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GMMTV Breakfast Club
15 Plays3 months ago
School's in at GMMTV, but we gotta put two series in detention for not fulfilling the assignment. The actors were charming, but the finishes were...rough. Ben, NiNi and Ginny talk 23.5 and Only Boo, the merits of high school stories, and the specific challenges of telling stories about queer high schoolers.
Episode transcript available here.
00:00:00 Welcome
00:01:15 Introduction
00:02:18 23.5: Early Reactions
00:14:18 23.5: Supporting Characters
00:21:27 23.5: Frustration with the Writing and Execution
00:33:42 23.5: Final Arc and Ratings
00:38:42 Only Boo
00:48:06 Only Boo: Popping the Bubble
00:58:42 Only Boo: If You're Gonna Do An Idol Story, Commit
01:05:06 Only Boo: Final Thoughts and Ratings
01:08:45 Outro: High School Blues
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast and Hosts
00:00:20
Speaker
Welcome to the conversation about BL, aka The Drunk Knicker Podcast. And there it is. I'm Ben. I'm Nini. We're your drunk, rippling uncle and auntie who are sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs. Four times a year we pop in and talk about what's going on in the BL world. We shoot the shit about stories, all the drama going into them. I review from a queer media lens. And I review from a romance and drama lens. So she like cracked out takes and really intense emotional analysis.
00:00:56
Speaker
If you like talking about artistry, industry, and the discourse, if you generally just love simping, there is a lot of simping on this podcast. We are the Show For You.
GMMTV's Shift to High School Stories
00:01:15
Speaker
And we're back. This week, we're going to be discussing 23.5 and Only Boo. We brought our friend Jenny along as usual. Say hi, Jenny. Hey folks. We are talking high school from GMM TV. Ben and I in the Vibe Awards, we discussed that it might feel like GMM TV does high school a lot, but they don't actually. So it was really interesting to see them delve into these high school stories with let's say mixed results.
00:01:52
Speaker
It's kind of weird that GMMTV went from like not really doing high school to having two shows running simultaneously. It's kind of surprising from them, honestly.
23.5 - Plot and Significance
00:02:03
Speaker
Lest we forget to point it out, 23.5 is also GMMTV's first GL. I think in terms of that, that they handled it pretty well as a GL.
00:02:19
Speaker
Ben, what is 23.5 about? 23.5 is a high school GL about a young woman named Aung Sa who is moving from Phuket to Bangkok. She's a fan of this girl on Instagram and happens to run into her. very early in her new time at the school, develops a crush on her, accidentally befriends her through her IG but gets presumed to be a guy, and then proceeds to high-key catfish this girl, sorting out her feelings about whether or not she could possibly like her.
00:03:00
Speaker
She lives with her parents, her older sister, and their cousin who's the same age as her. Her cousin's very much an easy autism read who ends up in her own romance with her big cousin's friend. We end up in this show dealing with Aung Sa's complicated feelings of self-worth and how in her tendency to put her own self down, she kind of lets down the people around her. At least I think that's what the show is trying to do.
Concerns and Excitement for 23.5
00:03:33
Speaker
Jenny, why don't you walk us through how you felt in anticipation of the show after it got announced a very long time ago. So long ago. So Milk and Love, the two lead actresses, were of course the side couple in Bad Buddy. So it was no surprise that they were announced as the lead couple of the first GMM TV GL.
00:03:55
Speaker
I was very excited just to see GMM TV finally moving into this space. It's been good to see more studios open to producing GLs and GMM TV being one of the biggest definitely wanted to see them do it. So without really caring much about what the story was going to be, I just wanted to see them do a GL and do a decent job. I was not super invested in, oh, is this going to be a plot or a premise that really appeals to me? I was just like, let's have some girls fall in love and make a good story.
00:04:30
Speaker
It was a longer run up than I think a lot of people wanted. There was a lot of disgruntled men, some conspiracy theory feelings about it that I don't really hold to. I do think they were giving as much to this show as they do to their big flagship BL stories. I was very excited and also nervous tuning into the first episode, because this clearly was going to be a weather vane for them to decide how much to invest in the GL side going forward. It was over a year that we waited and waited and waited for this.
Performance and Romance in 23.5
00:05:04
Speaker
They had a really long shoot schedule. They were shooting this thing for an inordinate amount of time. And I think that for me added to the anticipation because it felt like they were taking their time with it. So I was very excited about that.
00:05:20
Speaker
I like milk, I like love, I like June, I like view. I was really looking forward to watching all of them really get into this with a director and a team that I had enjoyed. This is from Fon Kenita and Fon did 10 years ticket, which is one of my favorite things that GMM TV has done. Ben, what about you? How were you anticipating this? What were you looking forward to about it? What were some of your concerns coming into it? I was admittedly really nervous about this show going into it. We had drama in the reactions to this show and just the original casting choices. Fourth and Gemini were originally announced as part of the cast for this. And then it looks like GMMTV shuffled some stuff because they wanted to prioritize the boys availability for a different project because my school president was received.
00:06:16
Speaker
apparently really well, at least enough for GMM TV to make some different decisions. But there was a lot of drama in the English language reactions about not wanting BL paired boys in this at all. So I was worried from the get go that we were already having fights about the market that they were trying to pull in. And I was really nervous about what GMM TV was going to do with this. I've pitched on this podcast quite a few times about when I think BL doesn't necessarily care that much about how queer their boys read and sometimes ship is more important than some sort of queer coming of age beat that they really want to hit.
