Cooking Crush

Half Baked

I love food. I love OffGun. I love it when people fall in love over shared food. I love it when a lead scams his way into a ton of money because the other lead is adamant that he won't take cooking lessons from anyone.
Unfortunately, I didn't love this.

Seriously though, I love dramas that are in the food/cooking genre. There's something incredibly heartwarming about two people bonding over their love for a particular dish, or learning about each other through food, just sweet core memories. And Cooking Crush had that, plus a lot of stuff I adore in dramas: comedy, a great couple, good side characters and a reasonable plot. With each episode I watched, I liked it more and more. I had no major complaints and I enjoyed the prospect of watching something that was funny, light, and relaxing.

That is until it hit the halfway mark. It's like the writers, actors, director and every single person who worked on this forgot what they did in the first six episodes. Either that, or they changed the screen writers halfway through and said take it in whatever direction you want, there doesn't have to be any continuity, whatsoever. It's baffling how quickly it all changed because before I knew it, the characters were unrecognisable, the writing was so messy and it felt like a chore trying to get through some of the episodes.

Understandable that they needed to shift the focus onto the competition, but the shift was so abrupt and random, with them choosing to spend episodes on unnecessary conflicts, plotlines that saw no progression and the relationship between the leads going up and down like a rollercoaster. And by the time they focused on the actual competition, I felt no connection or investment anymore because of the aforementioned.

Through it all, I just kept hoping it would get better. Kept hoping.. and it didn't. The story after a while made absolutely no sense because they kept introducing characters who's sole purpose was to create conflict that was resolved within seconds without proper explanation. The chemistry between OffGun was suddenly non - existent, the acting felt really off, almost like the cast and crew themselves had given up on the production.

I don't mean to lay into the series like this, but it really does baffle me. How did something with such potential come down to this? The few positives in this were the supporting characters, the relationship between Firefy and Dy, and Ten. Even then, there isn't much to brag about here. Everything about this was simply, okay.

I would recommend watching the uncut version, although not as much as I would have liked, there are explanations to certain actions, the connections between the characters are explored a bit more, it really did make for more of an enjoyable experience.

Honestly, the best thing may have been the opening credits.

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oh sooooo boring....

While not really a bad show, man was it boring.
The writing was predictable, there were no real challenges and if you do food, why is the "super monster chef" just the jury verdicts?

At least one fresh face with Aungpao who did a good job but most were acting like highschool kids and not like grown up humans. I am also not a fan of the weird sounds used in Thai romcons, but at least they did not overdo it.

The kissing scenes with OffGun looked strange for me. I mean they kissed really well in other shows but here it feels shallow without the feeling of love or desire.

This show is a good downer if you have seen something like "Not Me", to calm you down and turn your brain off, because the story does nothing to challenge it.

The finale was an all around happy end, all the parents are soooo nice and so understanding especially Fire's mother. Of course grandma was always cool and always supportive but for the rest I would have wished a more rocky ending or more episodes to see them come to terms and less of the earlier meaningless stuff.

All in all this show was a disappointment.

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It was okay, kind of meh...

A very medium series, here are my pros and cons:

PROS

1) OFF'S ASS. I would love to see him in a speedo. Dang, I'll bet he could open a jar of pickles with that thing.

2) FOOD. Most of it looked really good!

3) SHORT. It was a fluffy, sweet series that didn't overstay its welcome.

CONS

1) OFFGUN "CHEMISTRY." Sorry, what chemistry? They've always given me good friend vibes and there was nothing here to make me feel differently. And Gun REALLY can't kiss. (Or won't.)

2) THEME SONG. Hated it with a passion! That baby crush song made me want to remove my own appendix with a knife and fork every time I heard it. The MC was in their thirties, for goodness' sake. "Baby crush?" Eww. They're not 12.

3) FIRE'S MOM. What a bitch. I wanted to slap her and didn't buy her complete 180 at the last minute. I thought she was an evil, bad seed who needed to be taken out with the trash.

4) WASTED OPPORTUNITY. You've got Dome Jawarat in the cast, who just happens to be one of THE best singers in Thailand, and his vocal talents were not utilized (even for the OST)? Shame.

A pleasant but forgettable series. It's a 6.0 from me.

