homoconnor

it's just plain delightful

This is my first time writing a review, so bear with me, but I absolutely had to in order to give Bad Buddy the praise it deserves.

STORY

Bad Buddy's bare bones plot isn't necessarily anything we haven't seen Thai BL do before; GMMTV loves engineering and architecture university students and an enemies to lovers plotline (not only is it enemies to lovers, but it's Romeo and Juliet inspired). While this plot structure tends to be a drag for me (this is the only BL in my top five to take place at a university), the execution is so well done it feels like you're watching something completely different from other university-centered BLs.

To me, this is because of two reasons:

First, the simplicity of the plot allows them to lean into the characters and their development, and they really take advantage of that. From each lead's first scene—Pat and his gang chasing after Wai and Pran taking his time to put his art supplies away before going to save Wai—they feel like real people and we care what happens to them. And by the time they get together, we know them each as individuals rather than some kind of ship dynamic. I've also never seen a BL manage to carry on this same development with its side characters; Wai, Korn, Paa, and Ink all stood out in their own ways, and I never felt the urge to skip their scenes so I could get to the main plot quicker.

Second, it's more self-aware than most BLs of its era are. We're seeing a bit more of a shift toward that now, but Bad Buddy is one of the first I've seen this from. They poke fun at some of the tropes often used by BLs, especially the "wifey" thing. I think we as an audience can get more enjoyment from a show that's willing to lean into some clichés while subverting others.

One last thing I'll say about the plot because I think it's important to my love of this show, and just how well the plot was executed: I hate, with every fiber of my being, the trope where we find out they knew each other in the past, whether it was a secret or they forgot about it. I always find it incredibly annoying and it never adds anything to the plot. But, you guessed it folks, it just works here. I think it's partially because it's never really kept a secret. We learn more about Pat and Pran's past friendship as the series continues, but it's never poised as some kind of big reveal. Second, it DOES contribute to the plot in this show. Without spoiling, it gives us further insight into the characters' lives and families, as well as helps us understand their present motivations.

ACTING/CAST

I mean... come on. This entire cast is just fantastic. I could spend paragraphs praising all of the side actors before we even get to Ohm and Nanon, but I'll spare you. Let me just say this: all of the actors are great on their own, but it's like they managed to put together the most complementary group of all time. No matter the combination of characters put together on screen, there was so much chemistry and it felt like watching real (if a bit exaggerated, of course, but I digress) interactions between people with histories with each other.

Ohm and Nanon are some of the best I've ever seen, and for guys so young, it's incredible. I think they particularly shined in Bad Buddy because the roles of Pat and Pran played to their strengths. Ohm seems to have the same kind of ball-of-energy athlete vibe that Pat has, while Nanon's got the chill musician thing that Pran has. It's also quite obvious that they're close in real life, because their chemistry is just off the charts. I've watched so many BLs where characters get together because it's "supposed" to happen. But throughout Bad Buddy, I could just feel the love they shared for each other, even when they didn't even know it.

Last thing I have to note about the acting is THAT scene. I'm really avoiding spoilers in this review, so if you know, you know. If you still haven't watched, when you get to the scene with Pat, Pran, and Wai... you'll know. Literal chills.

CRITICISMS

Can I just say this show is perfect and move on? No? Okay, well, while this show is nearly flawless, in my opinion, I do think the storyline had a few hiccups.

For me, the major one is that there wasn't enough discussion about the outing of Pat and Pran. I was very happy to see a show where everyone was very accepting of the characters' sexualities, so the outing had more to do with certain "alliances," for lack of a better word, but I wish the show would've touched on the effects a bit more. We also forgive the character who's at fault a bit more quickly than I would've liked.

CONCLUSION

Overall, this is a must watch on the BL scene. I laughed and cried several times, and would sell my soul for a season 2 (or even just a Between-Us-Special-esque series where we get to watch Pat and Pran being domestic and cute with no actual plot).

Everyone say thank you, P'Aof.

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Interesting concept, shaky execution

I've come away from ThamePo with a strong appreciation for what it was trying to accomplish, but some disappointment in how it was executed. Here are my thoughts:

NOTE: I am a screenwriter and a BL scholar. My criticism (positive and negative) stems from my experience in both fields, as well as my thoughts as a BL fan. Please understand that my thoughts are my own, and I am making no judgment on anybody who thinks differently!

STORY/SCREENPLAY

ThamePo is tackling strong, thematic questions about industry, celebrity, privacy, and parasocial relationships between idols and fans, and for that, I commend it. The last few years has seen a rise in BLs that deal with these subjects, so it was only a matter of time before GMMTV followed along. The show's highlights, for me, were the moments that really dug in: Pepper's relationship arc with Gam, Fern's perspective as a fan, the conversations with Pemika about the inner workings of the company and how that clashes with the desires of the artists, and even Po's relationship with his ex, Earn, who values money and notoriety over personal relationships. I think these were interesting, especially considering how relevant they likely are to many of the actors in the show.