00:06:57
Speaker
I was really nervous about what that might look like for a GL because we don't have a framework for what that looks like. There's actually not a great deal of lesbian coming of age romance, internationally even, to pull from. And even within Thailand, there's only a couple of projects that I can really refer to from like a lesbian film history. And most of those are for college girls. So there were a lot of big question marks for me going into this.
Narrative Issues in 23.5
00:07:26
Speaker
So I actually went in with not a whole lot of expectation from this,
00:07:31
Speaker
I'm admittedly not familiar with Fawn's work. I did not watch 10 years ticket, but I knew that folks like Nini were really excited and wanted to see what Fawn doing a GL would look like. So there was a lot of anticipation and hope about what it could be, but I actually went in with very few expectations about what it might look like as a result. So Ginny, having those expectations and coming into the show, what were your first impressions of 23.5? What are some of the first things that you picked up on and maybe really enjoyed about it?
00:08:06
Speaker
I loved the beginning. There were a couple different ways I was afraid that it might go wrong. One was that it would just feel like a gender-flipped BL. Another was that it would be overly softened and pastel. In especially what is usually labeled sapphic romance these days, frequently things are all very soft and delicate. Vassaline all over the lens and like nobody's talking too loud, yeah. Yeah, and I like to see women in stories and especially women falling in love and stories feel as much like real people with all of the edges that real people have as boys get to do. So a thing that just thrilled me from episode one was what a mess Onza is. Onza played by Milk.
00:08:54
Speaker
incredible performance. Whatever criticisms that we have many of the show, I think we can all agree that milk was wonderful in this role and really did a phenomenal job of playing this tense and awkward and intensely self conscious teenage lesbian that I saw so many people I know in the way that she falls on the floor after having a phone message with her crush that's a little bit awkward, but also positive. And the way she would just flail around the way it felt like she didn't quite know what to do with her body, like she's still growing and gangly and awkward was just so beautifully done. And I really enjoyed it. And it really did feel distinctly like
00:09:43
Speaker
girls as opposed to just we're going to do a BL but with wigs on. I can't even put a finger on it, but there were so many little details that I was like, yes, this feels like young girls falling in
Character and Storytelling Critique
00:09:56
Speaker
love. the way that you feel about a pretty girl in school that you can barely even stand to talk to and you feel like this giant gangly monster and she's this other worldly gorgeous creature. So many of those nuances, especially in the earlier episodes were just beautifully done and I loved them so much.
00:10:18
Speaker
I feel like one of the things that helped contribute to that feel was the wardrobe. From the time I saw all the ways they were dressed, I was just like, this is what tropical girls in high school dress like. There's a lot of t-shirts and shorts. It's not fancy. It's not done up. You're at home and you're chilling and you're wearing a t-shirt and some running shorts and maybe you've got socks on because your feet are cold for some reason. It made me think of growing up back in Trinidad, because this is how it is. Absolutely. It felt really, really. It felt like, OK, they understand girls. Yes. There's one scene where they're running around the school at night for reasons they shouldn't be there, but they're all in their little t-shirts. And it's like this slumber party feeling of excitement. And you're close to this person that you have a crush on. And somehow the wardrobe just made it all feel so much more like, yes, I've been there. I know what that feels like.
00:11:15
Speaker
bad And what about you? What are some of the things that you enjoyed when you started watching the show? I was relieved that Aung Sa already seemed to know that she liked girls. And so we get to enjoy milk playing this human disaster of a lesbian in the early episodes. I often feel like there's a tension with some of the actors about their image and some of them seem to struggle with having to be cringy or kind of gross.
00:11:52
Speaker
and Milk is not one of them. It's why I think a lot of her characters have such a believable quality to them. The way they move, they feel like they're present in the space. They don't feel necessarily like they're aware of the camera. They're just so focused on what they're trying to feel in the moment. I rarely have trouble accessing Milk's characters across the various performances we've been lucky enough to have from her. And I really liked her in the early stages. I liked how she played the absolute mess that was her character, the way she was struggling with same-sex attraction, and the idea that reciprocity was not something that was accessible to her. That's a very common queer feeling that I think was captured really well
00:12:46
Speaker
So I really understood Aung Sa's early hesitancy when it came to clearing things up with Sun. And I thought that was really well done. I feel like I always end up with the I as well, but I too am here to praise Mel. I have enjoyed Milk as an actor. She hasn't had a lot to do yet, but with this role, I feel like she nailed it on. From minute one, the very first frame that she's in, I 100% believe her. I believe
00:13:22
Speaker
everything about her character. I believe the feelings that her character has. I believe that she believes that she is this awkward loser who's never gonna have friends or anybody. And I also believe when she stops believing that. There's some quality to Milk and her acting. Maybe it's the ability to go for the cringy without being too worried about how she looks. She nailed on that character. A hundred percent believable from beginning to end, even through some of the wobbles that we're going to talk about later on in terms of the story.
00:14:00
Speaker
There was never a point in time where I did not believe milk as Aung Sa, and that this is how Aung Sa would react to these things happening in her life.
