Multilicus

Mimicat pretty much nailed it: Jack feels that Joker robbed him of his hope. It’s also possible that Jack believes that Joker did that on purpose – which doesn’t really make sense, but it’s a neat explanation of how strong Jack’s anger is. Notice that Jack displayed a similar reaction before: to his coach, when Carbon was chosen to join the national team. Jack understood why jury members chose Carbon over him and how conflicted his coach was, but he still said “you need to understand me too if from now on I start hating you”. Jack is perfectly relatable in how he separates the rational from the emotional; he understands why and how things happen, but it doesn’t prevent him from reacting emotionally to setbacks. Or holding a grudge against Joker. BTW: why is Joker so bent on Jack forgiving him? He took the responsibility for his crime and had no hand in Jack getting in debt with Boss in the first place. I’d say Joker feels the same thing Jack does – only reversed: Jack blames Joker, Joker feels guilty. Both are wrong from a rational point of view, but without this there would be no beginning of the story, no obstacle for them to remove/overcome to – eventually – be together. Hell, this’ll be one crazy ride.

There's obviously something wrong when the BTS stuff is only 4:09 long, which is shorter than the MV for Kidnap's OST ("From Now On"; 4:16) and only a minute longer than both the initial and the official trailer.
On the other hand there might be a mundane explanation for the length of the BTS, like that they didn't record anything super interesting behind the scenes while filming ep. 1 (or they didn't bother to collect any interesting BTS footage).

GMMTV's BTS vary o lot depending on the show: some are pretty revealing, some are long, and there are those short and not that interesting. No idea if there's a plan or rule for making BTS - but I guess there should be, as GMMTV is using this as additional content (at least on YT). Also, I noticed that some shows get more attention during their production, with BTS and mini interviews with cast and crew released during GMMTV Live House.

Fully agreed - it's entertainment. Not a documentary and not art either.

All of the sudden Monday became best day of the week.
#ThisMeansWar

War is brilliant in this. The gift basket scene and the dogcoin bit were priceless, I couldn't stop laughing. And each time Yin and War are together on screen, it's magic.

Would love to see him as a lead in a BL as a morally grey character; he already showed he has what it takes to nail it.

I like this show because it doesn't allow the setting nor the non-BL story elements to take over: it's a rom-com about two guys - period. The kidnapping stuff, character background, side characters etc. are all in service to the main plot of Min and Q falling for each other. It's not a "guy with sick brother turning to crime for money for noble reasons who's neighbour has a crush on him" story with a romantic subplot nor a "silver spoon son of police chief single dad with trauma issues" story with a romantic subplot. GMMTV and most other BL-producing companies, while trying to improve their shows, get the attention of the viewers and beat the competition - strayed from the "it's a rom-com and not a story about something else" path - hence I welcome all shows that are trully sticking to that path. They can set their shows in highschool, university, crime underworld, entertainment business, a submarine or space station - I don't care and will watch it as long as there's romantic tension and chemistry between two main male characters and the show is first and foremost about that (and not about highschool struggles, student life, dealings between criminals, military service, challenges of life in space and so on).

I'd say the rating is distorted in both cases: when it seems/feels too high and too low after only one episode aired. On the other hand - at least in some cases - an odd rating can persist. This can be due to a number of reasons, but most likely due to the difference between what we want (and expect) the rating to be and what the math says - math based on other people's rating the show. It's not unusual that a show you like gets a rating below what you gave it - it's also not unsusal a show you dislike gets a higher rating than the one you gave it. In both cases you may be wondering how this is possible and who are all those people who gave these weird ratings. At the end of the day the rating isn't important: if you like a show - that's all that matters.

Very strong ep. 1 with great performances by both War and Yin promisses a series unlike most Thai BLs.

MDL ratings for entire series/shows are often baffling, usually because they seem far below what people expect basing on reviews, votes for ep. 1 etc. No idea how those ratings are initially calculated, but from what I've seen they improve with time.

That's a very interesting observation - and you're correct. I just re-checked it ("watching" the whole series on ffwd on YT) and spotted no guitar being played. Moo (or maybe Keen himself?) is a piano/keyboard guy.

