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!!!

My Thoughts on “Born Rich 富貴門"

This was my most anticipated series of 2009, as I absolutely love the cast (both lead and supporting) and hadn't seen most of the leads (Ray, Jamie, Kenix, Gallen, Anita) as well as supporting artists (Benz, Ming Sir, etc.) in series in a long time, so was looking forward to their 'comeback' performances.....despite the lack of promotion from TVB's side (because as well all know, all of the promotion went to BTROC instead), I still was hopeful that it would be good. Even after the series aired in HK last year and there were tons of negative feedback on it, I was still a little optimistic and wanted to at least watch it for myself to see if it truly sucked as much as people said it did.

After finally watching this series, all I can say is: boy, was I hugely disappointed!!!

The script for the series absolutely sucked!!! Most of the storyline made no sense and was very hard to follow. I had actually missed quite a few episodes here and there, but didn't bother re-watching because I felt as though nothing of significance occurred in those episodes to warrant my going back and 'catching up'. Also, alot of the parts dragged out way too much (like the whole love triangle thing between Ray, Jamie, and Kenix), and ended up being boring.

For me, I felt like TVB just took a bunch of talented artists and threw them all together in a series for the heck of it, with no decent storyline or plot to carry the series -- sort of like one of those Taiwanese Idol dramas but except all the 'idols' are middle-aged or older and can truly act. And I realize now what made the storyline so hard to follow was that there were too many sub-storylines going on at the same time, some of which weren't really related to each other (kind of like a 'hodge-podge' of storylines mixed together). I mean, was it really necessary to have all those complicated relationships in there? If you really take apart each character, all of them had more than 1 relationship, whether it was a family relationship or a romantic one, however most of the relationships were under-developed (probably because there wasn't enough time or room in the script to develop them with so much stuff in there).

For example:

Gallen -- family relationship with Kenneth (his real brother), Ray (his 'fake' brother), Anita (his 'fake' sister), Nancy (his 'fake' step-mother); and romantic relationship with Anita (who is not truly his sister, but only he knows that and of course she doesn't, which tortures her throughout the series) as well as Sharon (who is pretty much a 'stand-in' for Anita, since he doesn't love her at all).

Ray -- family relationship with Gallen (his 'fake' brother), Anita (real sister), Nancy (mother), his kids; and romantic relationship with Jamie (his wife) and Kenix (extra-marital affair that turns into actual relationship after he and Jamie end up divorcing).

Anita -- family relationship with Ray, Nancy, Jamie, Gallen and romantic relationship with Gallen (whom she truly loves but can't be with) and Joe (whom I still can't tell whether she truly loves or not).

And THAT'S just scratching the surface! All the other characters have very similar complicated relationships....

Bottom line is that the writers and producer tried TOO HARD to cram as much material as they could into the series and it ended up backfiring on them, since it made the series way too confusing and difficult to follow (I got confused just trying to list out the above 3 relationships for this post!!!)

Watching this series made me get really pissed off at TVB for wasting such a great cast -- I mean, both the main leads as well as the supporting cast (with the exception of a few people) are awesome actors / actresses in their own right and have many great performances / series to their credit. Plus, like I said earlier, I really loved the cast because I grew up watching most of their series and know how much potential these artists have -- so it made it extremely painful for me to watch them put 100% effort in such a poorly written drama (it was so poorly written / put together that even the awesome acting of the artists couldn't save it!!)

I don't think I've ever watched a series with such a true waste of talent! I mean, many of the characters had like NO PURPOSE and were JUST THERE for the sake of being there! For example, Paul Chun (his character would show up every once in a while, but I had no clue what he was there for), Benz Hui and Angelina Lo (I know that they are Sharon's parents in the series, but other than that, they don't have much other significance), Lee Sing Cheung (all I know is that he works for Ray's family and shows up every once in awhile in a few episodes here and there).....I could name a bunch more, but you get the picture....

As if that weren't enough, most of the lead characters were very poorly written as well -- there wasn't much depth to the characters for one, and two, there was nothing about the characters that made them memorable to the audiences....pretty much anyone could have played those characters and it would have probably still come out the same way because the script was so poor (so again, why did they waste those talents???).

Here's my take on a few of the main characters:

Ray's character (Cheuk Yat Yuen / Marcus) -- if ever there were a poorly written character, this one is definitely it! I mean, the poor guy is all over the place -- first he is insistent on finding his long lost brother and getting Nancy to accept him, then when she does, he sort of resents it because Gallen starts to threaten his position in the company (and this is even before he finds out that Gallen is a fake). And he supposedly has the 'perfect' family with a loving wife and smart kids, but then he has an affair with Kenix (whom he supposedly dated prior to being married) and ends up destroying his perfect family and losing his powerful position in the company just so he could be with her. And what about his constant power struggle with Joe? I didn't understand that piece at all because I thought he considered Joe his 'right hand man' -- but then why does he resent the fact that his sister is dating him and tries to ruin their engagement party? It's almost like Ray's character is pulled in a hundred different directions and ends up going nowhere....

Gallen's character (Cheuk Yat Ming / Sa Fu Loi) -- his character in this series really confused me....it seemed to me as though his character is supposed to be both tragic and comedic in a way, but mixed together very poorly. There were several scenes were I saw elements of his comedic "Old Time Buddy" character, but then the rest of the time, he is mostly scheming for money and power. And the whole triangular relationship thing with Sharon and Anita as well as his hatred / jealousy of Joe was sort of ridiculous. But I do have to hand it to Gallen because despite his badly written character, he pulled off the acting piece without a problem -- with his facial expressions and gestures, etc., and the way he is able to show his character's 'evilness masked in goodness' -- very natural and convincing.

Kenix’s character (Tung Ling Chi / Angie) – Kenix is one of my favorite actresses, but her character in this series totally sucked -- her acting was a bit forced at certain points too (though I don't know if it was because the character was so poorly written or she was dealing with issues in her personal life that may have affected her acting). I really felt that the part where her character tries to ‘seduce’ Ray by pretending to be heartbroken over breaking up with her boyfriend, then talking her way into moving in with the Cheuk family was extremely cheesy (not to mention that it didn’t make any sense whatsoever). And I hated her physical appearance -- I've always thought of Kenix as pretty, but she looked really scary in this series...way too skinny to the point of being skeletal and the makeup didn't help any either.

Anita’s character (Cheuk Yat Sum / Rene) – to be honest, Anita’s character in this series was very bland – nothing special, nothing interesting, nothing memorable. I was actually a bit disappointed with Anita’s performance in this series because to be honest, I really expected more from her – after all, she IS the film industry’s Best Actress winner (multiple times)….though I do attribute a lot of it to the poorly written character, I still think that she could have put a little more effort. I do like Anita as a person (and as a movie actress), however I just feel that she made the wrong move by going back to television – she was way better off in the film industry, where she excelled.

Jamie’s character (Hor Tseuk Nin / Connie) – amazingly, my feelings are neutral towards Jamie’s character, but I think that’s because I really did not pay a whole lot of attention to her character, since it was another one of those typical ‘strong woman’ roles. Or it could be that I got so confused with all the rest of the intermixing storylines that I did not have the energy anymore to pick apart her character or performance. All I really remember is that – like Anita’s character – Jamie’s character was not that memorable either.

Though there are probably a lot more things to say about this series, I don’t feel it is necessary to go more into it, since the rest of my feedback is pretty much the same as what I expressed above.

Overall, this was a very disappointing series that I probably would not watch again, no matter how much I like the cast – it was enough torture sitting through this series the first time…I definitely don’t need to go through it a second time!