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standard Thai romcom elevated by Off & Gun

Overall: this is a pretty standard Thai romcom, it was nice to see Off & Gun again. 12 episodes about 45 minutes each. Aired on GMMTVs YouTube channel cut and WeTV uncut.

Content Warnings: past death, grief, mental health struggles, stalking/harassment, bullying, dead body covered, slap, homophobia, unwanted outing, punch, non con video recording/sharing, cyberbullying

What I Liked
- reverse personalities/dynamic from their previous characters
- laughed a few times
- sweet moments
- dream sequences
- motivations/responses of the main leads make sense
- how Prem checked in about Ten's boundaries
- Prem/Ten's mutual and ongoing affection, being supportive of one another
- supportive grandma, Unky's parents and the stepmom
- Ten apologizing for what happened in ep 10

Room For Improvement
- started with an inner voice exposition dump
- not a fan of an aggressive pursuer/reluctant pursuee for the side couple (liked them more starting in episode 7), and then there were some unwanted relationship games in ep 8
- quite a lot of the intended humor was a miss for me
- choppy at times, heard the uncut is less choppy
- the long press and hold kiss with zero lip movement, need more energy in their kissing
- comedy sound effects made things less funny
- could have condensed into 8 episodes, felt slow
- ep 8 the friend going as the in between felt very immature instead of funny
- was disappointed about the Unky arc/telling others without first checking in with the person
- punch was unneeded and then the scene after was jarring with the different tone
- a dad who slaps his son then lecturing him about using physical violence made me roll my eyes
- episode 12 time jump

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Don't bother

Was disappointed with this series mainly because after so many drama series together I expected OffGun to have more chemistry, but unfortunately not. Gave this show a chance just because they were acting in it. The script was kindda lame too. The many times they asked each other how to calm their nerves, which was just used as an excuse to kiss each other, was super duper cringe. The kisses were also cringe and unbelievable (newsflash: people don't kiss irl without moving their lips). Unfortunately for me, OffGun were the weakest actors in the cast. I was surprised by Aungpao though, a new actor, who provided comedic relief without being slapstick. His pairing with Neo who is always good in his roles, was fun to watch. Dome was excellent as well but Tum was kindda over the top. This show doesn't really have much in terms of plot. Storyline is shallow, unrealistic and slapstick. A waste of time.

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OFFGUN IN THE KITCHEN HITS SWEETLY DIFFERENT

I must say that people are being just too paranoid about this. After Not Me, Senior Secret Love Puppy Honey, Theory of Love. Everything about Offgun makes these guys undoubtedly one of the best and most successful onscreen couples in Thai BL. While of course each of these shows portrays them as relatively mature characters, I guess Cooking crush has given me something different.

We've seen these guys act cute before, I mean there was I'M TEE ME TO but that was literally like a pure bromance, Cooking Crush on the other hand has given me a chance to appreciate these guys as a pair of naive Campus kids and the Comedy in this story feels right.

First and foremost, I feel it's worth noting that for me, seeing these two in a rom-com kind of plot after a full year is quite good, I have seen funny shows like VENUS IN THE SKY but on Screen I have never seen a couple that makes it seem that they are so meant to be like Offgun.

The Offgun Chemistry never dies out as I feel each of the actors are comfortable in their roles. Besides, I feel that they have got a more sincere progression in their onscreen Cooking Crush relationship than in pretty much any of those other shows that make the actors look like hungry sex addicts that I do not want to mention.

On top of that, a rom-com like trope is one you'll hardly expect to see Off and Gun executing very well but Cooking Crush will surpass your expectations. Trust me, the storyline feels simple, and we have seen how very many so called "simple and complicated storylines" have ended up this year, but Cooking Crush is nothing like that.

Is the show worth it? Yes. Cooking Crush will most likely drop in my top 10 BLS of 2024 because it has a catchy opening theme, it is a well paced narrative and shows you that even something simple doesn't need a lot of effort to become beautiful as long as it is sincere. Besides for Offgun fans, I dunno about most of ue but for me, this show hits just right.

