Multilicus

Boring waste of time

I liked the premise and idea for the plot, the relatively high production value and an array of veterans who supplemented the generally young cast (was nice to see Jakkrit Ammarat again, he played Tian’s father in “A Tale of 1000 Stars”, here he portrays King’s father; other familiar faces include Passin Reungwoot - Pran’s father from “Bad Buddy”, here as Uea’s stepfather - and Tawatson Plengsiriwat, who played Chai in “Love in the Air” and here stars as Krit).

However, none of the above can change my perception of this show: "Bed Friend" is a poorly written and abysmally acted, actually bad BL. Shame, as the plot could have been developed into a much, much better script, which - with proper cast - could turn into a great BL. A bulletlist of the shows flaws includes:
- unlikeable and annoying protagonist (Uea),
- stiff/wooden acting (James has only two facial expressions: annoyed and amused; most of the young cast has no acting abilities whatsoever - and it shows),
- lack of chemistry between James and Net (chemistry between the main/only couple in a BL is mandatory - here we have a travesty of that),
- King’s actions in earlier episodes raise a lot of red flags and this isn't addressed in any way then nor later,
- the basic plot makes sense, but the script does not,
- every episode contained several filler scenes or shots, as well as scenes which were stretched beyond belief (by unnaturally long pauses, prolonged stares etc.) - all in an effort to make each episode at least 45 minutes long; this shows how little actual content there was in the script,
- annoying and/or dumb side characters, too many side characters with little or nothing to do,
- clickbait “sex” and “sensual” scenes (added nothing to the development of the plot, were included only to generate buzz and create a false impression that the show is about something; if you want to see two attractive males do sensual or sexual stuff - there's plenty of that elsewhere),
- serious issues (sexual assault, discrimination, abuse, trauma) were treated in a superficial way and either remained unresolved or were resolved in unrealistic ways (e.g. without any effort/time or offscreen).

tl;dr: this is a bad, boring BL which can be watched on fast forward with sound off.

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Annoying and subpar

For lack of imagination I’ll go with a bullet list for this one. Good things first (that’s going to be a short list):
- Perth is okay; not great, but okay, which still makes him stand out when compared to other cast members (I refuse to call most of them actors),
- eye candy - Phuwin and Pond spend some time shirtless and look mighty fine.

Now for the bad things – and there’s a lot of them.

- False premise and misleading merchandising.
According to the initial trailer, released in 2021 (and still available on GMMTV’s YT channel), as well as to an initial MDL tag for this show, it was supposed to be about a son of a mafia boss running away from danger after his father was killed. That’s not the case – Phiphop, Nueng’s father, is a very rich businessman dealing in hotels, and though not very popular (sometimes called a crook) he’s not a mafia boss. This reduced the ‘action potential’ of the show and made it less interesting. 5 out of 12 episodes take place at a high school, not on the run from thugs – for this part of the series the show is a subpar high school BL; again: not what the show was marketed as.

- Weak story and horrible pace for a pretentious show which takes itself far too seriously.
The story suffers from several things, mainly how bland it is and how it drags. Phiphop gets killed in episode 1, but it’s not until the end of episode 5 that Nueng gets on the run. The show loses momentum immediately – following 4 episodes take place on an island, weirdly separated and mostly unaffected by events of previous episodes. With only 3 episodes left to have a confrontation and conclusion, the closer we get to the end, the more things are rushed. Furthermore, the story is unbelievable – which many reviewers critical of NLMG already pointed out on multiple examples. How is it, that Nueng – son of a powerful businessman, hated and feared, gets bullied at school for so long? Why wasn’t he protected earlier? Why was this influential family basically unprotected – not just when Phiphop was killed by a single gunman, but also for many weeks after that? Who thought that Palm – Nueng’s peer – will be a good bodyguard? How is it, that later episodes – especially those that take place on the island – are so unaffected by earlier events? It’s just baffling that after 5 episodes of an uninteresting school drama we get 4 episodes of uninteresting boyfriend time on a tropical island – and that between those 5 and 4 episodes an assassination attempt takes place. The stakes are nonexistent: all the shooting, injuring and even killing of secondary characters falls flat, fake, unimportant, since even the main characters don’t seem to care about it. At the same time the series wants to present itself as serious (see the ‘serious’ and/or ‘dramatic’ music used in ‘important’ moments and scenes – I don’t recall a single time the music was properly applied and didn’t seem over-the-top), mature and for grown-ups – which fails miserably.

- Absent chemistry and acting.
The young cast did a very poor job, with Perth being an exception. Phuwin is very good in portraying obnoxious, unlikeable characters (see Pi in FUTS) and Nueng is like that for most of the series – I doubt the showrunners wanted that. Pond is a bit better, but it’s not acting – he’s not as wooden and lifeless as I feared he’ll be, but the only reason you can watch it is because he’s goodlooking. Chimon is mostly uninteresting and at times irritating; same goes for June, who’s character was both written and portrayed as annoying. Nat plays the least intimidating villain ever, and Pawin is generally underused and doesn’t seem comfortable playing a bad guy. Jeeez, this show really comes from the same company which employs Nanon, Ohm, Khaotung, First, Fourth, Gemini or Mix, who – despite of being amateurs – can express more with a short grin or brief gaze than this entire cast?
As with many BLs, the show could have been saved by chemistry between the characters – it usually falls to the main couple to generate most of it. Unfortunately there’s no chemistry between Pond and Phuwin. There was barely any of it in FUTS and in their “Little BIG World” they gave me a vibe of two office workers forced to complete a project together (compare this to Earth and Mix, who seem to have genuine fun working with each other on EarthMix Space and their BLs). Chimon and Perth never felt like a couple and their chemistry is nonexistent.

To sum it up: NLMG is a disappointing, boring and annoying BL; steer clear of it unless you’re a diehard PondPhuwin fan.

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A lot of wasted potential

“Our Skyy 2” was meant to give us more of the good stuff (for those who – unlike me – enjoyed all the shows it was based on), but with a twist. At least that’s what I thought after watching the official trailer – which led me to believe, that some (or maybe all) episodes will be somehow connected with an overarching plot. That was proven as false very quickly; what we really got were 16 episodes of similar or lower quality than the original shows; see my thoughts on each special below - in the order in which they aired.

“Never Let Me Go” was a terrible show and its “Our Skyy 2” episodes aren’t better. For about 30 minutes of the 1st episode Phuwin’s Nueng continues to be the same annoying jerk he was for almost the entire original series, while Pond is the same boring, stiff Palm. Again, there’s no chemistry between Pond and Phuwin – something I got used to by now; GMMTV should seriously rethink pairing those two together. The twist, plot and basically only new thing this special brought – the time-travel induced role reversal – wasn’t interesting nor amusing; it wasn’t important either. Both episodes suffered from surprisingly low production quality. I rated NLMG at 2.5 (overall) and see no reason to rate the special any higher.

“Star in My Mind”. The original show wasn’t great, it was at best decent (and a good study on why communication matters in relationships), with a few finer moments (the script of the original show had much more potential; the show could have been a much better one). The special had almost no substance; fluffy, but dragged on forever and got boring very quickly. Easily forgettable piece of BL entertainment. Dunk and Joong always seem to be more interesting off screen, but at least there was something between them – not full blown chemistry, but a spark. The Satang-Winny thing came – show-wise – out of nowhere, as their characters had no interaction in the original series; it looked like an attempt to copy their good dynamic and decent chemistry from MSP. Overall rating: 7.0.

“The Eclipse” wasn’t my favorite BL (with the plot often bordering on idiocy), but Khaotung and First did a very good job there and deserved praise. Same happened with the special – which, by the way, was the first bit of “Our Skyy 2” that I enjoyed. Overall rating: a solid 8.0 for the chemistry and originality.

“Vice Versa”: the original show was okay, albeit it was a bit disappointing with the whole parallel universe thing being merely a canvas for a BL love story (rather than an important part of the story itself). I appreciated the special for standing on its own, with a self-contained small story. Jimmy and Sea look good together, but I was never fully convinced by their acting; I won’t be the first to say that they give off buddy vibes rather than BF vibes. Overall rating: 8.0.