The issue, then, is that these were quite fleeting moments and the two central storylines, MARS' reunification and Thame and Po's relationship, failed to capture my attention. My issue with the MARS plot was that it lacked any meaningful tension. When Thame has to confront each of the other members, all of whom are apparently very angry with him for abandoning them (as they perceive it), they all immediately agree to rejoin the group, or they were secretly never angry with him, etc. Even the most difficult one to convince takes about half an episode. Obviously, in a show like this, we know the group will get back together, but I should at think, for a moment, that they might not. I should be invested in Thame's mission to get them back together because he keeps facing obstacles, rather than being bored because I had to watch four or five episodes of Thame only needing to say two words to each band member to make them come back.

Once they're back together, MARS really doesn't struggle at all to get back to the top of the charts. We're told several times (another gripe I have with the show - we're told, not shown, most things) that being #1 is extremely important, but we're not given any reason that this wouldn't happen. I feel like this could've been fixed by having Joong's character be a bigger threat, or by showing that maybe fans had lost interest in them, or were upset that they were breaking up. That would put the pressure on MARS to do something new, to take a risk, and hope it paid off. I kept thinking back to My School President - Chinchilla kept losing over and over again and that was such a smart move for the writers to make, because it made us root for them even more. I think the second half of ThamePo found its footing, and the clear conflict between MARS and Pemika allowed for a good throughline plot with a satisfying ending.

This lack of tension extended to Thame and Po's relationship, too. People keep calling this a slowburn, but it sort of isn't? Sure, they don't kiss until pretty late in the series, but they pretty much realize they like each other immediately and there's not a particularly good reason that they can't get together earlier, so the slowburn, and the yearning that should be palpable from it, isn't that effective. I thought the love triangle with Jun was pretty interesting (and the scene where Thame and Jun play air hockey is probably my favorite scene of the series), and there's a little bit of the whole "we can't be together because I'm famous" thing (though that's mostly implied for ThamePo via Pepper and Gam's storyline), but I don't feel like we got a true explanation of why it took them so long to get together. And on top of that, why they even wanted to be together. I'll touch on this a little more when I talk about the characters, but I don't actually know what Thame or Po liked about each other. It felt like they just happened to be the main characters of the show, and so we were just supposed to believe they love each other after they monologue about it enough times. I've noticed that BL, especially GMMTV, has been emphasizing "ship moments" (you know, the cute little physical moments like them bumping into each other and staring into each other's eyes, or holding hands, or really any physical touch they can replay in slow motion five times in a row and also flashback to several more times in later episodes) that can be clipped and posted online for engagement over more complex relationship development. This is deeply annoying to me. I'm all for characters being affectionate with each other, but the show needs to earn it! Characters working through conflict, solving problems together... these are the things that lead to believable relationships. These moments need to be an expression of the love that I already know they have for each other, not used to try to convince me that they love each other (or used for their actual purpose, which is to trend online). Sorry, ThamePo, I don't actually know why you're dating.

CHARACTERS/PERFORMANCES

I think that everyone in this show did the best with what they had! Despite what I just said about ThamePo's relationship, I think WilliamEst had good chemistry and I think they'd have great chemistry in a better show. I just think both Thame and Po's characters were pretty unremarkable. They weren't bad or annoying or anything, they were just boring. I feel like the only things we know about them are what their jobs are and that they like each other. I don't think we get much more about why Thame wants to be an artist, and he doesn't really have any flaws or mess up in any real way that he has to fix. Nothing is actually his fault. It's boring. And Po works as a documentarian and then creative director, but he does not seem invested at all. There is no indication that he loves art or film, he just needs a job. I think there was an attempt at some interesting character development for him, in which he learns to stand up for himself, but it didn't feel fully fleshed out to me. He was largely just a passive character that things happened to, rather than making things happen.

The other LYKN (or MARS) boys seemed to have a far deeper understanding of their characters than the writers did. I thought they were brilliant and used the little moments they had to their fullest extent. Nut was particularly good as Jun, but Lego, Hong, and Tui were impressive, too. I'm glad this show was well-liked because it means we'll hopefully see the LYKN boys in more stuff!

PRODUCTION

The production value was good! It did have BL sound disease but I've accepted that Thai productions have refused to learn what a boom mic is, so whatever. Good cinematography and color grading and solid editing.

MUSIC

I can not, for the life of me, understand why GMMTV made a show starring a boy band, about a boy band, and it's not a musical. They sing like one song until the final episode. There should have been at least one song per episode. The big, climactic song, when MARS takes over the concert and sings about living out their dreams together, comes out of absolutely nowhere and isn't that effective because we don't see them work on it (we should've seen them, earlier in the series, try to write it and fail or have it taken away or something) and we basically haven't heard any of their other music. It's like... you finally have a cast that can actually sing and now suddenly you barely want them to?

CONCLUSION

I think I wrote out a lot more of my criticisms than praises, but I definitely didn't hate this. I think it was a pretty middle-of-the-road show. WilliamEst is a good ship, they'll probably get more shows together, and I hope the LYKN boys are in more series, too. I think that, potentially, some of my frustration with this show is that I haven't really seen anything great from GMMTV lately and I miss their 2021-2023 days. Each year used to have at least a couple 10/10 BLs, but I suspect they're a little too occupied trying to go viral online to make unique, quality art. I'm glad other people seemed to like this more than me!

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