00:14:18
Speaker
Let's talk a little bit about some of the other characters. We've got Milt playing Ansa, and then we've got Love playing Son. I struggled a little bit with Son. I think that it was good casting to have Love play Son because this idea of this girl who is so sweet and cute and gorgeous this girl that Aung So would absolutely fall in love with. I totally bought that from love, but I feel like this story didn't expect much more of her. I truly enjoyed Love's performance when she was given stuff to do.
00:14:57
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. There were
Secondary Characters and Dynamics
00:14:59
Speaker
moments later in the series where we got to see her dig and you'd give us something more than this very sweet, kind, and pretty love interest character. I was like, see, she can do it. Why didn't you give her more to do earlier? It's hard to talk about her performance because they didn't give her very much to do and the writing was pretty shaky on her character, I think. View playing Aileen, the cousin. I've always been a huge fan of View's acting. She's never not nailed a role as far as I've seen, and she was also a delight in this. Sizzy, I thought, was great. Also, sadly, underused about where she was. She really shown. Even though she's smaller than everybody else, she is the Alpha. but She's the class president and the older sister. Very tired and keeping everybody in shape. Enjoyed her role a lot.
00:15:54
Speaker
I don't have a lot to say about June. What do you have to say about June? Well, she was there.
00:16:08
Speaker
Damn. I find June as an actor quite accessible a lot of the time, but in this I wasn't sure what she was supposed to be. I feel like her characterization wasn't clear, and because of that, I didn't know where to land on her performance. I feel like I enjoyed it, but then also it felt not wobbly exactly, but more confused.
00:16:41
Speaker
I think there was a similar issue, as with Love's character, Sun, where they were both there to be the love interest for the awkward, weird character, and they weren't given anything else to do except to be sweet and accepting towards the awkward, weird character. That's a shame. I haven't seen June in anything else, so that's why I don't have anything to say about her. Oh, did you not watch Dangerous Romance? I didn't stop it right now. Did you know ah windmill that's never gonna get old. I will always make time for windmill jokes on this podcast.
00:17:33
Speaker
June was also in 10 years ticket. View and June were together in 10 years ticket it and that's why I think that they were also cast for this because their characters in 10 years ticket were shipped together and I completely understand why. Even though they were not an actual couple in 10 years ticket, the energy was there. So I understand how they ended up paired together. So it was very strange that they went from a really solid, lid I thought, pairing in 10 years ticket to something here that felt so, to me in the end, wobbly. Well, the problem is it was one-sided. Aylin was a great character, and Luna, June's character, was just kind of there, and they had a weird moment late in the series that kind of soured me on their whole story. But earlier, they were very fun and good together. It was just that Luna was kind of just a pleasing backdrop to Aylin's whole situation. I don't think the casting team knows why most of the cast is even in this show.
00:18:34
Speaker
Because you have a lot of really talented people who are doing the best with the direction that they're being given on the day that they were filming. But just like every one of these episodes, as we'll get into, felt like it was internally fine, but not part of what came before or after it in a really consistent or coherent way. I think Love and June suffer the most for that. I think Love's actually really funny and really talented, but I don't think she knew what she was supposed to be doing for most of the
Side Plots and Their Impact
00:19:04
Speaker
show. She felt like she was lost in a lot of her scenes. It just does not feel very grounded. I don't think Love understood Sun, and I don't know that that's necessarily her fault either. I think June is fine in terms of her ability to work with Vue, but it was kind of a weird set of performances to watch.
00:19:27
Speaker
Let me talk about the rest of these fucking side characters. This show had Tea for Tea teacher Yuri. This show had teachers in the school. Two of those teachers were being played by Golf and Goji. And these two teachers are supposed to be having a little side romance. I love a teacher side romance in a school show. However, dot dot dot. It's really frustrating because there was a real opportunity for these two women to sort of model what these younger characters could have. There's the whole hapless quality that Gulf's character Bambam has that
00:20:05
Speaker
is probably meant to mirror what Aung Sa has kind of going on. But I don't really know that they ever figured out something useful to do with them. It just feels like another beat happening. It doesn't feel like it's in sync with any sort of storytelling that's going on here. It felt to me like it was just there to be there. There's T for T, Yuri, or Transvians, as my friend likes to say. Transvians! I love her! Transvians! That is awesome! It felt like they're saying, oh, there's Transvians, and that's enough. We don't have to actually make them have like a coherent story, or more than a few cute moments here and there.
00:20:54
Speaker
I remember distinctly the episode where I realized what was supposed to be happening is this modeling thing, and it was in episode like 10 or something. It was so far into the series. It just didn't come through early enough to have any kind of an impact. I do like that they gave us those two teachers. I would like us to get more Transvians, but I wish they'd done a better job.
00:21:27
Speaker
I feel like we're dancing around a little bit where we think that some of the criticisms of the story are coming from, so let's dive into that. I feel like the beginning of the story that first arc of Aung Sa basically catfishing Sun. I felt like that arc was really strong, like I understood what was happening there. And then it gets squishy in the middle once it's obvious to Sun that Aung Sa is this person that she's been talking to the whole time that she thought was a guy.