Production quality is really high, main cast has a very firm grip on the story, performances are solid, comedy is actually decent (instead of the typical - annoying and not funny) and the show - in general - is very well done and entertaining. The initial trailer hinted at this being a BL, which was not confirmed by the proper trailer nor the action so far (I'm writing this hours before ep. 3 airs), but it's still very much worth watching.

Same here. I know the show tries to be more than a BL and address important, real-life issues (social anxiety, introversion vs. extroversion, dealing with social pressure) - that's obviously very good - but despite of that the side couple (Beer and Wan) is more interesting than the main couple. It's not because of the script (which isn't bad) - I'd argue it's due to the performances.

Many viewers (and reviewers) commented on the very visible - and quite surprising - drop in script quality for ep. 11 and especially ep. 12; this included both Day and Mhok to act "out of character". For me, the break-up came out of nowhere, story-wise made no sense, led to an utterly pointless time jump (by which I mean the time jump didn't solve anything) and gave the show a finale which, to some degree, was undoing the break-up (not to mention Day regaining his eyesight, which - in a way - undid the whole premise of the show and kinda voided everything that supposedly caused the break-up, at least from Day's perspective).
Writing my review for "Last Twilight" I noticed and included the above, as it seemed an obvious flaw of an otherwise great show. It was only some time later that I encountered a rather critical review of "Last Twilight" which, among other things, pointed out, that the problems with characters are not limited to ep. 12 (or 11-12) and that Day was never a likeable, relatable character the audience should be rooting for. I thought about it for a while and - to some surprise - found that I generally agree with these remarks. Day was arrogant, privilaged and self-centred throughout the whole show, acting like a toddler, baselessly blaming Night and guilt-tripping him, ignoring Mhok's feelings entirely and relying on his disability for getting what he wanted. Thinking about it I realized that there isn't much of a character arc for Day; all he does is realizing he has to adjust to being blind, either relying on other people or becoming more independent.

Thank you for your comment. While watching ATOTS I was surprised by the split (technically it wasn't a breakup) and time jump, as they felt pointless, solving a non-problem the show created - for whatever reason. I couldn't understand why a show which succesfully used a buildup of tension between the main characters and relied on a consistent, slow-paced growth of their relationship, took such a unexpected turn in its last episode. I also couldn't understant why the show spent 9 episodes presenting the above, but later decided that the main characters were somehow not ready to be together and needed to become ready, mostly by staying apart for 2 years - none of which was shown. Something like that can (perhaps) work in a novel, but ATOTS was a TV/internet series, a visual medium - which relies on showing things, not filling crucial plot elements by exposition (or not filling them at all and leaving everyone to wonder what actually happened during those 2 years, how did our main characters deal with that - how did they grow etc.). I was dismayed when the same happened in "Last Twilight" - as if the showrunners didn't understand their medium.

The Joong story I'm aware of is from 2019 (I guess from the "2 Moons 2" time). Supposedly his Turkish fans asked him on IG whether he's gay and he replied with something like "I'm not gay, I'm a real man". He was reprimanded for that by the production company employing him and apologized for saying that.

