Hello, hello my lovely Misfits
And welcome to another review of mine. I told you I produced before I came back, so here are the fruits of my labour for you to enjoy. This review is obviously gonna be riddled with spoilers, so please be cautious if you have not seen We Are just yet. But on the other hand I don’t think I am gonna spoil more than any breathing individual could after spending a second on Twitter (yes, I am old, I refuse to change).
But let’s get into the nitty gritty, shall we.
So to start off with let me mention that the director of We Are is no one other than New Siwaj. The genius that brought us Love By Chance and Make It Right. Just to name two productions in his sheer endless sea of successful series. This man lives and breaths BL. I don’t think anyone would seriously wanna argue with me on that point. So We Are was from the start in very good hands director wise.
Let’s move over to the cast because heaven’s we have a huuuuuuge cast. We have 11 friends, if I count correctly. And we are getting four proper couples out of everything. Which is really not bad. And thinking back to New’s other production one will notice that this man definitely has a thing for big ensembles and tons and tons of couples. He started with Love Sick (he was an editor there), so I guess with this his love for big groups of people falling in love has started.
But it’s not just the sheer number of people involved here, it’s also the quality of the actors. Phuwin and Pond are by now definitely one of the bigger couples within GMMTV and I think we all can agree that especially Phuwin is on his way to be one of the best actors this company has in their midst. I liked the roles of Phum and Peem and I think after the hard work they did in Never Let Me Go they both deserved roles that are a bit more light hearted. Both are delivering as always and I have really nothing bad to say here.
Winny and Satang also finally got bigger roles and even though I didn’t enjoy Satang being this extremely cutsy and naive, I think he did a good job in bringing this character alive. I don’t have to agree on all storyline decisions and as long as everything makes sense and is coherent, I don’t mind not liking a character in a series that much. Satang did a very good job changing into this cute hugmonster and that’s the main thing. For me the Q and Toey couple was a tiny bit too juvenile and felt more like I was watching elementary school kids falling in love for the first time. But hey, this is just not my cup of tea and that’s okay.
I guess the couple that surprised me really the most was Aou and Boom. I mean I have seen them in their previous things and I always loved them together. I also have the softest spot for Aou as I looooooooved him in Be My Favourite. But somehow it feels like this ship has now fully come into its own. There is something different about these two and I think other people also can feel it, as my twitter and tumbler is pretty much just singing the praises of this couple 247. I am curious to see where this ship is gonna sail from here. Because I definitely could see them going rather far within the genre.
Last but certainly not least we had Marc and Poon as Chain and Pun. As we all know Pawin was supposed to be Pun and I think we all were quite happy about Marc and Pawin rekindling their ship again. But with all the allegations against Pawin, obviously GMM had to do something and so this role went to Poon. And can I be brutally honest here? I am so happy that it did. Because given what we have seen now I can’t imagine anyone else being Pun other than Poon. I really can’t see Pawin in this character at all. I am sure he would have managed. He is a rather good actor after all. But Poon stole for me the show and kudos for him. To just come into this situation, break apart a fan favourite ship in a way (not his fault, but we all know how delulu fans can be) and he still was this GOOD. I honestly love him with Marc together and I wouldn’t mind seeing them together again. This little penguin has stolen my heart and I am not too proud to admit it.
So now I have prattled on for a long while about the cast and the director. And I don’t think I have said too many bad things really. All in all it’s all rather positive, isn’t it. So why this title to this review. Why smooth sailing into sameness?
Because as much as I enjoyed this series with all its 16 episodes… It just was smooth sailing. And nothing more. I am trying to find a comparison to really explain myself here but I am struggling. I mean, just imagine you are all excited to go onto Space Mountain at Disneyland, but you just end up in the Spinning Teacups. The Spinning Teacups are still a lot of fun and entertainment, but you expected Space Mountain for heaven’s sake.
And that’s a bit how I feel about this show. It had literally everything you could need for a banger show. Like a proper hit it out of the park and make it epic hit show. They had the right director, they had the right cast, they had enough money and one of the best production companies.They could have made something so awesome.
But instead we got the Spinning Teacups. It was a very enjoyable ride and I won’t lie. I have loved and squealed and in theory all this should be enough. But somehow there was just something missing. There were no highs or lows. There were just all these cute and perfect moments. Even the conflicts wouldn’t last longer than maybe half an episode. With a cast like this couldn’t we give them something more to do? And I am not talking about making an action packed crime series out of it. But give everything at least a few peaks and valleys otherwise it feels like we are on the Spinning Teacups for 16 episodes. The first few rounds you really enjoy, but too much of the same is nauseating and I would hate for BL to turn into this as well.
Too much of the same thing can make it boring. Life has peaks and valleys for a reason and without them things turn really dull really quickly. As I said. I really enjoyed the show. It’s well done and it fits the age group it was created for (13+). But given the cast and the director I just hoped for a little bit more. Call me greedy all you want, but I know what these guys can do. This was just a wasted opportunity and this shall forever rile me up.
I wanted Space Mountain after all, but all I got were the Spinning Teacups.
First posted on BLDA
Your Heart's Content 