00:22:03
Speaker
I feel like once that happens, the show starts getting interested in other things that had nothing to do with what had gone before. It wasn't following on from that first arc. And then somehow at the end they kind of try to dovetail back to that first arc in certain ways, while also doing a third arc that doesn't really work. It feels disjointed and disconnected. It feels like in each episode, they knew what they wanted to accomplish, but the episodes themselves don't link together into a coherent story. For me, it felt like right up through the reveal that Omsa was Earth, it felt coherent and I was with it. And at that point I was feeling like this is a really solid show.
00:22:56
Speaker
And then it felt like they did about four or five episodes that each one of them belonged to a different story. Each episode was a coherent story in itself, but did not feel very connected to what came before or what came afterward or much of the established characterization. And then at the end, they did kind of tie some of the emotional impact of that big deception and reveal in and love got to actually do some good acting as Sun talked to Onsa about her frustrations about how Onsa kept holding back in this relationship, which was great. But
00:23:35
Speaker
I was already so spun around like what ride am I on anymore because of the four or five filler feeling episodes that it just really marred the impact.
Unresolved Arcs in 23.5
00:23:47
Speaker
I agree with you there especially when it comes to love getting the act later on. I find myself very frustrated with this show's unwillingness to let Sun be mad for more than half an episode. I need like a really good boil for a character. I need somebody to be irritated as fuck. I really like when somebody's just fucking pissed about some shit that somebody did. A lot of these shows I have found from GMM to be really struggle with that. They're constantly worried about selling ship, so they don't want the characters to be upset with each other for very long.
00:24:24
Speaker
But it means that Sun doesn't really feel very human for me. She has such a super delayed reaction to Onksa's big lie that I was just not exactly feeling her shift. I was just kind of like, okay, I guess we should have done this a couple of weeks ago, but whatever, at least we're sort of getting it now. I don't also understand why is everyone here? What is the point of AJ's character Taun? Why is Euro in this if he's not going to score with one of the twins? Why is Ford here? What was the point of this little gay boy subplot that they put in this? I don't know what they were going for here.
00:25:11
Speaker
Going back to the sun thing, I think that the idea they were trying to get across was that sun was burying a lot of things that then came out in this well of frustration. part of her character is to be this nice sweet girl and nice sweet girls they let things go. I feel like that's what they wanted to do with her character but I don't feel like they wrote her character in that way. The character doesn't feel like a character who is burying things. The character feels like a character who has let things go.
00:25:46
Speaker
And then with all the other stuff that was happening, because there was so much coming at us, there was this whole idea of Alpha being the big sister and the pressures that that put on her. There was this idea of the teachers feeling pressure to do the best that they could by these students. There was whatever was going on with AJ's character. I have no idea what that was about. And that little runner with A.J.'s character and Urine's character, Charowen and Ton, I still have no idea what any of that was about. No idea. I don't like it. That's for damn sure. Did not like it. No clue what it was about. A.J., you need to call your agent because they're not doing well by you this year. There's just all this churn happening in the middle of the story that has nothing to do with what happened before. Nothing to do with what's happening after. All is coming out of the blue.
00:26:38
Speaker
but in another show would have really worked, like the alpha stuff, the big sister stressed out stuff, there is a way in which that could have worked, but they didn't really put any emphasis on that sisterly relationship between Aung San Eilin and alpha and how that might have been altered by the fact that Aung Sa and Alpha have been living apart because Aung Sa has been living in Phuket with their dad and Alpha has been living in Bangkok with their mom and now the family's back together. What does that look like? Now having to take care of your little sister again when you had gotten unaccustomed to doing that. The whole fact that Aylin is their cousin who's living with them. Why is she living with them?
00:27:21
Speaker
What does this mean? How is she integrating into the family? None of that stuff is really touched on. It's a little bit touched on, but not really. It feels like they wanted to tackle Alpha as a character and all these stresses that she feels, but they're not actually showing us the stresses. So it feels like it comes out of nowhere. And then everything that happens with Yuro's character and Ford's character, just excise that from the show. There is no point in it. Why is it even there? Why are they there? Why did they get out of bed and come to set? Somebody explain that to me. Every single week I was like, here's how Euro can still win.
00:28:03
Speaker
To be clear, because this confused me for a while, for Ben Euro winning is not Euro getting a love interest. Euro winning is Euro being with AJ specifically. He just needs to kiss one of the twins and I'll be satisfied. We are big Euro lovers on this podcast. We think he's a great actor who has been overlooked and underutilized. And we want to see him win in every way possible, every way, including getting to kiss whoever he wants, boys, girls, whatever, let him have it. it always feels like it comes back to ship when it comes to GMTV. If we want to do an Alpha focus episode, we need to open with her as the viewpoint character and narrator for an episode and focus on Alpha and how she's seeing all of this going on with everything else she's juggling.
00:28:47
Speaker
Alpha is struggling with not being able to understand how to help her sister or her cousin when she can see they're both having big trouble even as she's trying to make sure they get fed, go to school in time and she's also trying to get ready for college and she's just freaking the fuck out like this has the potential to be really good but it just ends up not feeling that way it doesn't feel like they weren't planning this show it just feels maybe over planned I'm not really certain. It's a weird experience watching the show and trying to talk about it. You feel like you're being tickled at the back of your head the whole time, trying to follow what the fuck is going on and where the shit is building to.
