My ‘TVB Rant’ #8: Lamenting the lack of ‘good’ TVB series nowadays....

Over the years, as I've gotten older, watching TV has become a secondary pasttime for me -- meaning that the TV is still on all the time in the house (as it had been throughout my childhood), but instead of it consuming most of my time, it has now been reduced down to 'background noise' pretty much, taking a back seat to the other more important things / tasks that I have to do. Therefore, most of the time, even though the TV is on, I'm not truly 'watching' TV, but rather 'listening' to the TV, and I only look up occasionally from what I'm doing if there is a scene that happens to interest me, then after that scene passes, I quickly look back down and continue with the task at hand. So I guess you could say that I'm not really ‘paying attention’ to what is on TV, but rather focusing more on the task I am working on at the moment.

The above has pretty much become a way of life for me, but looking at it from a different perspective, it also helps me to gauge whether a particular TV series or show is 'good' or not.

In my book, in order for a series to be considered 'good', it has to meet 4 criteria.

First, a ‘good’ series must be able to "distract" me from what I am doing at the moment and cause me to ‘pay attention’ to the series for a long period of time. For a series to be considered 'really good', it has to do more than just "distract" me -- it has to cause me to set aside what I am doing at the moment and concentrate fully on what I am watching -- in other words, it has to pull me in to the point that what I am doing at the moment becomes secondary rather than primary. (Another way to look at is: ‘good’ is equivalent to ‘like’ and ‘really good’ is equivalent to ‘love’).

In addition to the above, the other way I can tell if a series is 'good' and/or 'really good' is whether it has the the 'chasability' factor. What is the 'chasability' factor, you may ask? Well, in Chinese, the word that we use is 追 (zui), which means 'to chase after' -- if you put 'zui' in front of the character for TV series, you get 'chase after TV series' -- which to me, has 2 meanings: 1) if the series airs at a certain time every day, then 'chasing the series' means that you don't want to miss a moment of it, so no matter what you are doing or where you are at, you always manage to get home in time to settle down in front of the TV and watch the next episode; or 2) if you are fortunate enough to own the entire series on DVD (my preferred method, since I like to be in control of my time and hate waiting day after day to watch 1 measly episode), then 'chasing the series' means that you can't stop watching the series and keep putting disc after disc into the DVD player and in the end, you finish watching the entire series in like 2 days (ok, 2 days might be an exaggeration -- though I've done it before -- but the point is that you finish the entire series in pretty much one sitting, however many days that may be).

Another criteria for me is that the series must be memorable in some way – now I don’t mean just being able to remember a character’s name or certain events that happen (though that’s certainly part of it)….when I say ‘memorable’, I mean that it had some type of impact on me to the point that even after I finish watching the entire series, I’m still thinking about the series (or certain parts of it) and perhaps wishing that it wasn’t over so quickly.

The last criteria is the “rewatchability” factor, which is basically – how likely am I to re-watch the series again? This is actually an important criteria for me because to be honest, if I am barely able to sit through the series the first time around (meaning I watch the first few episodes and am already bored out of my wits or I miss a few episodes and don’t even bother to rewatch what I missed), then that’s a sure-fire sign that I am most likely NOT going to waste my time rewatching the series again.

So in a nutshell, for me, there are 4 criteria for determining a 'good' (or 'really good') series -- it must 1) distract me from what I’m doing to the point that I really pay attention, 2) give me that 'chasable' feeling, 3) be memorable in some way (whether it’s character, storyline, or both), and last but not least, 4) be re-watchable.

You may be asking how all of this relates to TVB? Simple -- in the last decade or so, there have been very few TVB series that have met all 4 of my criteria for being a 'good' series (and even fewerhave made it into the 'really good' category)....in fact, in the last 7 years or so, it's gotten progressively worse, to the point that nowadays, I struggle to find even 1 or 2 series that are able to meet my criteria. In comparisons, back in the 80s and even part of the 90s, I could rattle off to you series after series that could EASILY fall into either category (‘good’ or ‘really good’). Also, just as a point of reference: I have watched most of the series from the 80s and early/mid 90s more than 1 time (and of course there are a select few that I have watched upwards of 20 times – and I’m not kidding!).

