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This review may contain spoilers
All Over The Place
I had heard a bit of the hype surrounding this drama. A reel and a friend made me decide to finally start watching without knowing anything about the plot. Just based on the poster I figured it is a high school drama with romance and that's all I knew.
I'll start with the main positives because the negatives list is long. I binged the entire show in 2 days so it is interesting for the most part especially in the beginning. I also liked the female lead, Jay-Jay and the second male lead, Yuri along with a few side characters like Ci-N. The female lead is quite a decent actor and emotes extremely well. I could connect to her but I feel like her character was let down a bit. The theme song also grows on you (I found it irritating initially).
The not so great aspects:
1. The very first episode begins with bullying of the female lead who is new to the school and her class is full of only boys. They gang up on her and the teachers don't even care. Only 1 teacher advises her to change sections. It makes no sense because they frequently punish and even suspend students so why do they ignore the bullying? That really pissed me off. For example, they banned the whole class from the cafeteria without giving them an alternate way of buying and eating food at the school. And later they ban the FL for buying food for them. Quite ridiculous.
2. The male lead, Keifer, forcefully kisses the female lead twice. His plan to make her fall for him and then break her heart to get back at her cousin brother turned me off from him. Plus he was her main bully even before he knew she was Aries' cousin. The only reason my anger towards him subsided after the forced kiss is because Jay-Jay punches him in the face and I felt instant gratification.
3. After about 4 episodes, I found the series addictive and I was curious where the rivalry was going. I was going to rate the drama a 9 at the time. But with each episode they kept adding so much drama. Like unwanted pregnancy, rival gang and kidnapping, illegal fight den, date rape drugs, previously dead step-brother, creepy step father and return of the missing father, LGBT couple, problematic sibling, sad back stories to multiple extras, etc. But because of all these stories, they forgot so much of the set-up.
4. This brings me to next point. They introduced the female having issues with blood leading to traumatic meltdowns and amnesia. And then they forgot about it completely. It was only used as a plot point to get the male lead to comfort the female lead who otherwise was a very strong person.
5. Another back story they forgot is they brought a student back from the dead who claimed that Jay-Jay's brother was actually around her, hinting at her cousin. Then nothing came of this storyline. Even her missing father just left after 1 brief meeting.
6. Keifer, the male lead, kept insisting that he was just leading Jay-Jay on and still planning to break her heart. Meanwhile Yuri, the second male lead was falling for her. So the guy she was supposed to end up with is a walking red flag who refuses to apologise even when he broke her nose and his friend is a green flag who is nice to her. That's why it started making me really uncomfortable because in good conscience I could not root for the the male lead. On the bright side, she was also confused between the two and they don't immediately force a decision on her.
7. I expected at some point that Jay-Jay would be told about the plan to break her heart but either they decide it's not important to the plot or forgot about this as well.
8. The acting. The female lead carried the show tbh. Most of the cast are just too new and the acting was passable. The romance was cute at times but was mostly meh and the dialogues were cringe a lot of the times. Actors playing Yuri, Aries (the cousin), Daniel, etc were some of the better ones. So that's another reason why I couldn't really connect to the male lead.
9. The ending. I can only presume there is some second season coming which is why the series ended the way it did. That whole situation was just so unjust. I feel bad for both Jay-Jay and Yuri.
Despite all this, I'm giving the drama a 7 because I can see the effort behind the drama. I don't mind the added storylines because it maintained my interest and they tried to highlight a lot of issues that teenagers deal with so I respect the thought process. It is just that the acting wasn't as convincing. I would have liked to see some actual friendship between the male leads besides the plotting. Their story just revolved around the female lead. They don't really talk much else.
If a season 2 is in the works, then that might improve my rating of the show. Especially if they address the plot holes.
I'll start with the main positives because the negatives list is long. I binged the entire show in 2 days so it is interesting for the most part especially in the beginning. I also liked the female lead, Jay-Jay and the second male lead, Yuri along with a few side characters like Ci-N. The female lead is quite a decent actor and emotes extremely well. I could connect to her but I feel like her character was let down a bit. The theme song also grows on you (I found it irritating initially).
The not so great aspects:
1. The very first episode begins with bullying of the female lead who is new to the school and her class is full of only boys. They gang up on her and the teachers don't even care. Only 1 teacher advises her to change sections. It makes no sense because they frequently punish and even suspend students so why do they ignore the bullying? That really pissed me off. For example, they banned the whole class from the cafeteria without giving them an alternate way of buying and eating food at the school. And later they ban the FL for buying food for them. Quite ridiculous.
2. The male lead, Keifer, forcefully kisses the female lead twice. His plan to make her fall for him and then break her heart to get back at her cousin brother turned me off from him. Plus he was her main bully even before he knew she was Aries' cousin. The only reason my anger towards him subsided after the forced kiss is because Jay-Jay punches him in the face and I felt instant gratification.
3. After about 4 episodes, I found the series addictive and I was curious where the rivalry was going. I was going to rate the drama a 9 at the time. But with each episode they kept adding so much drama. Like unwanted pregnancy, rival gang and kidnapping, illegal fight den, date rape drugs, previously dead step-brother, creepy step father and return of the missing father, LGBT couple, problematic sibling, sad back stories to multiple extras, etc. But because of all these stories, they forgot so much of the set-up.
4. This brings me to next point. They introduced the female having issues with blood leading to traumatic meltdowns and amnesia. And then they forgot about it completely. It was only used as a plot point to get the male lead to comfort the female lead who otherwise was a very strong person.
5. Another back story they forgot is they brought a student back from the dead who claimed that Jay-Jay's brother was actually around her, hinting at her cousin. Then nothing came of this storyline. Even her missing father just left after 1 brief meeting.
6. Keifer, the male lead, kept insisting that he was just leading Jay-Jay on and still planning to break her heart. Meanwhile Yuri, the second male lead was falling for her. So the guy she was supposed to end up with is a walking red flag who refuses to apologise even when he broke her nose and his friend is a green flag who is nice to her. That's why it started making me really uncomfortable because in good conscience I could not root for the the male lead. On the bright side, she was also confused between the two and they don't immediately force a decision on her.
7. I expected at some point that Jay-Jay would be told about the plan to break her heart but either they decide it's not important to the plot or forgot about this as well.
8. The acting. The female lead carried the show tbh. Most of the cast are just too new and the acting was passable. The romance was cute at times but was mostly meh and the dialogues were cringe a lot of the times. Actors playing Yuri, Aries (the cousin), Daniel, etc were some of the better ones. So that's another reason why I couldn't really connect to the male lead.
9. The ending. I can only presume there is some second season coming which is why the series ended the way it did. That whole situation was just so unjust. I feel bad for both Jay-Jay and Yuri.
Despite all this, I'm giving the drama a 7 because I can see the effort behind the drama. I don't mind the added storylines because it maintained my interest and they tried to highlight a lot of issues that teenagers deal with so I respect the thought process. It is just that the acting wasn't as convincing. I would have liked to see some actual friendship between the male leads besides the plotting. Their story just revolved around the female lead. They don't really talk much else.
If a season 2 is in the works, then that might improve my rating of the show. Especially if they address the plot holes.
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