MSP was great (I rated it at 9.5) – which can’t be said about the special. We got more of the same fluffy and cute goodness as in the original series with some minor twists and tweaks as well as some fan service added for a good measure (#TiwPorisreal). Unfortunately all of that goodness came from recycling the original show and reusing its plot. Even the title of the special – “Multiverse of Cuteness” – was misleading, as it was implying that we’ll see a different story, a new approach, familiar characters in a new setting, facing new problems etc. None of that happened, as all we got was a rehash of what we knew. We didn’t get episodes 13 and 14 of MSP; we got episodes 1-6 again, but condensed into 2 episodes. Some will say that it was great, as many have missed those characters – and now got them for 2 more episodes; other (like me) will feel disappointed by lack of any originality. Overall rating: 7.0 due to the disappointment.

“A Boss and a Babe” was a weird, partly successful attempt at comedy merged with a BL story, mixed (very poorly) with more serious stuff; tonaly the show was all over the place. The special is more consistent – It’s a comedy. It also drags a bit and feels like 1,5 episodes stretched into 2 episodes. Overall rating: 7.0.

“Bad Buddy meets ATOTS”: I won’t event try to separate the stories of episodes 13-16 of “Our Skyy 2” and will have to rate them together – which isn’t easy. “Bad Buddy” and ATOTS are wonderful (two of my all-time favorite BLs), but very different shows and merging them is a tricky business. It should happen for a reason – and I don’t see one. Pat and Pran’s plotline isn’t a continuation of “Bad Buddy” – as we already know how that story ends; this makes their part of the special seem unimportant and a bit pointless. There’s no character development and very little of what we could consider added value. OhmNanon are in good form, but have to work with too much of (deliberately) rehashed scenes and lines – hence the freshness of Pat’s and Pran’s relationship I remember from “Bad Buddy” is absent. The 4 episodes special seems much more about Tian and Phupha and their story. The script is far from being perfect, with some key issues handled in an incomprehensible way, but the main message (eventually) does come across. I got all teary during the second half of ep. 16; EarthMix did a wonderful job there, while P’Aof actually wrote a new (but not final) chapter to the Tian-Phupha story. That saved the special, making it a worthy successor to the terrific original ATOTS. Overall rating: 8.5.

Overall rating for “Our Skyy 2”: 7.0.

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MAME strikes back – with more of the same crap

Leave it to MAME and Me Mind Y to come up with an unnecessarily convoluted, yet completely predictable plot for a BL, add more story elements than your planned number of episodes can hold and then cut all excess content. Leave it to Me Mind Y to give that mess of a show to a cast which has problems with delivering their lines properly – and watch it all fall apart. That’s “The Boy Next World” in short. The “uncut” version, I presume, differs from the “cut” one in one aspect: it includes NC scenes of the main leads having sex – which does not improve the show in any way.

Premise, story, writing
The show’s basic premise is interesting – even if it’s not brand new; something similar (multiverse-related or multiverse-based) was already attempted by other companies (see GMMTV’s “Vice Versa” from 2022). The twist – that the “boy next world” is not from a parallel world/universe – was also quite interesting, at least until we were told why he lied. This is where MAME’s trademark “character writing” kicks in: Cir, our main character is a liar, coward and stalker – and we’re meant to sympathize with him. He’s not obsessed, he’s in love – says the show and Phu, the other main character, the one being stalked and pursued. This is “Love in the Air” all over again, but this time the stalker is a pitiful, weak creature. Maybe I’m too old for this and out of touch with reality, but is Cir supposed to be relatable? I keep hearing that more and more people have problems forming relationships or even starting a conversation with someone they find attractive or interesting – maybe “The Boy Next World” is MAME’s commentary on this? Whatever it was supposed to be, I found the “I like you but I’m too scared to ask you out, so I’ll keep stalking you for 5 years and then come up with a stupid lie as a pick-up line” plotline (which managed to have a kind of a break-up and a very rushed conclusion, both in ep. 10) tiring pretty early on and was waiting for the happy end.
But wait – there’s more! The show has a secondary couple (Jin and Wim) plotline as well as Cir’s family plotline. As far as I can tell, Jin and Wim didn’t have to become a couple, those characters could have stayed in the show just as the closest friends of Cir and Phu – replacing most or all of the other characters populating the show as students and friends of the main couple (most of them don’t do anything important storywise). Due to time constraints and poor writing Jin’s and Wim’s storyline is underdeveloped and shallow. Cir’s family plotline is an even bigger mess – shows up out of nowhere, makes no sense and ends abruptly with little to no explanation. This whole subplot should have been scrapped (this is a BL and it doesn’t need a villain, it already created its own problems and obstacles for the main couple to be together) or given much more screen time and development.

Performances
Boss is far less charismatic than in “Love in the Air”, which does not help Cir – despite the show’s premise there’s little actual mystery surrounding him and he comes across as a crybaby and a weakling sneaking in the shadows. Not sure that’s what Cir was supposed to be nor whether this is solely due to poor script or Boss being unable to elevate the character.
Noeul (again) portrays a naïve youngster who falls for an attractive senior. What changed from LITA, is that his character is almost entirely deprived of agency, passive in almost every situation – hence Noeul’s performance is unimpressive at best.
The only scene with both main leads I really enjoyed was their post-coital talk in bed in ep. 10, with Cir coming clean about his 5 years of stalking – a talk Cir and Phu should have had in ep. 5 or even before that. There’s some badly needed honesty in that scene and Boss and Noeul portray Cir and Phu as actual human beings: one is a little ashamed of himself while the other gets surprised by each answer he gets; both seem to be in disbelief regarding the weird situation they found themselves in, but – at the same time – both are pretty sure that everything will be okay from now on. Make more scenes like that, Me Mind Y, make an entire episode with BossNoeul just talking with each other candidly, but still in a friendly manner – I’d watch that show and I guarantee I’d rate it much higher than “The Boy Next World”.
There isn’t much good I can say about the other cast members, but one thing is worth mentioning: I liked Donut’s quiet “I like you” in ep. 10, spoken the opposite direction to the person he was talking about. That was his best delivery so far in any show: the hesitation and nervousness, barely contained emotion, quiet happiness – everything was there. I’ll go further and say that in both scenes with Forth in ep. 10 Donut’s performance was solid – something that contrasted with him in other scenes throughout the series.

All in all I do not recommend “The Boy Next World”. Unless you’re a Me Mind Y completionist, use those 10 hours to watch something else.

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A bit bland, but JoongDunk saved it

