Love at First Spike

Not My Spike of Tea

Even though I’m Filipino, I haven’t really watched local series in a while, so Love at First Spike felt kinda off to me. I’ve gotten so used to the vibe and production quality of Thai drama that this one just hit differently. And just to be clear—this isn’t a BL, and the creators never said it was. It’s not even tagged as LGBTQIA+ on kisskh, so I honestly don’t get why people are calling it queerbaiting.

The story follows Uno, a varsity player who gets kicked off the basketball team after punching a teammate mid-game. He’s your typical broody guy—always frowning, quick-tempered, and clearly dealing with a lot emotionally. He’s an illegitimate kid who resents his dad, and that anger kinda spills into how he treats everyone. Normally, I accept flawed characters with open mind in a series/movies, but I just couldn’t connect with Uno. Maybe it’s because of how casually homophobic and transphobic he is, or maybe it’s just the fact that even his friends don’t seem to like him. He’s really hard to root for. That said, the actor who played Uno did a good job for his role.

For such a short series, there’s a lot of drama—family issues, emotional breakdowns, side plots here and there. Very Filipino teleserye vibes. I just wish local shows would explore something lighter for once. Thai series know how to give you that feel-good comfort, even with simple plots. This one felt emotionally heavy all the way through. The only character I actually liked was Lucien. The rest? Always ready to fight—so intense, lol. Romance isn’t really front and center, but there’s a love triangle somewhere in the background. And while it's supposed to be about sports (varsity) in a school setting, no one seemed to care about studying. 🤣

Some of the supporting cast looked way too old to be playing college students, which made it harder to believe the setting. And don’t even get me started on the school—it looked tiny and almost empty. For something under ABS-CBN, I expected way better production value. The campus scenes didn’t feel alive at all—it didn’t even look like a real university.

To be honest, I already had a feeling this wouldn’t be my thing. I just gave it a try because it’s Tagalog, and I needed something I could half-watch while working. I can’t do subtitles when I’m multitasking.

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Currently watching review

So let me start off by saying at this point I have watched 3 episodes and am about to start the 4th episode but felt it needed a review.

So far I am enjoying the story line of the show and the acting is good. However, there are things that i really like and some that really irritate me with the show.

Ep 1-3 What I like:
So I like that Jared and Farrah have a great family bond and they try to help each other out. I also like that Farrah's two friends seem like they are always willing to be there for her and help her out. I did like the friendship between Jared, Parker, Diamond, and Kidalt in the first 2 episodes. I also love how Uno's mom deals with things.

Ep 1-3 What I don't like:
So let's start with Uno's abhorrent behavior when it comes to sportsmanship and his inability to even recognize that he has a problem. This can be seen not just from the basketball game but also during volleyball tryouts. During tryouts he constantly knocks other people over and doesn't apologize or even help them up. Then when we have the scene with Farrah being mad at him she caves and helps him out, when he still doesn't even acknowledge that he did something wrong to Jared back when they were friends. Sure at this point we have only heard Jared's side of the story but do we need to hear Uno's side of the story? Based of the evidence it looks at though the basketball team told him to hit Jared with the basketball and cut ties with him to be able to play and be a starter in the basketball games. Sure it looks as though he felt bad, but he never apologized and even apparently forgot how he treated Jared. Next let's move on to the girls volleyball coach, he's a a**hole all around which is evident by him saying to stop helping the boys volleyball team and cut ties with them. School should promote unity and helping each other out what he is doing is trying to separate students from working together which isn't right. Next let's move onto the new coach of the boys volleyball team. He has an ego and needs to get over himself it doesn't matter if he's the coach or not the team captains input on new team mates is just as important if not more important. Yes, Jared is making his decision partly because of a personal reason, but also because he acknowledges Uno is selfish and doesn't know how to be a team player. While the coach is focusing on Uno's potential since he is a good spiker he overlooks the fact Uno isn't showing good sportsmanship throughout the tryouts as previously mentioned. As a coach he should have had a conversation with Jared separately about why he wanted Uno on the team instead of sidelining him in front of everyone. Even though Uno is a good spiker realistically no coach would have allowed him on a team after watching him knockdown other people during tryouts and not even apologize or help them up since volleyball is a team sport that requires a lot of trust. Lastly, Diamond and Kidlat's actions with the voting and all of that are a huge betrayal in their friendship with Jared. They say that they care about the team which is bs it feels more like they want to stare at Uno because they find him attractive.

While some might find Jared's attitude childish with how he is handling the coach allowing Uno on the team. I personally don't think that he is. My reason is simple ask yourself the following question: if you have a friend that you grew up with one day throw things at you and start picking on you and then cut you out of their life completely to be able to join a sports team and be a starting player how would you feel? Would you want to ever be on the same sports team as them when they have never apologized to you or even admitted they were wrong to do that? I wouldn't want to be on a team with them, because I wouldn't trust them to try and screw me over again or worse screw my teammates over.

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some good, some not so good

Overall: I'm pretty torn on this series. I really like how we had several queer characters and Diamond was awesome but then they had too many characters to fully develop and things were unresolved for several of them. 8 episodes about 50 minutes each. Aired on iWantTFC. The director/writer Ivan Andrew Payawal also directed Gameboys.

