Kluen doesn't say anything to dispel that notion. That simply adds to Dao's confusion because why should he believe Kluen would be pursuing him when he's already got a girlfriend. Again, I know people like to give Dao crap, but frankly, Kluen was sending so many mixed signals that even if everyone else knew that Kluen liked Dao, I can see why Dao was so uncertain. Essentially the majority of their miscommunication boils down to Kluen being entirely too close lipped for his own good. Also the fact that he seemed to be able to communicate with others just fine, it was just when it came to Dao that he suddenly was unable to communicate in any way meaningfully.

There is one scene that I was very much not okay with and was extremely out of touch. Dao and Kluen finally have a conversation and Kluen essentially confesses his feelings when he receives a call from Gia. It's later revealed that Gia had a fight with her partner that turned physical and she called Kluen. There are numerous issues with this scene, first and foremost though the use of domestic violence as a gimmick to separate our leads. It is both tactless and tasteless and should never have been used. Almost any other excuse would have been better. Dao's reaction is another issue. He uses that moment to try to force Kluen to choose between him and Gia and then gets butthurt when Kluen still leaves to help Gia. Again, he's purported to be this very caring guy, but apparently he was temporarily struck deaf since there was a clear urgency to Gia's call and Kluen was obviously very concerned.

When it comes to the characterization, neither Dao or Kluen is particularly unique or interesting. Dao's big thing was that he's supposed to be caring and compassionate, but in reality, he was frankly a coward. His inability to say no to people wasn't a strength or a sign of a good person, but rather that he was afraid. He tried to make it seem like he was thinking of the other person, but in reality, it was simply selfish. When it came to Papang, he didn't reject her right away because he didn't want her to get hurt the way he had when Kluen didn't accept his feelings, but did he really think that time was going to make the pain any less? Wasn't it in fact more cruel to give her hope and then dash it on the ground later? Similarly with Typhoon, he obviously didn't want to actually be his boyfriend for the day, but rather than rejecting such a ridiculous idea, he went along with it and, of course, there were consequences which he never really took responsibility for.

With Kluen, I got real tired of his whole "am I too late" schtick. Like, dude, you are literally doing this to yourself, if you would simply open your mouth and communicate, things would not be so messed up. I really needed more from him to try to wrap my head around his mindset and how he was thinking and why he did and said some things, but we're never given that opening and so he remains a bit of an enigma and not in a good way.

The acting was nothing spectacular. Frankly both Dunk and Joong were outshone by some of the supporting cast with more acting experience. That's not to say it was completely terrible either. Dunk did a decent enough job for his first main role, but clearly struggled with the more emotional scenes. He also lacked nuance in his expressions, though not to the same extent as Joong. While I understand that Kluen was supposed to be a stoic character who didn't show a whole lot of emotion, Joong's acting came across not as deliberate, but as wooden. He needed a greater balance in his facial expressions so that the audience could see that he wasn't just a robot.

This drama started out pretty well and seemed promising but then it was just a steady decline from there. There are still some cute, fluffy moments, but it could have been so much more than it wound up being. It's not unwatchable though and it's short enough that it's not a total waste of time, it simply gets frustrating as the story progresses. For this one, I would say watch at your own risk.

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Typical BL. Very Typical One.

Positive :
When we look at the starcast, not only we get great new actors but the Star Cameo Queue of the veteran actors is long and surprising. That's the strongest point of the series. You spot Mek, Ciize, JJ, Sammy, Yatch and even Bright along with our lead actor Joong. One can say, starcast was very strong and good at everything till first two or three episodes!
That's when this series goes downhill later in storyline BUT cinematography, production, lightings and settings, make up and locations were simply breathtaking. Good to see Hua Hin beach.
The First 2 episodes were awesome.


Neutral Picks :
As in the heading, I have said it's a typical BL due to following reasons :
1. All college setup with rich dorms and families where students go in their car. They haven't even graduated yet smh.
2. Shying around their crush like every BL with fluffy moments in a typical manner like typically BL people do!
3. This series reminds of 2 Moons and 2gether in many manners.
4. No Negative character. Makes you smile (if you liked main couple) until end.
5. OST is mediocre.

Negatives :
Easily 2 or 3 episodes could be reduced from this series because they were straightly unnecessary.