tl;dr: JoongDunk chemistry elevates this underwritten and troubled show – it was their dynamic which made me watch all 12 episodes.
Acting
Joong’s acting may not always be on point, but he was still superior to the rest of the cast. Dunk did his homework in this department too; his abilities are still limited, but he was nonetheless able to portray a new character, different from “Star in My Mind”. Both actors give their characters qualities some would attribute to the actors themselves: Joong’s Joke is effortlessly cool and nonchalant, but also caring and a tad clingy, while Dunk’s Zo poses as timid and withdrawn, while being perfectly able to stand his ground. Also, they get intimate quite often and seem very comfortable about it; no forced, non-consensual nor awkward kisses here!
Script
My overall reception of the show suffered due to weaknesses of the script.
My biggest complaint regarding the show is that it feels messy, but also bland, lukewarm, at times even boring. It’s not hot nor cold, it leaves you with a “meh” feeling. No idea how this was accomplished, as the script includes two plots to win someone over involving the main characters, a stalker pestering one of the main characters to get back at the other main character, strained relationships with a demanding parent, a past heartbreak, a side couple with their own problems and drama etc. etc. The content is clearly there – but it doesn’t translate to a captivating story.
As with many other BL’s this one doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be about. Is it a rom-com? A coming of age story? Family drama? Thriller (see the stalker episode)? You can include elements of all of those in a show, but you have to be smart about it – otherwise you’ll get a tonal mess. "Hidden Agenda” has this problem – it’s all over the place.
Hard to say what the titular “Hidden Agenda” really was/was supposed to be. Was it Zo’s attempt to win Nita over? Joke’s attempt to get Zo? BTW: depending on how you judge Joke’s motives and actions (and some reactors claimed that Joke didn’t do anything wrong – any normal person would act in a similar way) the hidden agenda may not exist; even if it does, it’s not important enough to have the show named after it. Spoiler warning: both the initial trailer and the official trailer are misleading, as the whole “Joke helps Zo to get Nita in order to get Zo” gets resolved in something like 3 episodes; the rest is about a variety of other issues, like family, ambition, friendship, competition, communication and so on.
The script introduces several important issues, like Zo’s relationship with his mother and Joke’s with his father, pretty late in the show. Since both issues seem to be late additions they do not appear to be important. It’s a shame we didn’t get more of both these storylines in earlier episodes. This would allow them to grow naturally, would explain more of Joke’s and – more importantly – Zo’s backstory and motivation, would show Zo and Joke as more than just students in love. Balancing every important aspect of the story, introducing them in the right moment, giving them more time to breathe – all of that would greatly improve the show.
Pacing
Pacing is generally okay and helps the show; only ep. 2 felt redundant (the “Joke gets into Zo’s club” storyline could have been a subplot in a different episode or be omitted entirely – have Joke be a club member when the show starts).
Cast
The support/secondary couple (Aou’s Jeng and Boom’s Pok) felt unnecessary. With only a handful of scenes (I think it was less than 1 per episode) we didn’t really get a storyline with them; it’s not clear to me what was their purpose in the show.
Same can be said about several other characters. Only Nita, Pat, Joke’s grandma and father as well as Zo’s parents do things that make the story progress. I loved to see Pod, Guy, Arm and AJ, but they were heavily underused and their characters didn’t have much to do.
Music
Both songs (“Hidden Agenda” and “Your Smile”) were decent, with nice MVs. Joong sings a bit in this show and he’s rather good at it. I enjoyed most of the background and ambient music used in the show, both the subtle emotional vibes and the cool electropop used to good effect throughout the series.
Favorite scene
I wanted to end my review with something good from the show. It has its moments – I enjoyed most scenes with Joke and Zo as a couple and plenty of other things (like Joke’s grandma – she’s a treasure), but the grand prize has to go to the finale of ep. 9. It actually moved me to tears. Joong’s delivery – quiet, but deeply emotional – was nearly perfect. Dunk remaining silent for the whole scene and non-verbally expressing Zo’s doubt, hesitation, sadness and how moved he was – great. To top it all the scene was shot in a very smart way, with Joke and Zo in the same room, but staying apart, with Zo packing his things and Joke trying to bridge a gap between them in one last attempt. That scene alone let us glimpse what this show might have been – and that JoongDunk can do magic. Would love to see them again in a BL as the main couple – this time with a good script.

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A near masterpiece of its genre

It's not really a review, it's a list of strengths (these are not just things I liked – these are the things that made the show successful) and weaknesses of "Bad Buddy". Generally speaking: it was the best BL I've seen, deserving high praise for direction, story, music and - most importantly - acting of Ohm and Nanon.

== Strengths ==
1/ Dynamic of Pat and Pran
(1) Communication. They didn’t overanalyse things nor kept their problems and doubts to themselves – they discussed everything of importance (they argued like twice). Hence the often praised lack of toxicity, jealousy and stupid BL drama over nothing (BTW: a lot was said without uttering a word. I’m glad someone finally realized that on TV you don’t have to say everything, you can show certain things instead – with a gesture or a glance or a flashback). (2) They supported, took care of and respected each other for real. Pran calling Pat back in ep. 8 and making him feel better when he was low after an argument with Ming is one of my favourite scenes of the series – and there’s plenty of other examples of them being for one another. (3) Cuteness and banter. That’s self-explanatory, I guess. Don’t know how much of that was scripted, probably not much or none at all, but it made the two mains even more likeable. No wonder so many reactors called their relationship wholesome and healthy.
2/ Story structure and direction
(1) Simple premise and plot, no convoluted story elements (with one exception) complicating matters for the audience and the two mains. With a simple structure, the show was easy to follow. Not something widely known to BL screenwriters. (2) Focusing the story on Pat and Pran (minimizing plotlines of side characters) and then going one step further: making sure, since at least ep. 8, that no externally caused problems will destroy the relationship of the two main characters – not Pran’s fears about other people finding out about him and Pat from Pat’s IG posts, not the reactions of Pat’s and Pran’s friends, not the feud of their parents nor their wishes. Pat and Pran weren’t able to “change the world”, but didn’t let the world change them. It was their story, their love and they were in control, because they wanted it. And yes, faking a break-up and lying to their parents was an option they had the right to choose and use.
3/ Show’s self-awareness
It was a rom-com with a simple plot – and it didn’t pretend to be anything else. It also didn’t take itself too seriously – hence it was able to keep a light, optimistic tone for most of the time. Product placement was included as a necessary evil and treated as such – by both teleplay and the actors.
4/ Trope and stereotype busting
The show dealt with the “I’m straight, you’re the only man I like” trope in an unceremonious manner – laughing it out loud. It also dealt - in a more polite, but still firm manner - with assigning roles of wife and husband in same-sex relationships.
5/ Intimacy done correctly
BB features real kisses instead of the "traditional" GMMTV awkward lip-pressing. Ep. 5 rooftop kiss (The Kiss, Mother of All BL Kisses, Kiss of the Century) and ep. 11 evening beach kiss were amazing. The show also addressed sex-related issues – sometimes through metaphors, sometimes openly. According to many comments Pran and Pat are both versatile (I got that feeling myself after ep. 11 and 12), which – even if it wasn’t stated directly – is of note, also from the trope-busting perspective.
6/ Inclusion of a GL plotline
Cute, short and to the point. Story-wise it wasn’t a necessity, but it got the deserved praise – which shows that people want GL content.
7/ OhmNanon
I'm mentioning this last, but the casting of the two mains was the shows biggest asset. Would the story work with a different cast? Probably. Would it be a success? That depends. It needed a coupling of two attractive, young guys with enough chemistry to get us emotionally involved and convince us, that we’re watching a cinematic masterpiece. I've seen some great chemistry in other shows, ATOTS chief among them, but OhmNanon’s chemistry was of the charts, beating everything I know (including EarthMix) and lifting this simple rom-com with a basic plot to a cosmic level. With eyes glued to the screen, I followed the show week for week, watched reaction videos to savour OhmNanon's scenes together again and again. Mesmerizing. If you’re not convinced about the importance of chemistry in a production like this – compare BB to “Fish Upon the Sky” (Pond and Phuwin had little to no chemistry) or “Tonhon Chonlatee” (Podd’s and Khaotung’s chemistry was one of the very few good things in that show and the only reason I rated it at 7.0 and not much lower). OhmNanon is a powerhouse and a force of nature. I'll say what I've said elsewhere: OhmNanon is the superior ship. Amazing.
8/ Music
Kacha's "Secret" is an optimistic song appearing several times to indicate that things are improving/the situation isn't as bad as we think (see first use in ep. 6 or ep. 12), I liked it upon listening to it for the first time. All three songs by Nanon are not just part of the soundtrack, but actually get used within the show: the first is "Just Friend?", in-show written and performed by Pat and Pran, and then covered in-show by guest starring Gemini and Ford, the second - though played mainly for laughs - is Sizzy's and Nanon's "Love Score" (the car scene in which Pat - or rather Ohm - interprets the song, is priceless), and lastly we get "Our Song", presented in-show as Pran's work-in-progress since his high school days, completed and performed in ep. 11 (an instrumental version of the same song is used in the opening credits of every episode). I loved how all those songs were not just used, but entwined into the story. In a post-credits scene of ep. 12 we even get a brief callback to "Same Page?" by Tilly Birds, which was used for the first trailer of BB. There's more of good music used in the show - like the musical backgrounds during the rooftop kiss scene in ep. 5 or Pran's and Dissaya's confrontation in ep. 10. Special praise for his input into the shows score goes to Ohm for his xylophone performances - the one in ep. 8 is emotional and powerful (I remember several reactors staying silent for that whole scene – so captivating were the visuals and the music).