00:29:29
Speaker
It feels like they had a really powerful brainstorming phase and then did not carry on to the pruning and organizing. They were like, oh yeah, Sissy's character is going to have this stress arc and the teachers are going to have a romance and Euro is going to have a romance and AJ is going to be there. I'm so mad at you saying, he's just gonna be there like this. There's nothing else going on with EJ. He's just gonna be present. You cannot deny that he was there. He was in this show. He was very there. He was present.
00:30:05
Speaker
It very much feels like there were some really powerful single statements they put on the board. Somebody wrote like, big boys need love too. And everybody was like, hell yeah. And then they didn't know what to do with them like it's it. frustrating. That is the adjective for this show. Frustrating. I feel like the show had some really clear-eyed ideas at the start, though, and that's the thing that really stresses me out about it. At the start, I feel like they're connecting Mauin's feelings of not feeling good enough and isolation. So Aung Sa's feelings of not feeling good enough. I feel like that was where they wanted to go with it, but in the end, they don't actually go anywhere with it.
00:30:52
Speaker
And I feel like they thought that they were making that parallel all the way to the end with that one and I just didn't see it. There's just so much that the show feels like it really thought it was nailing. Like all the A-line stuff. I really enjoyed that. idea of Aylin feeling alienated from everybody and not because necessarily of any lack of love or anything from them just feeling like she doesn't understand them and she needs them to work to be more understood by her rather than her necessarily having to do certain kinds of work to be more understood by them that give and take. I feel like the show had that idea in the beginning
00:31:37
Speaker
But then by the end, Luna is pushing Aylin to be more social. And I'm like, but I thought that we understood at the beginning. when you were on the rooftop telling her you're not a human, you're a moon, that you understood what needed to happen here. But now you're pushing her to be more social? like Why? It didn't feel like it connected. That frustrated me a lot about them because I was really loving what they were doing with Aylin and that kind of acceptance between her and Luna.
00:32:12
Speaker
There's a way to do a, now let me help you do some of the social things that you felt unable to do. Let me work with you. But they simply did not frame it so that it felt like something Aylin wanted. So it comes off just feeling like Luna says, oh, well, now we're a couple. So I'm going to make you be normal. That's what that sequence felt like to me. And that's the thing that soured me on their story. I really hated that. I think my favorite Aylin moment was her taking her own advice and then sending that little letter to Luna. I liked any moment where it felt like Aylin had a revelation by watching somebody else or the way that other people were interacting doing something, whether or not she agreed with it, and then internalizing it and deciding how she would tackle something like that and then doing it.
00:33:10
Speaker
I like to watch that thought process work with Ellen. But I think at some point, Ellen went from somebody that the narrative was trying to understand to somebody that the narrative was trying to change. And I did not like that. I love View. I think View is a phenomenal actress. Towards the end of the story, to me, it felt a little bit like she had checked out from the character.
00:33:42
Speaker
I think that's the show. There were a lot of ideas that we were like, hey, this is a good idea. Oh, and it's gone. We didn't even talk about the final arc with Sun going abroad. The final arc of the show did not connect to anything else. And it tried to tell me things about Sun as a character that had not been laid out. in any way before. I feel like they tried to give love something to do but they also didn't really trust her with it and I don't know why because love is a good actress. The bits that we see from her where they actually give her something to do in the show, she really nails it on. So why don't they trust her? The show just, it's kind of messy. That's not to say that I did not enjoy a great deal of it.
Final Thoughts on 23.5
00:34:31
Speaker
the first major arc, maybe up to episode six or seven, I feel like that is pretty solid. An evergreen comment about Thai BL.
00:34:45
Speaker
Not just Thai BL lately, Boo Boo. It feels like all of it. We've had some of these problems with Japan lately too, and I think we've been talking about Korea in this way as well. Instead of just writing the story from beginning to end, I feel like these writers are getting very excited and trying to do a lot and trying to be like, oh, what can we do that's new and interesting? How would you just write the story from beginning to the end? That would be fantastic. Thailand is, yes, guilty, but it's been a consistent critique that we've been having across shows across countries this year. All of that said, let's rate this.
00:35:29
Speaker
Ginny, let's start with you. What did you rate 23.5? I gave it a seven and a half. There were some things that I really did like a lot, so I didn't want to take it too low, but it just really failed to cohere into a good overall show. Ben? Before I give my rating, normally when I'm giving you all ratings, it's on the scale of, is this worth your time to watch? I will say politically, you should stream 23.5. It is very important that the juice makers know that we want GL. You don't have to watch it. You should stream it. This is not the show that I wanted, but we do need to support this one. That being said, I gave the show a 6.5. I don't think the show is genuinely worth putting a shit ton of engagement into.
00:36:28
Speaker
This is not an experience I will be returning to. I don't think the show is very good. The positive things we felt on the front end about how well milk captured young queer disaster. These are the good things to take with you. But please, please do better. I slot in right between the two of you. I gave the show a 7. I do think the front end of this was really good. I liked all of the performances. Even the ones that I felt weren't entirely up there, that was more a function of the writing, not being there to support what the actor or actress could do. I enjoyed Milk as Aung Sa so much, all the way from beginning to end.