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Something's off

Unky the best acted character in this show. Off and Gun were oddly not as magnetic together in this one. If this were to be the first series I ever watched with them in it, I would think they had no chemistry together, which leads me to wonder if this production was not rushed. I still would have given this show at least at 7 and 1/2 though if it weren't for the competitor cooking team. Their overacting and sneering was so annoying that I almost called it quits on the whole show. Every time they come on it just ruins the episode for me. I'm on episode 11 and they're in the pool plotting and the way they sneer is so animated and ridiculous. I'm still finishing it for the sake of the top 5 leads.

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What's cooking? In this series, Nothing

This story is your standard Thai rom-com droll series, treating gay relationships like infantile, immature, puppy-love versions of Pollyanna tales. Not that it is not cute; it is. Not that it is not entertaining; some of it is. Not that it does not have good messages and themes; it does. But it is tedious, boring, and unchallenging with not a shred of originality to the story or plot, although the food looked awesome. And the actors all (save one) could have done this series sleepwalking. In other words, it is standard stuff, cliché-driven, with lots and lots of triteness thrown in for good measure. This series gives new meaning to the term ‘light-fluff’. Again, there is no point summarizing the story. Take parts from a slew of Thai BLs and you got it. Their love story weaves and bobs through many what seem like endless banal episodes. Both acting as if they are in grade school rather than in college. The acting in this series by the main performers is standard. It is cute and some parts of it were entertaining, and they delivered their lines well. In terms of intensity of a relationship, there just was not any.
You can read the rest of my review of this series at BLBliss.com.

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Cooking Bust

This show started out cute, but it derailed so fast. They wasted so much time on absolute nothingness and pointless plots with poor resolutions. I am rating this as high as I am just because Off killed it. This was not an OffGun series, I really want Off paired with someone else at this point. Gun is a phenomenal actor, but this show made me see how limited he is. Gun just doesn't have the range to do romantic comedy, and that's okay. But that doesnt change that his performance was flat, and half of their kisses he seemed disgusted or like he didn't want to kiss Off. I'm not sure if this was the character or actor, but neither scenario makes sense.

The amount of back and forth and half baked resolutions crammed into the finale really sealed this show's fate for me. I can't say I would recommend this or watch it again sadly. This was a GMMTV miss for me, and an OffGun miss.

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Cooking Crush didn’t crush it

Except for ‘Not Me’, Off in ‘The Jungle’, and cameos, I don’t have much experience with OffGun’s acting but I know their history and have seen their chemistry in Safe House 3 and how cute they are off-cam. However, if I were to watch this as a first-timer, I would think Gun either doesn’t like or care about acting. When in reality, he’s one of GMM’s most seasoned, highest-demand, and paid actors. I just couldn’t feel his passion in here.

- Pros:
- The cast could act, for the most part.
- The cast, OffGun, Neo, Dome, Victor, and Tum, man is talented and natural!
- Samsi. He’s the only character I cared for from start to end.
- The friendship group for both Doc and Chef. I love healthy friendships and Cooking Crush did a well and natural job in this area.