Thank you for your kind words. I'm enjoing the series and after episodes 2-5 I wouldn't lower the score; in fact I could increse it to 7.5. I think the whole scoring thing makes people a bit confused; also poeple seem to deal in near-absolutes: they either love something and award a top score or they hate something and give it a very low score. My approach is slightly different. For me:
- 0 is the lowest possible score, so only a production with a horribly constructed story, badly miscast, with dreadful music and no rewatch value would get that lowest of scores;
- 5 is a "perfectly average" score, so it's for productions that dont excel in anything, but that aren't disastrous either; productions with this score would have to be competent (maybe even a little mundane) - nothing more, nothing less;
- 10 is for the very best - not for something I like a little nor a lot, but for something outstanding, something far above the average: a show or production with a brilliant script, stellar cast, awesome music and nearly always enjoyable to watch/rewatch.
Obviously other people can view the scoring scale differently - I'm just explaining how I see and use it. A score of 7.0 or 7.5 is therefore pretty good - it's for shows that are above average, but could get better, as they still are pretty far from perfect/brilliant shows.
I fully agree with you that making predictions, expressing worries and even scoring a show after only one episode is allowed. As I wrote in responde to one of the comments: expressing opinion or concern (especially wheen they are supported by something) isn't bias - it's what a review is about.
About Earth's performance: I didn't watch "Water Boyy" nor "Kiss Me Again", I'm not familiar with any of Earth's work outside of this series, so I won't write anything about his acting skills in general. After episode 1 I got the impression that he has a very limited acting range, but after episodes 2-5 I'm not sure about it. From what other characters say in the show, Phupha is serious, stern and strict, so the deadpan face Earth makes so often isn't that much out of place. Obviously you can play a stern and strict character and still use your facial muscles; a deadpan face seems the easiest (not to say laziest) way to portray that. On the other hand episodes 2-5 gave us multiple occasions to see Phupha behave in a different way, e.g. making fun of Tian, teasing him, smiling and interacting with other characters - and Earth wasn't bad at that.
I honestly like the interaction between Phupha and Tian; it's a slow burn, but you can clearly see the flames :-D
I'm glad that so far none of my nasty predictions were confirmed. Commenting on my review user "watermelon sugar" pointed out that "no they don't want to mask the love developed in tian with Torfun's heart, because it is clearly there in the trailer where a friend says brian is resposible for feelings not the heart, so check the trailer". I am and I was aware of what's in both trailers and I remembered that particular line (spoken by White's Tul in the 2019 trailer), but trailers can be (and often are) misleading. Episode 5 includes a scene where almost the same line is spoken by Tul and this time full context is given: Tian actually came out to Tul (made me happy) and only later was wondering whether his feelings for Phupha were there because of Torfun's heart or because of him being gay. To this I say: good work, screenwriters, you did it the way you should have. Now let's wait a couple more episodes to see what's with my other nasty prediction ;-)

1/ I'm not biased against this BL - I'm worried (or, to be precise, I was worried when I wrote the review). I got to admit I'm surprised that after: (i) giving an overall score of 7.0, (ii) indicating what I liked and what I didn't like (and why) about episode 1, (iii) expressing concern about the potential direction the series might be heading - I'm perceived as biased. Expressing opinion or concern (especially wheen they are supported by something) isn't bias - it's what a review is about.
2/ kisskh allows people to write reviews of series, that have not aired yet in their entirety. Several people wrote reviews of the currently running "A Tale of Thousand Stars" - some after just one episode (like myself). And - with the exception of my review - all gave the series an overall score of either 10.0 or 9.5. Surprisingly there are no comments whatsoever regarding those other reviews: no one questions how their authors can judge the whole series after just one of two episodes, no one has a problem with the series receiving a score of 10.0 after just one episode. It's weird that others can be ecstatic about a show after one episode, but me giving a lower score after one episode was premature or unjustified. Either are all reviews posted after airing just one or two episodes premature or all are allowed - you can't pick on someone just because his expressing concern and gives the series something else than the top score.
3/ To answer your question: I'm worried for the reasons I mentioned. BL series have a way of disappointing viewers, surprise them with silly and/or convoluted "plot twists" (see "the baby solution" in episode 10 of "Tonhon Chonlatee" or almost every non-problem the writers invented to make Tine's relationship with Sarawat miserable in "2gether") and so on, but they can also be pretty predictable. I want "A Tale of Thousand Stars" to be a good show, I don't want it to disappoint me nor anyone else with BL silliness, with tropes seen and criticized so many times with other BLs (like the one I mentioned in the review - that Phupha and Tian will fall in love because of Torfun's heart and not because they simply can fall in love; I was told in one of the comments that this won't happen, that there's a line in one of the trailers explaining that love doesn't come from the heart - so I guess I should stop worrying...). I'm watching every episode of "A Tale of Thousand Stars" and I'm enjoying it (giving a score of 7.0 doesn't mean I don't or didn't enjoy the show), hoping for the story to progress and the main characters to get together. I still like Mix as Tian and I was very glad to see Khaotung finally show up in episode 3. I really don't want my "awful predictions" to be correct.