00:37:16
Speaker
all that together for me adds up to seven. It's good enough, but I have some serious reservations about some of the writing. So I think that makes me, as the person in the middle, the actual score for 23.5. So it gets us seven from the conversation by the law of averages. It is worth your time from the standpoint of being the first GMMTV GL. It's worth your time from the standpoint of just watching Milk kill this character. Just be aware that the writing falls apart right after the midpoint. It may be GMMTV's first GL, but let's be clear it's not GMMTV's first lesbians.
Introduction to Only Boo
00:38:04
Speaker
GMMTV has had lesbians since they started fucking around with gay people. There were lesbians in sodas.
00:38:10
Speaker
There were lesbians in friend zone and friend zone dangerous area. There were lesbians in dangerous romance technically. Wait, what? Were there? We just talked about this. Oh man, I blocked that out. I forgot about the teacher plot because I was distracted ah about the knowledge that a windmill. And moving on.
00:38:41
Speaker
All right, let's move on to the next show that we're gonna talk about, which is Only Boo. Ben, what is Only Boo about? How a gay boy inside of the bubble must remain trapped there, else he be forced to face the realities of the cruel, homophobic world we live in. Oliboo is a high school BO from GMM TV about a plucky kid whose mom is a member of the entertainment industry who has huge aspirations of becoming an idol. He wants to become an idol so bad that he's bailing on classes and exams so he can go to auditions and his mom has had enough of that little kid's shit. So she sends his ass to the countryside to the school she went to so he can get his shit together and graduate from high school.
00:39:29
Speaker
once he gets there. The very first thing this boy does is spend 500 goddamn dollars on a bike and has no fucking money. I just knew that were coming up, that were gonna go there in the very beginning.
00:39:46
Speaker
It is actually an important plot point, people, but it is still ridiculous. but He has no money and basically gets ah adopted by the son of the restaurant near his hotel, who also serves food at their school.
Character Exploration in Only Boo
00:40:01
Speaker
He's having a little bit of difficulty adjusting, but ends up being very fond of the son of the restaurant owner. and eventually befriends two other boys who also want to become idols. He is an incredibly fun character. watch His name is Moo. He's clearly never once thought that people might not like him for being queer. And it's just so unabashedly joyous about what he loves in his life. He spends the bulk of the first two thirds of the show pursuing Kang, the boy who is helping him, before transitioning to Bangkok to become an idol.
00:40:38
Speaker
complications ensue. Book is there. All right, Ben, let me come to you first with this one. What were some of your initial thoughts coming into this show? I gotta be honest, I had like my similar reaction to my school president on the front end. I was like, I don't know who these boys are, I don't care. No new friends.
00:41:05
Speaker
It took me a while to warm up to Keen and C. And that's not their fault. I'm just older and struggle with new actors. But I actually ended up really liking Moo a lot really early. It was interesting watching like a modern queer kid. Modern queer youth's really fascinating to me. I've talked about this before, like nobody teaches queer people their history. They have to go find other queer people who teach them their history. And so you end up with this thing a lot where a lot of the baby gays they know fucking nothing and Mu is a good example of that in a lot of ways and it feels like his family has sheltered him because they probably clocked who he was really early and they don't want to talk about that sort of stuff with him so he feels no shame about being queer he feels no like maybe I should dial it back because people don't like or understand that shit he's like no I like that boy and I know he like me too I really enjoyed that I enjoyed the performances with the sides because they got what's his name they paired him with own
00:42:04
Speaker
Yeah, he's pretty solid. I actually like him. And I really thought he did a good job with gay yearning in the early parts of this show. I had a good time. I really also like the teachers in this. I was a teacher for about four years. And I thought that the way they presented the educators in the show was really well done. They were not cool at all. but they were really committed to their jobs and they treated these kids with stern respect. They weren't up these kids' asses all the time about unnecessary shit, but Mu was a half step away from being a delinquent for most of the show. And they were very big on applying Foote to ask for that boy to make sure he got his shit together. I really enjoyed a lot of the early parts of the show. I thought the baseline cast chemistry across the board was really solid.
00:42:53
Speaker
I thought the actors worked really well together in almost every scene. and Whether I thought those scenes were the right call from a writing standpoint is another thing, but everybody seemed to understand why they were there. chenny how about you i don't like fluff in general, I won't seek it out. So I went into this one like, well, we'll see how I feel, because it was clearly a very cute, fluffy kind of premise and cutesy, high energy vibe. And I ended up so charmed by especially Keene's performance as Mu, but really both of them together, C and Keene worked really well together and were written really nicely.
00:43:40
Speaker
We noted that it's the same writing team as Cooking Crush had. It did feel similar to Cooking Crush that we've started getting a little bit more sincerity and kindness from characters in how they have their kind of awkward first encounters and back and forth where they're trying to figure out, do I like you? Do you like me? How do we navigate that? There was so much sweetness and honesty in how they each approached each other and like genuine decency that I found really refreshing. So I was so charmed by this show beyond my expectations and really very into it for two-thirds of its run. I love Moo so much as a character. I was not planning on watching this show. As with a lot of the shows that I've ended up watching lately, I have had to eat my words
00:44:35
Speaker
I started watching it sort of on a
Early Strengths of Only Boo
00:44:38
Speaker
whim. I didn't have anything else to do. And by the end of the first episode, I was entirely charmed by Moo. He's just so alive as a character. Keen plays him really, really well. That sense of, not Devil May Care exactly, but boundless optimism. There is no indication anywhere in his affect that he has ever heard the word no, despite the fact that he hears it all the time. And I find that truly delightful. I find characters who are able to get a no,
00:45:14
Speaker
keep it moving and be like, I am going to turn the snow into a yes, but you don't know that yet. I like that kind of energy and optimism, particularly in a character who is so young, because that's the kind of character who should have that energy and optimism, the kind of character who hasn't had their heart broken before. I enjoyed Mu and Kang and how the attraction, the interest was instantaneous and mutual. Because one of the things that I was scared of going into this show was that it would be all about Mu being pushy and harassing Kang, but it was clear from the very beginning that whatever was going on here was entirely 100% mutual and they were both very into what was happening.