- Cons:
- The cooking & food. Despite this being a show about cooking and food, I never once looked at any of the dishes and thought “OHHH THAT LOOKS YUMMY”. Oh wait, I stand corrected. Chef’s pepper looked pretty tasty in EP 11.
- Borderline boring. It felt like no one cared. The romance between Doc and Chef and Fire and Dynamite were both fast-paced with little to no chemistry. DocChef weren’t characters, they were OffGun in costumes. I can’t even remember their characters’ names even if someone were to hold a gun to my head.
- The university plot became an afterthought early on and didn’t come back until the very end.
- The 3B or 3 BULLIES gang is overutilized in a university setting. I feel like this show was trying to check off every old stereotype you can find in series in the early 2000s to late 2016s i.e. bullies in universities, closed-mouth kisses, the camera spinning around closed-mouth kissing, running onto filming sets with no security whatsoever, older characters attending college is frowned upon, an abundant of flashbacks, and the list goes on.
- The poor camera work and music killed this series for me. Most of the time, the background music/sound is NOT supporting the scene. Funny scenes are dryer than deserts and it’s because no one cared to add an upbeat soundtrack to go with it. This wouldn’t be a problem if most of the time the series was a heartfelt, serious series but it wasn’t, and was trying to go for comedy a lot of the time. It’s like the show is trying and they’re self-aware to a point but they’re also doing all the wrong things because they know the actors’ popularity will overshadow the lackluster effort.
- The heavy time skips only to use flashbacks to explain what happened. I despise series that use flashbacks for shock value. DocChef suddenly kissing and then having almost one entire episode showing ‘what happened earlier’ was simply boring. I don’t understand the abuse of flashbacks in this series.
- A lot happened and there was a lot of predictable drama but most of them were uneventful. The show should have cut out most of them. The whole separation to improve Doctor’s grades made me lose brain cells and it was such a brainless decision on the characters and production part. We never saw the result of it other than Doc himself saying his grades improved in the last episode. You could have just said that without the whole separating thing. The separation was so short-lived too, it wasn’t even funny. To be fair though, if Doc’s dad had just been upfront from the get-go, we probably wouldn’t have to see Doc acting like a teenager always throwing a hissy fit around daddy and new step-mommy. I wouldn’t have minded Doc’s immaturity if he was at least responsible and independent for a medical student in his third year but he has no part-time job, acts like a clown for the most part, relies on his dad for financial support, and still dares to get mad when he overpaid Chef for cooking courses he no longer needed and daddy found out. ‘Doctor’ was not the profession they should have given Off’s character. I’m not even going to talk about that horrible subplot of Doc meeting another Doc who looks identical to his mom and when he took her to the hospital and saved her life, he was no longer traumatized by his inability to save his mom back then. What. The. Heck. And for him to say ‘we’re not busy today’? I feel that’s something every medical student just knows.
- Gun’s acting. As I said before, it felt like he didn’t want to be a part of the show but did it for Papi. His energy was so low I found myself dozing off whenever he was on screen. For a character who likes to see other people happy, I thought he should start with himself…
- Changma's out-of-the-blue crush on Chef was a big ‘HUH’? Stop it, GMM!
- The whole social media shenanigans were a waste of screen and viewers’ time. For Doc. to apologize ON HIS KNEES and then still act possessive right after was so dumb. It was so middle-school behavior.
- The storyline I hated most is that the staff openly admitted to passing Chef’s group into the second round because they were lame and the show needed that for views...like wtf? I was so glad when Chef opted to withdraw but then he was so easily talked back into it, it was so lame. The fact that his team didn’t end up dropping out when it was an entertainment show and not a cooking show, made me question if it was their cooking skills they wanted recognized in the first place.
- Dynamite was so cute but he did a 180 towards the middle of the show. I liked that he respected Fire and Jane getting back together but since then, he seemed like a different character. We also never know what’s become of his place after his neighbor was murdered.

Overall Cooking Crush gets a 5 from me, in terms of OffGun’s series.

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Come for the food porn, come for the Off-Gun magic, but not much else sparkles here

Cooking Crush was a steady series. Steady, but also safe. Starting with the casting, the story, and the characters, Cooking Crush evinces a startling shortfall in artistic ambition. You, the veteran viewer of innumerable prior BL series, have seen this sort of tale before. Continuing with the writing, directing, and editing, Cooking Crush likewise innovates no fresh way of conveying a BL storyline. You, the veteran viewer of innumerable prior BL series, have witnessed countless episodes that look, sound, and feel like these episodes look, sound, and feel. While the ingredients may lack freshness, the recipe cooks up a final product that surehandedly delivers solid, dependable BL comfort food. That is to say, if you crave plain, simple fare that still hits the spot, Cooking Crush suffices for that purpose. If you hoped for a BL meal thatmight deliver something special, memorable, or different, then Cooking Crush will not be to your taste.

The series marks the return to BL of the hallowed Off-Gun pairing, veritable Pillars of BL Shipping. Their previous project, Not Me (2021), featured dark themes and a level of social criticism atypical of BL fare. That series impressed viewers with its depth and complexity despite the bleak tone and socially conscious messaging. Reportedly by request of the actors, this new project aimed far lower, and the result is an utterly conventional BL. The series will most likely satisfy BL fans in search of a reliably sweet, romantic story, one told without any of the social criticism or genre blending that have become commonplace in recent years. Cooking Crush is very much a BL series in the mold of pre-2020 BL productions. Perhaps that is all it ever needed to be to be considered a success. By contrast, it will not much satisfy BL fans desperate to see the genre evolve.