Content Warnings: fight, transphobia, homophobia, discrimination, past memory with blood

What I Liked
- Uno's mom
- they called out being disrespectful and the hypersexual stereotype
- Diamond was my favorite character, the situations she faced were realistic, rarely portrayed in media, heartbreaking and well done, wish we had more with this characters

Room For Improvement
- multiple lead characters had too much jerk behavior, I was so annoyed with Jared in particular
- the het romance was at the center which whatever but then there was no resolution with queer characters

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SheCo

Essa série é bem ruim.
Comecei o primeiro episódio só pra dar a chance e ver se era bom, e eu gostei do primeiro episódio, achei bobo e divertido. Foi aceitável. Só que depois a história foi só descendo a ladeira.
O Uno pelo menos evoluiu né, achei isso legal, mas não impediu ele ser um pouco escroto com o Jared junto a Farrah que vou esculhambar ela já já. Botando um adendo aqui é que isso não é um bl e não tem romance bl, só romance lakorn entre Uno e Farrah e, apesar disso, é uma história Queer abordando vários personagens lgbts.
O desenvolvimentos dos personagens secundários foram legais, eu gostei.
Agora vamos ao casal principal (Uno e Farrah), os dois começaram a namorar, legal, mas fizeram isso desconsiderando completamente o Jared e os sentimentos deles, mentiram pra ele sem se importarem, principalmente a Farrah que era a melhor amiga do Jared por ser prima. Literalmente a pessoa que ele mais confiava. E quando o Jared descobre ela joga uns papos pra cima dele que não fazem nem sentido na moral.
Quando Farrah e Jared eram um pouco mais novos os dois se envolveram em um acidente de carro no qual a Farrah estava dirigindo e os dois quase morreram. Por causa disso a mãe do Jared, tia da Farrah vive culpando ela pelo acidente e isso fica afetando o psicológico da Farrah, que o tempo todo tenta ceder pros tios e pro Jared por se sentir culpada, embora o tio e o próprio Jared não a culparem.
Após o Jared descobrir que o Uno e a Farrrah estavam namorando escondidos (ainda tem isso kkk) ela surta com o Jared por ficar decepcionado com os dois, que pasmem, a Farrah é a pessoa que o Jared mais confia e o Uno pediu pro Jared dar uma chance a ele de concertar os problemas entre os dois e confiarr nele. A Farrah diz que eles dois não fizeram nada de errado por não ser errado os dois estarem apaixonados e ainda tenta jogar na cara do Jared que ela cedia pro Jared devido a culpa que ela sentia pelo acidente (principalmente por causa da mãe do Jared que vivia enchendo o saco). Ela se abstia sem o Jared pedir e não querer isso também. Os três brigam e o Jared vai embora e a Farrah vai atrás dele até em casa. No outro dia eles conversam, a Farrah não se desculpa mas fodse também, ninguém liga, o Uno chega na casa e conversa também e eles se desculpam e tá tudo ótimo.
E ainda tem o Ethan que é apaixonado pelo Jared, no episódio final ele se declara e o Jared não fala nada, corta a cena e a gente não sabe qual foi a resposta ou se eles vão ficar juntos, mas não importa porque não é um bl né?!
Ai depois pula pro futuro com o Uno treinando uns garotos no vôlei e acaba a sérrie, cara, essa série é uma confusão do caralho.
Horrível isso. Não recomendo nem por experiência. Tenebroso!
Nota 4/10 só porque alguns personagens tiveram sim uma história boa e aceitável, porquê os "casais" principais são um cuzil.

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Have some queer characters but not BL

Disclaimer: mohon koreksi jika saya salah karena tidak ada yang sempurna di dunia ini, dan mohon maaf jika ada pihak yang tersinggung.
Dari pandangan saya tahap pengenalan dari drama ini sangatlah menarik namun mungkin ada beberapa part yang sedikit berlebihan. Pertama karena masalah pertengkaran antar pemain yang bisa menyebabkan seorang atlet dikeluarkan dari klubnya. Suasana sport begitu intens pada episode awal namun pada akhirnya tak ada unsur pembelajaran tentang bola voli, turnamen atau yang lain.
Berikut yang hal yang saya sukai :
1. Latar pemeran utama dijelaskan di sini saya sangat suka kedekatan Jared dan Farrah sebagai sepupu dan memiliki ikatan keluarga yang baik. Begitupun Uno memiliki Ibu yang mendukung anaknya untuk berkarir di sekolahnya.
2. Saya patut memberi apresiasi bagi seluruh pemeran queer yang sangat menjiwai karakter layaknya pemain bola voli sekolah yang cukup ahli dan kedekatan mereka terlihat natural.
3. Misteri dan konflik yang dialami Uno dan Jared menurut saya cukup menarik. Didukung dengan visual dan akting mereka, mungkin banyak dari kalian yang akan menjodohkan mereka sebagai pasangan. They look so promising for gay people.

Yang tidak saya suka sebagai berikut :
1. Menurut saya pendalaman masalah pada series ini masih kurang, seperti konflik keluarga Uno, konflik keluarga Jared dan Farrah, konflik klub bola basket. Dalam series seakan masalah selesai dengan singkat tanpa mengaitkan antar konflik.
2. Series ini hidup karena para karakter queer, namun apa yang mereka dapat? Sangatlah jelas creator menargetkan pasar queer namun tidak mendukung dari segi perbaikan lingkungan sekolah mereka dan cerita cinta mereka. Can i call it Queerbaiting ? Why they so rude to gay people
3. Menurut saya drama ini tidak memiliki fokus yang jelas pada tema Sport maupun Queer. Apa tujuan Uno masuk ke klub bola voli ? Mengejar beasiswa atau mengejar cewek ? 🤣

Sekian, Terima kasih

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