== Weaknesses ==
1/ Outing without consequences
Wai in “evil bitch mode” (that's a quote, btw), revealing Pat and Pran to everyone in the theatre, was a scumbag many loved to loathe (Jimmy did a great job there); lack of consequences of that, Pran’s attempts to make up with Wai and Wai’s convoluted “redemption arc” were all let-downs. A short, simple and honest scene with Wai apologizing to Pran and Pat would clear the air. A connected, but smaller let-down: the initial reaction of Korn, Mo and Chang. What was the point of them acting like jerks for one scene - only to be Pat's friends in the next one?
2/ First 20 minutes of ep. 12
Keeping the audience in the dark for the first 20 minutes of ep. 12. Unnecessary and pointless – especially for all those watching the show once all episodes aired. It did – in combination with very manipulative previews for ep. 12 – make a lot of people watching the show wonder what really happened. The sigh of relief when Pat opened the door for Pran and said “You said you’d sleep at your house” (indicating they’ve been together this whole time, with Kacha’s song confirming that everything is okay) was heard all over the planet – but it wasn’t necessary to have us go through what preceded it.
3/ A world without homophobia (again?)
I understand that the tone of the show was meant to be light and there couldn’t be too many obstacles the two mains had to overcome, but – seriously – we got another GMMTV show taking place in a fantasy world free of homophobia. Real Thailand, real Asia and the real world are still homophobic. I’m dragging the real world into this because – once ep. 11 and previews for ep. 12 – a lot of people discussed Pran’s and Pat’s break-up in “real-world” categories, explaining to the wider audience (meaning: to the comment section) that in Thailand/Asia parents have an actual hold on their children, need to be respected and so on. The showrunners apparently shared this attitude (hence the 4-years-long deception explained in ep.12), so I feel like including the lack of real-world homophobia in this list of the show’s weaknesses.

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Mess and mediocrity

An “interesting” concept: merge 3 stories into 1 show, involving 3 main couples, 3 secondary couples and a massive 26-member cast. What do you get? A mediocre mess.

I liked several things about this show: (i) that, on average, it wasn’t as bad as “We Are”, (ii) parts of performances of Poon, Louis and JJ, (iii) giving each main couple roughly the same screen time and focusing on it (no favorites this time!), (iv) some – but very few – attempts at comedy. Not much, I admit, and by far not enough to outweigh the things I didn’t like.

First of all, it was a mistake to produce a 24 episode long show with so many separate plots. Storywise there’s no connection nor need for a connection between the stories of Arc and Arm, Yotha and Gun as well as Faifa and Wine – not to mention the secondary couples. The show tries to create a connection – the titular “Perfect 10 Liners”, the unnamed university attended by most of the main and supporting characters, as well as personal interactions and relations between some of the characters – but hardly any of that matters for the individual stories. The real problem is that none of those stories gets time to breathe – each is given 8 episodes only and has to share that time with a secondary couple. This results in characters being shallower than it’s usual, as we learn even less about them than it is normally the case; basically the only thing we get is what the biggest problem of each main character is (or was at the start of the series).

My main issue with the plot is that it focuses on solving each of the aforementioned problems in the same way: by getting each character a boyfriend. Initially I thought that the show was a tad less superficial and it considered love to be an answer and solution to every imaginable problem, but I was wrong; it’s not love, it’s finding a boyfriend. You were dumped by a girl? Get a boyfriend. Are you afraid of the dark because of a traumatic experience? Get a boyfriend. Have you been in a loveless relationship? Get a boyfriend. You’ve got family issues with your mom and bros? Get a boyfriend. You broke up with your girlfriend because you got a crush on her brother? How about getting a boyfriend?

The plot is shallow, but what about the writing? Well, it’s even worse. On one hand the show tries to be mature and deal with issues like trauma, unrequited love, inability to love, family etc.; on the other hand the show tries to be lighthearted and funny. What we get is a mix of “adult” problems, bad jokes and mostly dreadful attempts at comedy, which makes it impossible to take the show seriously. This combination simply doesn’t work, it’s like the show was making fun of the – supposedly important – issues it wants to address. The lowest the show got when it comes to writing was in ep. 13-15, with the peak of the Yotha-Gun storyline; that was some MAME-level of bad, cringy writing, meant to generate involvement and induce emotions in the audience, but instead annoying and sending all the wrong messages about non-consensual behavior (Yotha exploiting Gun's hesitation and indecisiveness to satisfy his lust), using violence, lack of communication etc.

As for the performances:
- Force – wooden and emotionless, as always,
- Book – lackluster and boring,
- Perth – visibly uncomfortable with the role,
- Santa – switching between a goofy infant smiling more than the Joker (that’s a description of Thomas Teetut Chungmanirat in “Your Sky” which I hereby borrow from allinforfantasy and their “Your Sky” review) and a teen displaying true dread (those were the only parts of his performance I actually bought),
- Junior – annoying with the exaggerated jokes, quips and smiles; he was much better showing Faifa’s serious and vulnerable side,
- Mark – mundane and uninspired.
No surprises, really, since no one in the main cast – maybe with the exception of Junior – can actually act. As for the supporting cast, I’ll voice one complaint: Aungpao, who really can act, was again relegated to some unimportant, secondary role.

All in all this was easier to watch than “We Are”, but when it comes to what the show actually offered – it was disappointing and low quality.

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Not a BL nor a period drama… What even is this?

Let’s start with the title of this show – or rather with its translation to English: “ปาฏิหาริย์รักร้อยปี” means ‘a miracle of centennial love’ (according to Cambridge University online translator), which – considering the plot and script – makes more sense than ‘century of love’.

The misleading English title is just a small problem; the unspecified genre is my main concern. I wanted to watch a Thai BL – what I got instead was a mix of action, supernatural, straight romance, comedy, family drama and several other things. There is a BL aspect, but up until the end of ep. 5 (which means for at least the first half of the series) it is either entirely absent or heavily sidelined by other plot threads. Once the boy love part gets going in ep. 6, drama and obstacles emerge – but since there are only 5 episodes left, everything needs to be rushed, including the ending. Bad pacing is not helped by far too many flashbacks.

The script feels like a first draft, with plenty of inconsistencies and weird/unnecessary twists, while basic characterization and world-building are missing. I will give three examples of that.
1/ Who is the reincarnated Wat? First we are told, that Tao calculated both time and place where San and Wat will reunite – Tao even points the direction from which the reincarnated Wat will appear; San and his relatives follow Tao’s calculations and meet Vee. At this point everyone except San is convinced that Vee is Wat. This is confirmed by more calculations, this time based on Vee’s date of birth. Apparently all these calculations were meaningless, as Vee can either be Wat or someone else, but sharing Wat’s fate – whatever that means. Despite of another proof – Vee’s presence stabilizing San’s condition – Tao changes his mind about Vee once Watfah appears. Why is he so easily swayed? We also learn of another method of verifying who Wat reincarnated as: using the stone. Why wasn’t this method used before, when San was doubting Vee? And why is this method so useless? What’s the point of all this back and forth and why is so much of the series about that and not about San and Vee getting together?
2/ San’s condition and how everyone reacts to it. The present-day part of the series begins only several short weeks before the 100 year deadline – and San still has not found Wat. This means he has only several weeks to live – and yet his family does not seem overly concerned. However, when the stone is gone, consumed to save Vee, San’s family is suddenly sad and devastated – realizing their ancestor will actually die. How exactly do these two situations differ? Were they all convinced that reincarnated Wat will show up at the last moment, feed the stone to San and save him? Or have they accepted that San will die and that why they were so calm at the start of the series?
3/ San’s actions and attitude. Initially he wants to find reincarnated Wat because he loves her and wants to be with her – but also because her feeding him the stone is the only way he’ll live. Once he falls for Vee he no longer cares who is Wat reincarnated (he discovers he no longer loves her), he even parts with the stone – which basically means he will die (even if Vee is Wat, with no stone they can’t reverse the curse). Is this resignation, some weird frame of mind or just poor writing?