To illustrate my point, let’s takes the series from the past 3 years or so as examples….

Starting with 2010’s series -- out of all the series that TVB produced last year, the only two series that met all of my criteria were “Gun Metal Grey” (primarily because of Felix and Michael, though I ended up liking the series as a whole) and “No Regrets” (the acting was superb, even if parts of the storyline were a bit draggy -- well, when you’ve got Wayne and Sheren as the leads, it’s hard not to have awesome acting). Now don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that ALL the rest of the series that year ‘sucked’ (though a few of them did truly suck) – all I’m saying is that the other ones just didn’t quite cut it for me.

Looking at 2009’s series, the stats are even worse -- the only series that I liked out of the bunch (that met my 4 criteria) was “Rosy Business”. Even the series “Born Rich” – with it’s ‘dream’ cast consisting of many of my favorite actors and actresses from the 80s/90s – failed to make the cut because of its awful script and just plain boring storyline (I feel so sorry for the artists in that series – and yes, I’m still pissed at TVB for ‘ruining’ their careers).

2008’s series didn’t fare any better -- I liked “A Journey Called Life” and “Catch Me Now”, but to be honest, it was really a stretch – I had to think hard in order to get both series to fit all 4 criteria. Oh and don’t even get me started on the BIGGEST disappointment of 2008 – “Forensic Heroes 2” (basically, I went from loving the original FH in 2006 to absolutely hating the sequel…but I’ll save that rant for another post).

Going back one more year, to 2007 – “Fathers and Sons” was good and so was “Dicey Business” (both happen to be Bobby AuYeung series – love that guy!), but that was about it (though technically, “Dicey Business” started airing in 2006, so I guess you could say that it is really a 2006 series) – so in 2006, there were only 2 series I liked: DB and also the original “Forensic Heroes”.

And the list goes on…..(but I’m sure you get the picture by now, so I’ll stop the list here)….

So yes, I will reiterate the sentiment that I’ve carried for the past decade regarding TVB’s series nowadays – THEY SURE DON’T MAKE THEM LIKE THEY USED TO!!!

"A Journey Called Life 金石良緣"

I just finished watching this series for the 3rd time (again, not intentionally, but because it happened to come on TV, so I decided to watch again). I’m actually quite glad I did because again, it reaffirmed for me what great actors both Steven and Kent are and how much I enjoy watching their series.

I’ve heard many good things about this series and in my opinion, all the accolades that it has gotten are absolutely well-deserved – this series is one of those rare gems that has a very well-written script, great cast, good chemistry, and just overall brilliant performances from the artists. The fact that I took the time to re-watch this series not twice but three times shows how good it is, as I’m the type of person who has very little patience with badly made series and can barely finish watching bad series even once, let alone more than that (I can truthfully say that I’ve struggled through most of the series from this year, finishing only a handful of them) – so when a series like AJCL comes along (though it’s from a couple years ago), it’s definitely very refreshing!

This is also another one of those rare series that does a good job with balancing dramatic elements with comedic ones, bringing both together to come up with a great story that is tragic, yet not without humor. The story itself is both heartwarming and heart-wrenching, making the audience laugh one minute (i.e. Kent’s banter with Steven and his relationship with his wife and Halina, Steven/Linda constantly teasing Kent, etc.) and cry the next (i.e.: the birthing scene, the death scenes, etc.). Not all series are able to incorporate both elements so well without making the series turn out awfully cheesy, so I definitely applaud the writers as well as the cast and crew of AJCL for doing such a great job.

There is so much good stuff to talk about with this series, it was sort of difficult for me to decide what to include in this post. So instead of doing an in-depth analysis, I decided to focus only on a few things that stuck out for me (pretty much the first things that came to my mind regarding this series).