•Daoneua becomes Casanova among many people. Imagine a character who is newbie, nervous and little dumb has many many followers. Let's say it is digestable.
•There were sooo many moments between Khabkluen and Daoneua where they knew they loved each other but they chose to stay dumb.
Eh : When Kleun was sketching his mother's portrait holding Neua's hand where they almost kissed.
•Typhoon kissing Daoneua just to prove his point was dumbest scene in the entire drama. Just to increase plot where there ain't plot, how can one come with this ridiculous move?
•When Kluen leaves Neua in his room alone because Gia called her, wasn't it obvious that there was some emergency and he ain't going for candle light dinner? Why being that much dumbneua? To make it worse he accepts 24 hours BF offer. Like this was dumbest thing ever to do.
•Doing homework of senior? I don't know who told him to do that. I have to rewatch to understand that one.

Overall : There is only one storyline Daokluen. If you aren't interested them to get together I don't know what else you should watch in it? Cameos and Locations perhaps.
To construct side plot, they made ridiculous story towards last 4 episodes.
If you just like fluffy lovestory with no negative character this is for you but if you are for story this one lacks behind many.

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GMMTV flop era?

This started of really promising but unfortunately somewhere in episode 6 I stopped liking Daonuea and from then on, even though they finally got together and had some cute moments, I couldn’t enjoy them at all. Every time Dao spoke, I would just roll my eyes or cringe. This wasn’t at all helped by the actor’s awkward performance, I get it’s his first role, but overall Dunk delivered a very weak performance here. Joong’s facial acting was on point but he needs to work on line delivery. The lines (for both the actors) sounded very rehearsed :( It might just be a bad script, but the actors certainly didn’t make it better.

Also, Audio issues for Joong! He spoke very quietly, probably directed to do so because his character is rather stoic, but it’s hard to hear sometimes and the audio processing is weird. Sometimes they even dub over his lines (very obviously) and it just sounds weird and bad (getting flashbacks to the dubbing nightmare that was My Engineer).

This drama also suffered from the classic GMMTV infomercial-sounding-ass background music and annoying sound effects that I wish they would stop using in every single freaking drama they produce but oh well.

Story was very lackluster, it didn’t hit any of the emotional beats right, nothing here made me FEEL anything! I never felt any romantic chemistry between the two leads, so when they got together it was really awkward. ALSO: Non-con kiss while sleeping!! WHY!! And it was framed as funny? Romantic? STOP. I thought we were over this shit.

In conclusion: it had a lot of potential but ultimately fumbled the bag and ended up being quite disappointing. GMMTV really needs to step up their game.

P.S. Sean and Maitee had better chemistry than the main couple, I said what I said! we were ROBBED!

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EPISODE 6 SHOULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED

This series was really going along quite well… until EP 6 happened. It seems like the writers were tripping or something. That “one day trial relationship” offer of Typhoon (which Nuea accepted – quite stupidly – when he and Kluen had just revealed their feelings for each other a few minutes before) was totally uncalled for and unnecessary. It was so unrealistic.

TECHNCAL DEPT. Nothing outstanding. Not the cinematography, not the directing. A little above average, but nothing spectacular. Same with editing and music. Nothing special.

ACTING. Kluen (actor: JOONG) is okay. He is consistently cool (and sometime cold) which is his character. Confident acting. Nuea (actor: Dunk), on the other hand, has many awkward moments – especially when crying is involved. Seems forced. Facial expression doesn’t register grief or pain. His acting was especially awkward when Kluen was showing him the art works he kept all those years. His smiles are also awkward, not showing genuine happiness. Maybe it’s his face and mouth/teeth. But the two has real chemistry. This would have been more intense if Nuea’s acting is at par.

I like Sean (actor: SATANG) and Typhoon (actor: PEPPER) for their honest and consistent portrayal of their characters. The other support actors are equally good, but there weren’t enough exposure for them.

STORY. Overuse of tropes (not telling the truth right away, etc) kasi. Seems like an insult to viewers. After conflicts were resolved (Gia, Fah, Typhoon), two were recycled after Episode 6 (Gia, Typhoon). Conflicts are forced or contrived).

I was ready to give this a 9.0 rating, but after Ep 6, a big turn off, I was ready to give ita 6.0 or 7.0. But the series has enough charm, thanks to the cast. So, I’m still giving it a rating of 8 / 10.

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A little, just a little, boring (In a cute way, but still, boring).

Hmm I have mixed feelings for this series. At the same time that was cute, it was boring.

The storyline it's just... annoying? It's another lazy script from GMM, nothing surprising. But I really like Joong (Kluen) and Dao (Dunk) bcs of their chemistry. At the end of the day, I'm being way too easy on this review bcs I'm biased.