As for acting, I immensely enjoyed Offroad and his performance: Vee is playful, witty, cute and goodhearted; he truly cares for those he loves. Daou’s performance was less enjoyable, probably because of how convincing he was as old, inflexible San – the same performance, however, unveiled a different, much softer face of San: that of a caring, loving man. Daou and Offroad have great chemistry and the series would benefit from having more of them together on screen; together they created a handful of good scenes I’d like to rewatch – which I cannot say about the rest of this series.

I do not mind the special effects (criticized in some reviews as cheap), as – for me – the show was about something else; the music, on the other hand, is dreadful: too loud, too dramatic and poorly chosen – in general off-putting.

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Bland, bloated, boring

One of the worst BL’s I’ve seen, “We Are” has enough story for about 4 episodes of an average BL, which got stretched and diluted to ridiculous 16 episodes, with hardly any plot and almost no substance. There’s an obscene number of filler scenes with characters – usually in a big group – gathering to do something, going somewhere, standing and waiting for something, taking a group picture or participating in what (each and every time) seems like a poorly improvised party, fake and lifeless. Development and story progression are utterly absent, with the in-show flow of time indicated mostly by exposition. I suppose that lack of progress gets reflected, in an ironic way, in the series’ title – “We Are” refers perfectly to this weirdly static show.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the show has a throng of one-dimensional characters that are dull, annoying, unlikeable, uninteresting or forgettable and unimportant. It’s baffling that with 4 couples and additional supporting cast there are no stakes, no emotion nor any tension between characters. Some of that results from poor script, but mostly it’s because of bad or lackluster performances and absence of any chemistry between the main cast.

Pond and Phuwin, as usual, fail to deliver anything remotely interesting together; during all 16 episodes I laughed exactly twice – both times because of something unexpected Phuwin did – that (and his stunning looks) is his contribution to the show. At least this time he didn’t portray an obnoxious character. Pond on his own seemed less wooden than normally in a BL – and that’s the best thing I can say about his performance.
Aou, whom I’ve seen giving one decent performance (in “Be My Favorite”), tries to be funny, but all he does it being irritating; Boom is simply there, doing less than a guest appearance would. Similarly, Marc and Poon could have been replaced with two human-sized cardboard cutouts and I wouldn’t see any difference.
I left the worst for last: Winny and Satang, by far the strongest cast members, don’t do anything to elevate the show; I even felt they dragged it down. Satang’s Toey is self-centered, infantile and painful to watch, while Winny’s Q comes across as unlikeable. I watched “We Are” mainly to see what WinnySatang can do when upgraded to main couple status (or almost-main couple, as PondPhuwin were the actual and only main couple) and I was disappointed with the outcome.

The BTS footage, shown during end credits of the last episode, was more interesting to watch than everything that preceded it in ep. 1-16.

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Strong start, average finish

After seeing Perth and Chimon as a side couple in “Never Let Me Go” I didn’t expect much of “Dangerous Romance” – even though the trailer was doing a decent job at attracting attention. To my surprise the first few episodes were okay, even good at times; I enjoyed Sailom outwitting Khang and was kind of impressed with Perth pulling it off as a spoiled rich kid and nasty school bully. Unfortunately this promising start didn’t lead to a fully satisfying middle part of the series (although some attempts were made), while the last 2-3 episodes felt like the production team tried to make the show interesting again. The finale was a predictable, but still messy and rushed conclusion.

Usually I watch BL’s for chemistry, dynamics and tension between the male leads. “Dangerous Romance” has some of that, but not too much. Perth and Chimon are much better here than in NLMG (they actually have some chemistry) and I enjoyed most of what they had to offer. It’s not the level of EarthMix, OhmNanon, Gem4th nor 1stKhao, but it’s decent. Still, given a little more screen time or tweaking the script a bit Marc and Pawin could easily outshine the main couple. The show more than hints at two more couples (View+June and Papang+Pepper), but with 12 episodes they don’t get any development – and, as I often do, I wondered about the merits of including so many characters and couples into one series.

The enemies to lovers plot isn’t new, but it’s development into the script of this series wasn’t the best – mainly because the “enemies” part ends pretty quickly and we get a typical school BL. The other part I disliked about the story was that the bully didn’t have a character arc nor character development: Kang – rather unexpectedly – switched from being a spoiled rich brat who bullies schoolmates to a spoiled rich brat with daddy issues (honestly, judging by his actions, Name was a more interesting character than Kang). Furthermore, Kang did not atone for what he did and enemies turned into lovers in almost no time, with very little hesitation from Sailom and some self-discovery on Kang’s part. Despite them having less screen time, I got the impression that there was more development of Nawa’s character and his relation with Guy, than of Kang.

For a moment, writing this review, I imagined an alternative version of “Dangerous Romance”, with only two couples: Kang+Sailom and Name+Saifah, with both brothers going the enemies to lovers path; a darker story about violence, poverty, crime and love – possibly without a happy end. Now that would have been a dangerous romance. Shame we didn’t get that.

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Awesome show – for about 90% of the time

===This section is spoiler-free===
I liked “Vice Versa” and I liked JimmySea even more. Now I adore them. Their performances in “Last Twilight” are great and a must-see for all BL fans. The show itself is wonderful, with a well-crafted script, which gives a lot of time for the development of characters and their relationships. This does not mean it’s a “slow burn”: the series has a very strong start with a well done introduction of the cast and characters; it stays smart up until the last minutes of ep. 11. What follows – the ep. 11 finale as well as ep. 12 – is a big letdown; I was baffled by how bad, in comparison to the rest of the series, is was. More on that in the spoilers section below.
The script and JimmySea’s chemistry resulted in several great, deeply emotional scenes, which used Day’s blindness in a clever way; this was particularly well done in the final scenes of ep. 4 and ep. 9 (probably the best episode of the show).
“Last Twilight” has a great soundtrack – all 5 songs performed by GMMTV artists are very good, “ภาพสุดท้าย” by Jakrapatr Kaewpanpong is by far the strongest of them (btw: although the title of this song in English was given as “Last Twilight”, Google Translate and similar apps say it’s actually ‘last picture’ or ‘final image’ – which makes more sense than ‘last twilight’). Sadly the same cannot be said about the music used in the show, which is very uneven. The aforementioned final scene of ep. 4 has a great score, but there is a lot of scenes with needlessly loud and “dramatic” music used to underline their importance and/or generate an emotional response from the audience (as if the producers were not sure whether the audience will be intelligent enough to recognize what to feel while watching these scenes). Fortunately there is plenty of quiet moments and scenes to balance those loud and noisy ones.
Rating “Last Twilight” is tough as for almost 11 episodes it’s great, a 8.5 or more, but gets to 7.0 or less in the last minutes of ep. 11 and afterwards. As a JimmySea fan I’m giving it a 8.5 and regret this is not fully deserved (however a 8.0 would be unfair).