So here goes…

.>> Steven / Linda relationship – I have to say that I was quite impressed with Linda’s performance in this series. I for one am not too keen on Linda and am one of those who feels that she can’t really act (sorry, but HOG and MR totally ruined my impression of her), but for some reason, I’ve actually been able to tolerate her performance in a few series – this being one of them. But I also have to say that it’s not completely Linda’s own merit because I also feel that depending on who her male co-star is, he has the ability of bringing out the best in her. This is definitely the case with her performance in AJCL – I feel that Steven complemented Linda and helped bring out one of her better performances.

The best way to describe Steven’s and Linda’s relationship in the series is pretty much ‘opposites attract’. I mean, you’ve got the typical ‘good boy’ (good personality, loves his family and friends, hardworking, doesn’t fool around, etc. etc.) paired with the ‘bad girl’ (the ‘wet girl’ who leads a ‘colorful’ and sexually promiscuous life) who eventually is reformed and becomes a ‘good girl.’ Although Linda’s performance can’t exactly be characterized as ‘stellar’, she did much better than in her previous series – during her scenes with Steven, especially the poignant ones (for example, the scene where she tells Steven that she can’t have children, their ‘breakup’ and ‘makeup’ scenes, the birthing scene, etc.), I could really sense the emotion of the scenes and therefore was thoroughly moved by their performances. I also feel that they had great chemistry in the series, though I will admit that so far, in all of Steven’s series that I’ve seen, I’ve felt that he had good chemistry with all his female co-stars, not just with Linda (i.e.: Charmaine, Ada, Fala, Bernice, etc.).

.>> Chemistry between Steven / Kent (and Linda) – Ok, I will have to admit that Steven and Kent were really the ones who ‘sold’ me in terms of wanting to watch this series at first, as both of them are truly fine actors and I’ve liked most of their individual works thus far. This was the first time that they collaborated in a series and I was amazed at how great the chemistry was! Though their relationship was technically that of boss/employee, their friendship really exceeded beyond that, resulting in an almost father/son like relationship. In my opinion, their ‘friendly banter’ throughout the series was very sweet and it was partly what made the series so enjoyable for me (I love that type of ‘light comedy-esque’ banter that injects a little bit of humor in an otherwise serious and tragic story, yet not going overboard to the point of sounding cheesy). The ‘Kent-isms’ throughout the series were very endearing and also made it memorable for me (i.e.: Kent’s nickname for Steven’s character is “On Boy”, his own son Raymond is “Bad Boy”, and he’s always saying “So Bad!”whenever something bad occurs….). Of course, the parts where Steven and Kent tease each other (or better yet, when Steven and Linda ‘gang up’ to tease Kent) are especially hilarious (and sweet).

.>> Storyline / script – As I said earlier, this series is very well-written…it wasn’t too overboard with its plot nor did it rely on repetitious scenes throughout the series (compared to a series like MR for instance, which had arguing scene after arguing scene and got to the point where I just felt like asking “can’t everyone just get along?”). And even though there were a lot of emotionally-charged scenes in the series, there wasn’t an overwhelming number of ‘crying’ scenes (again, unlike HOG and MR, which went overboard in that area) – also, the ‘crying’ scenes that did exist were done quite well and brought out just the right amount of emotion….most importantly though, I didn’t ‘cringe’ through any of the crying scenes (which is always a good sign, since the crying scenes in many of TVB’s series lately have been ‘cringe-worthy’ for me).

Overall, this was a great series, one of the few from this decade that I would put in the ‘high quality’ and ‘like’ categories (those of you who know my history with TVB know that my lists for these 2 categories are very short when it comes to series from the past 10 years). I like the storytelling that goes on in the series as well as the various lessons that are learned. Most of all though, I like that it brings forth a message of love and hope in the face of adversity, but does so in a way that is realistic and believable rather than cheesy and ‘over the top’. A definite ‘recommend’ for those who have not seen this series yet (or those who feel like re-watching).

Lastly, I need to put in a ‘plug’ for the themesong “A Little Story” sung by Steven Ma and Linda Chung. The themesong complements the series perfectly and the lyrics are very moving. I’ve always enjoyed Steven’s vocal skills (I’ve got quite a few of his songs in my ipod), but never been a fan of Linda’s – this song, however, is excellent and will definitely be a keeper for me.