Formula Blueprint

It's a given: soaps or telenovelas dominate as the top grossers among local TV shows. Why would they occupy the much coveted prime time slot if they do not at the least click (or, at the most, take the country by storm) with the viewing public, anyway? The format and storyline have grown as the script is written to have a faster pace than what they normally had, say 10 years ago. Special effects experts have also been brought in to add grandeur to the newly coined fantaseryes.

The aspect that troubles me is why should there be a need for a deluge of popular actors in one very predictably-plotted soap when a powerfully woven storyline grounded on the "now" and casting the right mix of good (and real) actors could very well be the elixir for a potentially cheaper and effective prime-time-slot-worthy soap opera of international-distribution caliber?!

The common reaction would be: "so the masses could feed on it without the need for tripled-effort promotional campaigns as these are actors that the people already know and relate to who happen to already have a strong fan-base and following." So why then, o bright Padawan, could Meteor Garden have soarded as it did when no body knew its actors before it even saw the light of Philippine-day? Add to the bunch the latest Korean telenovelas, which might not showcase great acting, but whose gripping plot is worthy of people going home from work at an earlier time than usual.

Point is, the audience have matured. But it seems that the Filipino viewer's actions and reactions resonate as likenend to a huge tree falling to its natural death in an uninhabited forest: without a human ear to hear and an intellectual brain to process it. Who needs feasibility studies to assess this theory when the fact is bellowing from all sides of the peninsula like ecstasy of a million simultanious orgasms, pardon the pun.

People thirst for fresh stories and plots but the conservative way of addressing the need is not the only way to go. Learn from the trend and take the risk to attain what might well be a start of Philippine TV Renaissance.

posted by Fritz @ 10:15 PM