===Warning: spoilers below===
No idea what happened there, but minutes before ep. 11 ended the show stopped making sense to me. Maybe P’Aof and other showrunners decided that the “curse” of the penultimate episode must show itself and spoil the fun, maybe they wanted to generate drama, maybe something else pushed them to it – they made the main couple break up. Storywise it made no sense and basically it came out of nothing: up until that point Mhok’s and Day’s relationship was getting stronger and better, with virtually no sign of weakening – not to mention a break up. Day adjusted to being blind, Mhok got a new job and they seemed to be on their best way to be a stable, happy couple, developing their relationship with time. Where did the break up come from? I know that a “reason” for it is given in ep. 11: Day feels that Mhok “pities” him (which, for whatever reason, Mhok confirms in ep. 12), but it makes even less sense. How come it’s “pity” and definitely not love nor fear of losing Day (as he lost his sister) that made Mhok want to stay with Day instead of becoming a chef in Hawaii? Is there a difference between love, fear and pity or is the script deliberately confusing in this regard – because a pretext for the break up was needed? Note that Day broke up with Mhok within minutes of finding out about Mhok not taking the job in Hawaii – there was no discussion, no talking it over, no build up; Day made a 180 on Mhok and told him to go away. They both still loved each other (as we are told later), but had no contact with each other for 3 years, with Day blocking Mhok on social media. Once they meet after that time, however, they … become a couple again. What changed during those 3 years? How did the main characters change? What happened that Day agreed to be with Mhok again? Is Mhok living and working on Hawaii, visiting Day from time to time – is that the arrangement by the end of ep. 12? If so, why wasn’t it possible 3 years earlier? And why did he still fear Mhok would “pity” him? It may seems odd to dwell on the “pity” issue, but since this is the only reason for Day breaking up with Mhok (and the show having a time jump) – it should be explained. No explanation is given, however, and the issue is not resolved. 11 episodes of building a relationship and a few minutes to ruin it, because drama was needed; that’s some really sloppy and lazy writing. I’m not saying that Day and Mhok could not break up – I’m saying that a development like this needs to be justified, make sense in the show as well as fit the characters. Note that Day matured a lot from a spoiled, somewhat angry brat in ep. 1 to a self-aware adult who accepted his blindness in ep. 11 – and then he turned back into that brat to dump Mhok; this radical regression was necessary, as the mature Day from ep. 11 wouldn’t break up with Mhok.
There are similarities between ep. 12 of “Last Twilight” and ep. 10 of “A Tale of 1000 Stars”: the main couple breaks up/separates for a longer time, but later reunites; the separation/break up happen for no good reason and serve no purpose – the characters don’t develop, change nor become more mature. Even if they wanted – they couldn’t, as the years of separation happen entirely off screen. Tian from ATOTS “had” to obey his parents and go to study in the US; this is the same Tian who ditched his parents in ep. 1 and showed no sign of obedience or respect for them for the entire series – he became “respectful” only when the script needed it, probably because someone decided that splitting the main couple will increase drama (who could forget the tear-jerking airport scene?). Not only was it useless storywise, but also seemed disrespectful towards the audience: the love story was slowly developed over 9 episodes only to be interrupted with a pointless time jump of 2 years after which … we got the same characters as before the split. The same happened in “Last Twilight” and I’m beginning to suspect that P’Aof loves those pointless time jumps (remember last episode of “Bad Buddy”?). What a disappointing way to end a great show.

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Three ships in one show – and it works!

Well, to be honest, “ship-wise” it’s ‘only’ 2 ships – EarthMix and GeminiFourth – as First and Khaotung, despite of starring in MLC, aren’t a couple in this series. Still, casting so many good performers in one show says a lot about GMMTV’s faith in the story, direction and cast – as well as the company’s ability to take risks (yes, putting so many of your assets – and popular ships clearly are assets – into one show represents a considerable risk). All of that was rewarded with a show which works very well and has some aspects usually not found in a BL. I’ll try to focus on the most important and best elements of MLC.

(1) The show has a perfectly paced and shot introduction, which presents the setting, majority of the cast and their relations in a very effective, almost music video manner.

(2) Characters and story give a very grounded, real life feel – which is often absent in BLs, especially rom-coms. This can, at least partly, be attributed to MLC being an almost classic drama. Humor is used sparingly, there are no scenes played for laughs, no comedic reliefs etc. – there’s no BL “fluff” either. The characters have different backgrounds and life experiences, but all are relatable; it’s also worth noting, that – contrary to many BLs – only two characters are teens, the rest are either young adults or “full adults”. Everyone in the show carries a lot of emotional baggage and faces problems we all understand and/or have experienced: loss of a family member, loss of a loved one, difficult break-up, unresolved past issues, unrequited love, money problems and poverty, job problems, unfair treatment and homophobia, difficult relations with parent and/or guardian, illness and/or disability. Despite of that this is still mostly a story about love – losing it, looking for it and finding it.

(3) The story is presented in a very condensed and clear way; several plots neatly fit into it. A bit surprisingly to me there weren’t too many characters (this is, after all, a series with only 8 episodes and a full cast) – mainly because each character had a specific role to play and did it. There was no drag, no time wasted on exposition or pointless talking and walking around.

(4) The cast is very solid, with GMMTV rolling out not just some of its most popular, but also most talented stars.
(a) Mix does a wonderful job as Wen regardless whether he’s drunk at the diner, passionate in bed with Jim, caring and understanding with Li Ming and Heart, trying to win over Jim or keeping his distance from Alan, while still caring for him. Wen seems the most complete character of the series and a good spirit for Li Ming and Jim – while still having issues of his own. I loved the firm grip Mix had of the character – he portrayed Wen with calm and confidence, which passed over to the character itself. This is by far Mix’s best role so far.
(b) Fourth as Li Ming is great, both as Jim’s nephew, a struggling (but never bratty) teenager, often angry and disappointed with his uncle, but also loving him, as well as Heart’s boyfriend, a teen in love – a love that grew so naturally and quietly that I could only smile and cry watching it. MLC was shot before My School President and the interaction of Fourth and Gemini here explains how we got the great chemistry of those two in MSP: it was there all the time. GemFourth is one of those superior ships like OhmNanon, EarthMix or FirstKhao: GMMTV can bank on and will never lose. Non-verbal communication between Li Ming and Heart was top notch; watch the episode 6 New Year scene to see how two unexperienced amateurs nail it without saying a word – that’s real acting. Most of GMMTV’s “actors” should watch it to realize how ridiculously incompetent they are.

MLC isn’t perfect, but it’s mature and non-fairy tale – it’s a serious BL. I enjoyed it very much.

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This cast deserved better - and so did the audience

After hearing a lot about LITA I binge-watched the whole series + the special. Intrigued by how different the reactions and reviews are (most people either love or hate LITA), I decided to write a few words about the show myself. I didn’t read MAME’s novels the show’s based on nor do I think comparing the novels and the show would be useful – after all these are separate works and the show needs to stand on its own.

Plot, characters & message
The plot is basic and simple: hot faculty legend Payu seduces cute and naïve student Rain, while Payu’s rich and hot friend Prapai pursues cute and sassy student Sky. While this seems perfectly okay, the devil is in the details: Payu manipulates Rain from day one and Prapai is a stalker; neither Payu nor Prapai take no for an answer nor acknowledge any boundary or limit – they alone decide where those are and how far they will go pursuing their goals. Even when they offer support, protection, affection and love, it’s from a dominating position, exploiting Rain’s and Sky’s vulnerability and desires (in the special episode attempts are made to mask this imbalance: Rain and Sky go on a trip and “punish” their partners). There’s more disturbing behavior resulting from the above, like nonconsensual touches, kisses, spanking (although this isn’t sexual) or coercion. Many have criticized this aspect of the show, while others found it appealing and okay. In my opinion we need to separate two things: the show including characters like Payu and Prapai and their actions and the message the show sends along with it. The show has every right to include manipulative, calculating, even creepy characters, instead of clean cut, perfect human beings. I hate, however, the message sent by the show – that Payu’s and Prapai’s actions are okay and justified by their desires, feelings, (supposedly) good intentions or by how hot they are or, what’s even worse, by Rain’s and Sky’s actual feelings for the two pursuers. Take how Rain was portrayed: he starts as a closeted 19 y.o., meets Payu and is immediately smitten with him, gets aroused by Payu’s every touch and does everything to spend more time with him, doing his best to tease him and win him over. The show even disavows Rain’s objections to Payu’s forced sex attempt in episode 1 – Rain willingly climbs into Payu’s bed, falls soundly asleep and even hugs Payu lovingly. In my opinion stuff like that confused many watching the show, twisting their perception and making them color-blind to all the red flags risen by Payu’s and Prapai’s actions. Instead of punishment or at least failure the show rewards Payu and Prapai, making them the good guys; there isn’t a single line of actual, serious condemnation or disappointment uttered by Rain nor Sky towards Payu nor Prapai (even something light like “you hunted and cornered me, treated me like a trophy; you should be ashamed of yourself”), no need for forgiveness for their part misdoings – as if they did nothing wrong. That’s where the show fails completely. There’s one more issue with the Sky-Prapai storyline: Sky’s trauma. I was surprised to see a serious and heavy issue like that thrown into such a show. It wasn’t dealt with properly, sending another harmful message: that love can heal you from trauma. It can’t; therapy can.
My biggest complain regarding the plot is that the script could have avoided all of the above and still be hot and sexy. You can be seductive without being manipulative, you can pursue someone without turning into a stalker and you can definitely be strong and independent respecting boundaries set by others. The showrunners didn’t know that or didn’t care about what message they were sending.

