BLISS RATING: ★+
“There is no love like the first.” – Nicholas Sparks
This series is awful. I wish there was a kinder way to say that, but there is not. I wish in all honesty it had never been made as it wasted the talents of all the performers in this series. Or, at the very least, did not let them shine very much.
While the premise starts out rather cute for a high school keynote, it simply falls flat. Atom (Fourth Nattawat) likes the girl next to him, Mudmee (Pahn Pathitta). One day, he asks her to borrow an eraser. He happens to notice a name on the back of the eraser. It spells out Kongthap (Gemini Norawit). And Atom is devastated. There is a cute custom that if one puts the name of the person one likes on the back of the eraser, someday a relationship will develop. I thought that was kind of a cute penchant. Inadvertently, Atom drops the eraser and Kongthap picks it up and gives it back to Atom. He did notice his name. Thus, begins an unlikely romance between the two.
It turns out that Mudmee, however, is not really interested in Kongthap but Atom’s best friend Half (Chokun Puttipong) who shares part of his name with Kongthap. Of course, it is understandable why Mudmee would have good reason to be interested in him. Half is simply astonishingly handsome with a charming yet laid-back personality. And yet, when it comes to reading signs from others, he is clueless or pretends to be.
What made this story so bad is its worn-out plot, cliché storylines, and predictable outcomes. For sure, there are a few touching moments but not enough to save this disaster of a series.
And unfortunately, the acting is unchallenging and superficial. Fourth is acceptable and does have some break-out moments . He does try. However, his character’s constant whining, inability to be decisive, and his overwhelming insecurities became his calling card, and it all got to be just too much. I know they are high schoolers but honestly, he showed little to no growth and what growth he showed was pushed along by everyone around him. He seemed powerless over his own self. On the other hand, Gemini’s acting is so flat and one dimensional and his voice so monotone that watching paint dry was more exciting. He showed little emotions and seemed incapable of showing any. He grew emotionally little, even over the course of the series.
The scene when Atom is forced by his own mother to grow a backbone and confront Kongthap’s mother was completely exasperating. Kongthap stood there like a sheepish schoolboy letting his mother control him. His mother seemed to have had more than a subtle influence over him. He came across as completely unaware how much influence she actually had over him. This was not too surprising since he spent a lot of time alone and craved attention from the two individuals he revered the most – his parents.
At the same time, he is entering a time in his life when he is becoming an adult. He could have for once in his life interjected and supported his boyfriend even in a gentle way; but he remained passive, saying nothing. No character growth whatsoever. It is time to leave the nest, son. These are the scenes in a BL series than can advance the plot from telling an ordinary and mundane story into an augmentation of a gay relationship and making it feel real.
Who really S.T.O.L.E. this series? This is a drab and dull series. The parents and teachers were caricatures and for the most part unrelatable to portraying honest lifestyles. Overall, the series was fairly lifeless with only a few good acting scenes. However, the two that carry this series with some sense of grow are Pahn as Mudmee and Chokun as Half. While their dialogue is usually infantile, they were still able to breathe some emotions into it. Mudmee was skillful enough to portray more-or-less a typical teenage girl with pangs of exhilaration and depression while Half always appeared to be opaque, a not too unusual condition for teenage boys. Yet, underneath, you did sense he wanted to express more of himself but was simply afraid to do so. He of all the characters actually surprised me the most. He decided to go off to a school away because he knew that was his best option. That was a responsible and honest decision, as painful as that had to be for him. He at least showed some guts and went against the flow. Of all the characters in this series, he showed the greatest range of sentiments and depth to a character.
The series is filled with every trope in the playbook. If one of these series used even less than half of the standard ones, I would be ever so grateful. They continue to treat gay relationships like sitcoms. It is just a show. No depth. No sincerity. No exploration. No realness to them. It is like ‘playing house’ when you were children. All pretend; no substance. They cannot even kiss without the world falling down on them or even worse, fireworks going off. Please stop with the fireworks when two guys kiss.
I am guessing this was a comedy, but I found very little of it funny. Sure, the school play was funny and theatrical. There are some poignant scenes between Atom and Kongthap that stand out as well. Most of the emotional scenes, however, were done with the straight couple – Mudmee and Half. However, even with the two of them, their whole relationship is treated with infantile dialogue and no sense of understanding of a relationship between teenagers in real life or with any sense of realism.
Again and again, these series become more and more insulting to gay people and provide no understanding of any of the issues of what it is like to ‘come out’ at those ages. While the writers brushed up against it, they shy away from anything deep and provide only superficial and cute responses to what are real issues between two young men. There is at the end, one good scene where Atom tells his mother about his relationship with Kongthap, which she already knew. That was one of the few honest moments with the dialogue reflecting a sense of how mother and son saw what was happening. More, much more of that was needed throughout this series to make this series sustainable, even for a comedy.
Stop treating characters so superficially. Stop with the endless cliches and tropes. Stop with the stale storylines. Add life to the characters and make them transition into adulthood. Dear God, both Atom and Kongthap were childish and child-like in the beginning and both remained so throughout. Breath some depth into these characters. Did you really expect us to believe that Atom and Kongthap had some sort of connection with each other? How? They barely kissed and only held hands. Not once did we even get a sense that Atom and Kongthap were even going to have anything that came close to having sex. For them, it seemed irrelevant to other things, like studying or moving to Bangkok.
While noble concepts, I can assure you with 101% certainty that 18-year-old young men are not thinking about studying when moving to an apartment together alone. Stop pretending that this is not a part of the gay experience. I am tired of seeing BLs that present GAY relationships as if we live in a gay sitcom. There has to be some sense of connection to the real world or otherwise those watching these series will think we all live like this. We do not.
At least Mudmee and Half showed some growth. We did get to see some pangs of sadness that they would not be together because they would be attending different schools. And how about treating them more like adults as well rather than grade schoolers. They barely kissed on the cheek. Those scenes with Mudmee’s father were awkward and weird and frankly not funny and overall stupid. Please also stop with the hitting, no matter how much it might seem to be perceived as correct. Mudmee slapping Half was completely unnecessary and ought to be considered an assault. None of that is justified or necessary to get your point across. Less violence, please. I might add, if the roles had been reversed, would we have thought that scene funny, necessary, or cute?
Overall, this is a childish, immature presentation of gay and straight teenage relationships, with a tired and trite plot, and I am sorry to say poorly acted and I am guessing more so poorly directed to make them all appear to be immature schoolboys and schoolgirls.
You all can do better.
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