Their acting is ok, they have good chemistry and it's okay, nothing special tho. Since I have already watched them in another series and it was their first job together, it's great to see that they improved since Star In My Mind.

In resume, it's cute, but still way too boring and I watched in 2x just to say that I watched bcs I like the pairing. Going to watch the second part (Sky In Your Heart) now!

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Re-Watch value keeps rising.... 100%

STAR & SKY: STAR IN MY MIND
Dunk & Joong are natural born actors!

I love this drama so much, I had to watch it again 😋 ... I enjoy this couple #Dunk & #Joong or as their fans put them #JoongDunk. Don't understand how they choose whose name goes first etc... 🤣. Yet in my book he is my bias... I would go #DunkJoong 😉
It's funny how when you first watch it, the 2nd or 3rd time you watch it... you see or hear things that you didn't pick up before & the understanding of the situation was a bit clearer.
It brought out how much the misunderstandings between the two characters Dao & Kleun slowed down their relationship to go forward. And even now... this annoys the heck out of me ... 😉. (The downside of watching a drama... is you see the full story, but you can't shake the person and scream ... "You got this all wrong!!!" or "Oh my goodness, can you just speak up and tell him the whole truth!!!" The number of times tears started to form ... is ridiculous lol.

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Underwhelming for actors with great chemistry...

**spoilers ahead**

This is my first JoongDunk series - I watched this the while I excitedly waited for their new series "Hidden Agenda". I honestly expected a lot more since my last watch was "Bad Buddy". Needless to say, this was not as good. I understand it's not a fair thing to compare to but the disappointment after watching such a good series and then this. I point this out to give a context on my mindset while I was watching this. The thing that bugged me the most was that there were a lot of irritating plot points and if there was anything that could sum up the plot it’s one word: miscommunication. Because Kluen doesn't know how to communicate. Or DaoNuea didn’t say how he felt and lied to himself about how he felt. Or WHATEVER. This series made me realize I loathe miscommunication tropes. While it's understandable that Kluen may have valid issues about communicating (something we never got a reason to, were we to assume it's just something he had from birth? Literally all his close friends and Nuea were frustrated at him constantly for this), it was so exasperating to see him navigate through situations that could have been easily resolved with him just saying what he fucking needs to. It was more frustrating that he also knew this about himself but until someone he cared about (DaoNuea) was hurt was when he finally did something about it. He had plenty of time to work on it and get better but didn't do anything about it.

I understand that this is a short series, but "Bad Buddy" was able to captivate and made me feel for the characters just from 5 episodes, something Star in My Mind failed to do so through all 8 episodes. I feel like we barely got to meet each character so it makes it hard to understand their actions too - especially when we don't really have a true understanding of who they are and what they're like.

The acting also took me out in most aspects. While I love and respect both actors, it’s not difficult to see that they are novice actors as some scenes felt awkward and forced- something I personally think they can definitely improve on as I believe they have the true potential to be amazing actors. I can't fault the actors for this alone though, as I feel like the director could have put in more effort on directing and guiding the actors. Their plot and idea were good but the implementation is truly lacking.

Overall - as a series, it was underwhelming as JoongDunk have amazing chemistry. Though I still have my reservations about their next series “Hidden Agenda”, seeing as it's the same director as the travesty that is "Step By Step", I am enthusiastic that since it's been over a year, "Hidden Agenda" will be both an improvement from this.

Satang/Sean was the perfect comic relief!
[END]

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Started out 'above average' but dipped to only 'average'

The acting and chemistry were good enough in the beginning that I was invested, but the turn of the story in the second half just felt like way too much drama and was quite convoluted. They also didn’t really execute the stoic character type that Kluen is very well. I thought there would be some insight into why he is the way he is, but the story just decided to say he’s dumb when it comes to love. And that felt cheap? Like, nothing more complex?

Because there were meaningful moments, scenes and interactions in the first half I thought we would get some kind of pay-off in the second half. But it felt like they changed writing teams halfway through.
Or it’s possible some people are good at romance buildup, but they aren’t good at sustaining conflict after the confessions. This show probably would’ve been better if it ended in romance instead of inserting extra drama to keep them separated until the end.

The series suffers the most from relying on only words instead of using visuals to tell us what people are feeling. There are even chunks of exposition given by side characters to advance the story. If there were no side characters, then nothing would’ve happened between the main couple, which is an issue because romance should grow out of two characters actions, not out of the actions of the people around them.

Promising in the beginning but then it just turned out stale in the end

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