00:45:58
Speaker
I enjoyed Onanashi as Pius and Pote, despite me having major reservations about their storyline, but we'll get into that. I enjoyed the first two thirds of this show immensely. Everything that happened with the high school story. And when I say enjoyed, not just from a standpoint of delight, but enjoyed from the standpoint of this writing makes sense. And these characters make sense. And everything that is happening here makes sense. And then it stopped making sense. But before we get there,
00:46:39
Speaker
Is there a before we get there? What else are we talking about before we get to the turn? We've given Milk a lot of love and I do want to give her a bit more because she was also in this as a side character playing a completely different person from Onza and also was just so fun to watch in every scene. Give Milk more work, I want to see her in everything. I will give Milk a compliment as a backhand to the other people. I understand why Milk was here. Why was everyone else? Oh my god. but I also liked Milk as Neth. I enjoyed her characterization. I liked the kind of friend that Neth was to Kang. I enjoyed everything about her right up until a weird thing that happened in the last episode. I think she was delightful.
00:47:32
Speaker
I'll say this about the Neth character. Neth is always timed well for whenever Kang's caution makes him back off of Moo and she's very good about making him confront his own feelings so that he can take a step forward. She's reused extremely well for that so that the development of the boy's romance never feels stilted.
00:48:07
Speaker
I guess now it's time to flip the script. Jenny, what did you not like here? How did the trajectory of the show go for you? So around episode 9, we switch from high school to where Mu is starting to get to live his idol dreams. And Kang has overcome some of his own stuckness that he was in before Mu showed up to go to art school in Bangkok. Very exciting. then they made so many choices around the idol storyline. You know that there's going to be an issue of him being an idol and dating. That's got to be part of it with a show like this and with the story set up like this. And I was excited to see that.
00:48:57
Speaker
And every choice they made made me less and less excited. I was feeling real shaky by the end of episode 10. Episode 11 I thought was abysmal. I hated everything they did. And episode 12 was like, now I understand what you were trying to do, but you did it so badly. The final arc simply collapsed on itself. Some of the seeds of the final arc were shown early on, particularly the shown character. That character, from the very beginning, just did not sit right. But the final arc actively
Narrative Decline in Only Boo
00:49:39
Speaker
offended me. The whole idol arc, for me, it was not the way of, they should not have done it. And the reason that they should not have done it is that they weren't intending to do anything meaningful with it.
00:49:51
Speaker
There are so many ways that you can do an idol story. It's not even that there had to be any one way that the story went. Idols and relationships, there are so many ways to do that story. The way that they chose was quite possibly the most offensive to me. First of all, because it didn't make any sense. And then secondly, in the end, because it didn't matter and it didn't have anything to say about the idol system at all. It happened. Mu was sad for a year. And then he got back together with Kang and he went and he said, I don't want to sign this stupid no dating anybody contract anymore. And they just went, okay, what was the point of the last four episodes if it was going to be this easy? One thing I don't like is you spend a lot of narrative and thematic time on something that in the end is solved easily. Bet I know you've been holding back.
00:50:54
Speaker
This show is the end of my ability to tolerate bubble shows from GMM TV. I have an appreciation for the bubble because I grew up in queer cinema. A lot of queer creators are dealing with a lot of grief and a lot of pain. And this comes through in a lot of the art. And so this fictional space where homophobia is not an issue and boys can just moon after each other and everyone giggles and tee hees until they get together can be a nice emotional break from that reality but the problem I'm having with the GMM TV shows at this point is they are not just staying in the bubble
00:51:54
Speaker
They keep alluding to the real world where homophobia is a real problem and then intentionally and not dealing with that. This thing they did in the show where Mu doesn't even know like the word gay exists or whatever, but Kang feels like he's had to deal with some internalized homophobia. but know he hasn't, his mom's totally cool, but then why is he like this? There was this interesting bit with Kang when they moved to Bangkok, where they're gonna be sharing an apartment together, and Mu wanted to be intimate with him, and you could feel like Kang wanted to be intimate with him too, but was shy or nervous about it, and didn't wanna proceed with it.
00:52:47
Speaker
When you've been in the closet for a long time, actually doing something with someone is awkward and kind of nerve-wracking, particularly when they're so confident the way Moo is. And I don't feel like we ever really got any resolution on that. And it feels like the show was only having him be shy because they wanted to time certain things out. That's one of the many gay frustrations I have with this show, where there's this interesting thing that feels very gay that the show then does absolutely nothing with.