Cast
I was impressed by how natural and laidback the performances of Boss, Noeul, Fort and Peat were – given that only the latter two had some, albeit very modest, acting experience. There’s so much banter and good chemistry between them (to no small degree thanks to both couples being very well matched) and their portrayals are very convincing. This was only helped by them not shying away from performing all the scenes filled with sexual tension or sex itself. Seems that Boss and Fort channeled a lot of their personal charm into their roles, making Payu and Prapai likeable and desirable (that’s another reason, I believe, why so many were okay with those characters and what they did). Noeul was very effective in creating a young, naïve, confused and relatable character – which was no small feat, as Noeul seems very different from Rain. Peat deserves highest praise from the principal cast, as Sky is the only somewhat developed and complicated character (compared to rather one-dimensional Payu, Rain and Prapai); also his scenes, including solo ones, were the best.
Shame that Boss, Noeul, Fort and Peat didn’t have a better script to work with. Seeing how they managed to elevate the mediocre material they got I can only say that they deserved better.

Editing, sound
The editing was at times confusing, with weird cuts and scenes disjointed, unconnected with the rest of the show and/or previous and/or next scene; order and succession of scenes seemed off a few times, as if the editing team had too little time to make an actual show out of the material shot by the crew (e.g. in episode 7 Rain is with his friends somewhere outdoors and Payu calls him to tell him he’ll pick him up; in the next scene Rain is surprised to see Payu show up there and hides from him – these two scenes contradict each other, maybe just one of them was meant to be used in the show).
Sound editing seems non-existent. No idea whether they recorded dialogues on set and didn’t redub them or what happened there but through most of the show music is to loud and distracting while dialogues are too quiet.

Impressions
I liked the show for all the right reasons: hot actors, cuteness and banter, unabashed intimacy. All of that was like sweet-sweet candy poured over everything wrong with the show; blinded by that I enjoyed myself.

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It has some serious problems, but I liked&enjoyed it

Before I start:
1/ I don’t speak nor understand Thai, so I relied entirely on subtitles provided on GMMTV’s YouTube channel;
2/ all my comments and remarks below are about the GMMTV series – I didn’t read the book which inspired the series; for me the series is a completely independent work, not connected with the book, and it needs to stand on its own.

What I like about the series
1/ On-screen chemistry. Toptap and Mike work so well together that I’d be surprised to learn that off-screen they are anything less than good friends. But what I enjoyed even more was the chemistry between Pod and Khaotung; they sold me on Ton and Chon having genuine affection and feelings for one another. It was more than the absence of awkwardness; both actors seemed confident and relaxed in each other’s presence (for most of the time), hence their interactions (including the goofy ones) were believable. We deserved to see more of those two together; we got loads of cuteness and emotions, what we should have gotten more of was boyfriend banter (we got some of that, but more would be nice – Khaotung showed that his Chon can be shy, confident, loving, stubborn and angry, but also very sassy).
2/ Less non-problems than I feared. My prime example is Chon’s reaction to the kiss video in episode 9. Initially I was disappointed and thought Chon reacted according to BL-silliness (by which I mean that characters usually suspect and assume the worst, act without real reason, judge the situation without actual proof, tend to overreact and/or react to things no real person would bother reacting to; also, they don’t talk to each other). Then I watched episode 10 and saw that Chon’s reaction was much more grounded and relatable. Chon recognized Ton as a show-off prone to dumb stunts and actions which would give Chon constant heartache. Suddenly it made sense and the BL-silliness was gone; there was no fake problem – there was a real one and Chon was reacting to it.
3/ Showing homophobia’s still a real thing. We see LGBTQ characters fearful of how their friends and other people would react to their coming out/revealing they are in a same-sex relationship and we see homophobic characters with their stereotypes, prejudice and aggression. Pretending we live in a world were nothing stops LGBTQ persons from having a happy life would be bad. Glad the show writers didn’t do that. That being said:
- the way a gay character was presented in episode 1 (guy who followed Ton and Chon after they had lunch) was appalling and homophobic,
- Ton never apologizing nor even addressing his homophobia was a huge mistake of the writers,
- Chareon getting his wish fulfilled instead of being denied and ignored was an even bigger mistake of the writers – c’mon, guys! if you want to show everyone that homophobia is bad you can’t reward a homophobe!
4/ Very limited side plots. Compare “Tonhon Chonlatee” to, let’s say, “2gether”, where we got 4 couples: Tine&Sarawat, Type&Man, Dim&Green and Mil& Phukong (5 if we include Pear&Boss). Were they all necessary to tell the story of Tine&Sarawat? Did we learn more about the main characters because of these additional characters and their relationships? What purpose in the story did they serve? In “Tonhon Chonlatee” the side characters are acutely aware of their purpose; Ai explaining to Ni, that they are the protagonist’s sidekicks was on point and almost breaking the 4th wall.
5/ Miriam. Once she shows up she does a lot to push the plot forward – which the story needed after the slow-paced first few episodes. The character itself is likeable and a much needed voice of reason.

What I don’t mind about the series
1/ How character development of Ton was handled. The writing is rather basic and often clumsy, with a difficult-to-believe revelation in episode 10, but we also get a clear character arc for Ton. BTW: I liked that the show didn’t immediately explain why and how Ton got the idea of having Chon stay at his place and them two spending so much time together. Ton felt something for Chon and acted on what we were initially led to believe was instinct - I'm fine with that.
2/ Clumsy writing. (i) People condemning Amp after her rant in episode 8 - apparently students carry paper balls with them at all times (ii) The shoehorned beach scene at the end of episode 8 (I guess we needed that to illustrate that Ton made a decision, that from now on – instead of being a homophobe – he’ll fight homophobia, that he’s no longer afraid and so on).
3/ Unanswered questions. (i) How come Ton didn’t recognize Chon in episode 1 and what purpose did it serve? From a story point of view it would be better for Ton to recognize Chon right away, saying something like “Just the person I wanted to see. I’ve missed you so much. Let’s have lunch”. (ii) Who leaked the picture of Ton sleeping in episode 8? Was it Chon (he took the picture)? Was it Pang (she saw the picture and held Chon’s phone long enough to send the picture to herself)? We know why it happened (drama), but how? (iii) Is everyone allowed to see other people’s kites that hang if front of the Sam Muk temple? And to tamper with them? (iv) Don’t Ton’s parents have any social media accounts? Don’t they follow their son?
I can live without knowing these things.