Cooking Crush is not a bad series. Lukewarm praise? Surely yes; yet, that tepid analysis is more than can be said of several other recent series released by formula-factory GMMTV. If Cooking Crush delivers no significant highs, it also avoids any significant lows. It just plods along in predictable blandness until the requisite 12 episodes have been counted down. En route it delivered sweet moments and dramatic moments. It had a main couple and a side couple. It had pesky parents and supportive parents. Its supporting cast offered familiar favorites and a charming newcomer. It avoided the hyper-dramatic penultimate curse episode (hallelujah!) and likewise avoided any huge, gaping holes in story logic (glory hallelujah!). Given the dizzying illogic some of those more overtly ambitious recent series foisted on viewers in search of compelling plot twists, I choose to regard the absence of ambitious plotting as a virtue. A simple story needs no great leaps in logic! And sometimes, simple is all we need. Mind you, this story was so insubstantial I doubt the story framework offered sufficient space for plot holes to form. Ambition in plotting was traded for safety in plotting. Unsurprisingly, given the studio’s reliance on formulaic storytelling, but few scenes or episodes exuded natural progression of human relationships. Characters start to feel attracted to each other because the storyboard says it is time for that "twist." The plot just moves along in a way that always seemed calculated—sweetness, followed by tension, followed by a fresh dose of redemptive sweetness. Cooking Crush was manufactured as a star vehicle for the Pillars heading the cast, and the story felt manufactured to win audience approval. There’s nothing wrong with that. But there’s nothing exciting with that either. The series was conceived to be a safe project for all involved. It delivered exactly that—BL comfort food. And absolutely, positively nothing more than that.

Off and Gun continue to manifest tremendous chemistry. (Fans of this ship absolutely should enjoy the series.) But in some ways, I don’t think their prior history helped this production. They are almost too comfortable with one another. The series never cultivated any palpable sexual tension, in part because we viewers are so accustomed to seeing Off and Gun together. The pairing of Doc and Chef seemed inevitable, just as soon as sufficient numbers of sponsor products had been placed on screen. By design, Cooking Crush was never intended to challenge the actors' performative skills the way their prior pairing had; yet, the blandness of this script may have overcompensated. Off and Gun are always engaging, and their bonhomie draws the viewer into the cozy warmth of the narrative. Still, in Cooking Crush the actors seem to glide through their scenes by relying on muscle memory rather than inspiration. To be fair, the flatness of the script, which crafted familiar, monotonous character types patterned from an overused and worn-out template, offered the duo precious little opportunity to demonstrate any growth in their craft. Nevertheless, I depart Cooking Crush with a firm sense that perhaps the time has come when the Off-Gun pairing has reached a point of diminishing returns.

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Love OffGun But Losing Brain Cells.

You should be able to tell if this show is for you within two episodes. You may enjoy this if you love Off/Gun, want something light and easy to watch with some sweet/cute moments, and are in the mood for simple/silly humor.

At Ep 9/12: My previous review of Ep 1-5 holds. I decided to give it a try again for OffGun's sake and watched Ep 6-9. Apparently the YouTube version is cut (in the USA). I switched to the uncut version via Telegram after Ep 5, but it didn't change my lack of enjoyment with the show.

Previous review: At Ep 5/12. This may not be a popular sentiment, but from my perspective, this show is a slog through simplistic boredom. Apart from Off & Gun's characters, most everyone else acts like middle-schoolers (around 11-13 years old) instead of university students. The 'humor' is extremely basic and simple. There's no cleverness in this screenplay at all. Most characters are more like caricatures and what little plot there is, is so far predictable.

I was so impressed with the series Not Me and Gun and Off were so fantastic in their roles. They acted with nuance, depth, and authentic emotions. The production of Cooking Crush is a huge downgrade for what their talent is capable of.

I'm watching the scenes with Off & Gun together at normal speed because they manage to elevate the generic material to bring some interest and depth to their interactions. For everything else I'm watching at 2x the speed to keep myself from dropping this show entirely.

I really want to support OffGun, but the screenplay is so shallow/simple/boring/predictable, and the secondary characters so annoying and often over-acted, that I really can't bring myself to rate this higher currently. If OffGun weren't a part of this show, I would have no qualms about rating it a 4 and dropping it.

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