What annoys me about the series
1/ How Ton’s attraction to Chon is explained in episodes 9 and 10. On reviewer (deetsy) addressed this nicely today, so let me quote: “In the end what we got was a homophobic story of "I'm not gay, I just love you". It worked well 5 years ago in SOTUS, but now I think LGBT community moved on past this narrative and deserves something better”. In short: why can’t Ton just be gay or bisexual or pansexual? Why the additional “explanation” that he’s attracted to Chon because they have had a special bond as children? Why the emphasis on Ton not being gay, on Ton “still liking women” and not feeling anything for other men? Maybe there’s something I don’t get about some BL series, but this wasn’t the first time I saw something like this. Did you notice the emphasis on past girlfriends, who don’t even have to appear in the show nor become villains (like Amp), but are casually mentioned? As if the writers wanted to establish that gay characters don’t exist and if two guys get together they are bisexual or pansexual at best. In “Tonhon Chonlatee” this applies not just to Ton, but also to Na, and you can see the same pattern in other series: a boy dating girls until he meets that one special boy he’s attracted to (see both Tine and Sarawat in “2gether”, see Tee in “Cause You're My Boy”, see Knock in “Together with me” and see many others examples).
2/ Chareon’s homophobia and “the baby solution”. Chareon is a homophobe and a domestic tyrant. Everyone is trying to make him realize he can’t separate Chon and Ton nor impose his wish to have grandchildren, but at the same time everyone tries to satisfy that wish: enter Nam and the surrogate mother idea. Why is this even in the show? Why did the writers decide to fulfil Chareon’s wish and disregard basically everything done up untill that point? Chareon was told he can’t force his kids to do his bidding and then he got exactly what he wanted. As much as I enjoyed the first part of episode 10, I was facepalming for most of the rest of it.
3/ Nueng facing almost no consequences for his assault on Chon. Nueng is a would-be rapist and almost nothing happened to him. Ton kicked him once, dragged him out of the toilet and punched him once – that was all, that was the whole “punishment” for what Nueng attempted. I’m not saying we needed a scene of Ton and Chon testifying at a police station, but something should have happened, e.g. Ai or Ni doing their sidekick job and telling Ton (e.g. a day after the assault) that the university announced Nueng was suspended and facing a police investigation. Instead we got Nueng on best-buddy terms with Amp, supporting her lies (I didn’t know would-be rapists hold the moral high ground to lecture junior students on splashing seniors with water) until she was revealed as a homophobe. The guy shouldn’t even be in the series at that point! BTW: remember how Chon was reprimanded for kissing Ton while Ton was asleep? If the writers (correctly) wanted to tell us that any form of sexual activity, even a kiss, needs to be consensual, they shouldn’t send conflicting signals like that.

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This dragged for what felt like an eternity

Let’s get spoilers out of the way first: this story is about two teen best friends who used to be in a gang, one wanted to leave to have a football career, the other didn’t want to let him go, so he gave him a “customary” beating, breaking a leg of his friend and ending his football dream. The perpetrator felt ashamed and vanished while the victim felt abandoned. 3 years later they meet again and – instead of clarifying things – begin a prolonged back and forth with the perpetrator wanting to apologize and the victim refusing to listen; they eventually reconcile, but by that time the show introduced several side plots which sidelined the main plot and the series can’t end before those side plots are concluded. At the end of the day we get whopping 16 episodes filled mainly with repetitive content (e.g. in ep. 1-6 Saint follows Shin and tries to talk to him, Shin doesn’t want to talk; they nevertheless kinda talk, but nothing comes out of that – no conclusion nor resolution – so Saint follows Shin… And this happens 2-3 times per episode) or side plot content – about various problems of Shin’s and Saint’s classmates. I admit I got tired of the main plot by ep. 3 and started watching the show on FFDW.

Some claim that this is actually a BL. I guess some people could get this impression as the show was produced by a company specializing in BLs, both main characters are male, young and attractive, and the show’s about their relationship. Others might believe that nonromantic love between males is impossible (hence it’s no “bromance” – it must be a BL) or that the supposed chemistry between Nani and Sky proves that their characters are more than friends. I strongly disagree with the above – and not just because there’s nothing in the story that would imply “High School Frenemy” to be something else than a “bromance”. It’s also the structure of the story. In most BLs (and love stories in general) story is about characters developing their relationship, going from strangers to a couple. This is a gross simplification, but – with a few exceptions – that’s how vast majority of BL are written. “High School Frenemy” is about two characters who already had a strong non-romantic relationship and want to rekindle it – which takes them most of the 16 episodes. I’m not saying forgiveness, healing and rekindling of a friendship are easy nor that they can be achieved quickly, but in case of this show it’s more than obvious that this process was treated as filler for as many episodes as possible. The aforementioned repetitiveness does not result from Shin and Saint needing a lot of time to reconcile (they actually do it in two scenes), but from the show needing content. There’s like 2 hours of actual story and content of the main plot and it could have been told in a concise and emotional way; it loses a lot of emotional weight due to being stretched over far too many episodes, with the few decent scenes getting drowned by constant repetition. The “give up what’s most important for you” thing in ep. 7 is a good example of what this show does to good concepts: it was supposed to display Saint’s sacrifice and importance of friendship, but was executed in a horrible way, ruined by awful dialogue (spelling out what Saint was giving up), poor delivery and dragging it over three utterly pointless scenes, making it lose all emotional charge.

As for subplots, I feel all save one were shoehorned as additional filler. Sure, when you have a school/classroom setting for a story (regardless what the story is about), you need people to appear in the background – as students, teachers, administration etc. What I don’t get is why any of them needed their own small story, which was unrelated (or very loosely related) to the main story.

Ken’s subplot, the only one somewhat connected to the main plot, was stretched just as unnecessarily as the main plot. This had several consequences – we got tons of pointless violence (apparently one fight scene wasn’t enough to illustrate the problem) before characters were allowed to realize that it serves no purpose: neither side could “win”, asserting permanent domination, and even if “winning” was possible – it wouldn’t change much (they would still be students at a high school). Furthermore the show presented school violence (and violence in general) as something ordinary, an element of everyday life – normalizing it. Violence and danger are so common, that the stakes are oddly low: we get a solid beating every other episode, yet it ends with a few bruises, no apologies and no punishments.

The school setting makes sense – but only when viewed from a distance. As someone who does not require full realism I can say that too many things felt nonsensical and were written like that because of plot (and not realism or relatability); I listed some examples of that below.
1/ Teachers (not just Jan and Sung) had no idea what they’re supposed to do, imposing “clever” punishments to force students to think (punishments that no school in the civilized world would dare to apply). The method of tricking someone to change their behavior or mind was also used on one of the teachers.
2/ The principal was unhinged, throwing tantrums and switching between having bright ideas and going hard on students, between being bent on expelling an innocent student and overlooking those that are responsible and applying collective responsibility.
3/ The exam cheating issue was presented in a crude and heavy-handed way, plagued with banal statements by Jan and Sung (which were, of course, made sound like something profound and important). Jan punishing herself/forcing students to “punish” her for them cheating during the exam was pure cringe.
4/ School bullies who associate themselves with criminals were scared of a teacher quoting penal law and threatening to tell their parents about what they do. Were they naughty teens, who can be kept in line by teachers, afraid of getting expelled, or delinquents who don’t care about graduating or their parents finding out that they’re bullies? Which is it – cause it can’t be both, and the show sure wanted it to be.
5/ During the “investigation” into cases of violence (in ep. 6-7) nobody remembered the brawl which resulted in Chatjen throwing a chair through a window nor about the one class member who was recording all the school fights for “content”. And how come virtually all the surveys from class 2 incriminated Shin – did Saint, Chatjen, First, Thiu and Cable accuse Shin of being a violent troublemaker in their surveys?

A few words need to be said about the cast. Most performances are either weak or unimpressive – this includes what both Maria and Foei bring to the screen. Nani’s delivery is pretentious and annoying in nearly every scene (he seemed not to know what to do nor how to portray his character once Saint and Shin reconciled), while Sky is stiff and wooden; in all “emotional” scenes he’s reciting lines like an automaton and gets better only during the very few “friendly banter” scenes he shares with Nani. Neither of them can act and they have little chemistry (although these two things are not related – there are many couples and ships with no acting skills, but with good chemistry), with just a few better scenes in later episodes, when Saint and Shin reconcile. The single good performance of the series comes from Mark Pakin – the only actual actor in the cast. I did, however, enjoy Winny’s guest appearance, while Marc Natarit was surprisingly convincing in his little role.

I enjoyed some of the music used in the series. The opening theme by “Kong” Jaithep Raroengjai is very good and I was upset upon finding out that it’s only 1:08 minutes long (no “full version” or longer version is available).

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