Character Decisions and Missed Opportunities
00:53:21
Speaker
or tells us we were wrong about. Like I sensed early on that some of Kang's reticence about being queer may have come from his mom. Apparently I misread that. Whatever. It also bugs me that they won't tell Moo, like, you can't be an out idol, bro. But then, fangirls are shipping, Louie's character, Jang with Piyos later on, like, you can't have shipping culture and then not address where queer people slot into that.
00:53:54
Speaker
The very worst gay offense that this show created was having Mu bond with Pius, particularly over clocking Pius's crush on Pote. And then later on, for whatever reason, Mu decides to make Pote his confidant when he has to go into the closet and not Pius. I don't understand how Pyos being the first other queer he bonded with that he wasn't trying to fuck is not the person that he trusts with something important. And this was particularly hurtful for me because Mu lets Pyos think that he's gotten over Kang and has broken up with him after this huge I'm going to be with this man arc. Like how lonely must have Pyos felt at that?
00:54:45
Speaker
He was already struggling with his feelings that he might never get to be with Pote, and then Moo, the strongest gay he knows, is like, I guess I gotta get over Kang, cause you know, we gotta make that paper, bruh. It is what it is. I'm just so disappointed in that. And then there's the whole shit which shown. Why make your cousin's boyfriend break up with him? and then hit on your cousin's boyfriend that you made break up with him that you know he still loves. I was so disgusted with those last two things that it has forever soured the show for me. The show and stuff for me was particularly heinous. I am an elder sibling and I'm also a big cousin.
00:55:36
Speaker
To betray that big cousin trust, I couldn't far them doing that to any of my little cousins. I felt like Shon had no rights at that point. It's one thing when he initially developed this crush on count, he didn't know. Fine. Once you know, how do you do that? To me, that breaks all the codes. You just don't do that. That's not a thing that you do. It's wicked. It's cruel. will It's mean. Absolutely unacceptable. And that was where the show really, truly offended me. The Pote Empire is stuff.
00:56:08
Speaker
Piyos somehow going from being Mu's confidant to being on the outside while Pote gets to be on the inside. That didn't sit right with me, but the shown stuff was really just egregious. I could not stomach it.
Handling of Idol Industry Themes
00:56:24
Speaker
And they made Mu apologize to him. I will never forgive them for that. I will never forgive them for making Mu apologize. What the fuck was that was shown? They had this moment earlier where I thought, okay, this is how we're resolving this. We're leading up to a big issue, but then we're going to have them settle it by being kind and decent to each other and this cousin loyalty thing. Well, it's a little weird that you felt the need to do that at all, but okay, I like where we landed on this. And then they just have him so fully back step, purely from a narrative construction perspective.
00:57:00
Speaker
What we said we all love about Mu is he's so confident and so sure that kind of the world can't touch him. He's going to get what he wants and he makes it work and he makes it charming. He's very lovable in this kind of bullheaded determination mixed with sunny optimism. There were ways to then have him have a rude awakening that would have made sense in the story. Instead, what they did was they have like three people talk to Kang behind his back and guilt trip the kid into breaking up with his boyfriend and then do the no contact one year time skip because God forbid we ever do anything different. If you want to give me an idol story and talk to me about the problems of idols dating,
00:57:48
Speaker
you What if you have them actually deal with any of those challenges? I would not have minded if the story was leading to the company saying, you know what, this is a bad outdated rule for XYZ reasons. We've seen this. I wouldn't have even minded if it took them a year to get there. That's fine. But the way they did it was just much too easy. No conflict. Mu was just like, I'm going to talk to them. And then he talked to them and it turned out they were already going to do the right thing. And I'm like, why? Make it interesting. Give me a story about that. Don't just do weird convoluted chasing and pining and this cousin backstabbing situation for an episode and a half. It didn't work on any level.
00:58:42
Speaker
This is the Umpteenth GMM TV show. where the poor kid has to upend their whole life for the benefit of the rich kid. And I'm over it. Kang must suffer so that Moo can succeed at being an idol. This is a very weird, specific thematic beat that this company's shows always go to. And I really, truly do not like it. That was part of the issue, but the thing that really stuck out for me is that this is GMM TV that did this show. GMM TV is an idol house. That's what they are. Let's just be real. They create idols. They teach them to act and sing and dance and they put them out there in concerts and they sell fan meetings and they sell merch. They are an idol house.
00:59:39
Speaker
And what this show feels like is that they did not want to catch any blowback from being an idol house. They were in a unique position as an idol house to have something, anything, to say about this system. Whether they were trying to defend the system, whether they wanted to upend the system, whether they wanted to make a statement of any kind about the system that they participate in. And they did none of those things.
01:00:16
Speaker
They give some wishy washy idea of, yes, we know that this is maybe probably bad, but we don't do this. It feels so disingenuous. It feels like they are trying to be like, oh, don't look over here. I'm not saying that they needed to take a moralistic position on this. I'm just saying that they needed to take a position. Period. They could have taken a cynical position on this. They could have been like, this is where the money is. They could have taken an apologetic position on this. They could have taken so many different directions on a story like this, depending on what it is that they wanted to see.
01:00:56
Speaker
And I might have been pissed with some of those directions, but I, in the end, would have been like, okay, that's their position. I will give like half a thimbleful of credit for the end line being, oh yeah, this idols can't date rule is bullshit and we should get rid of it. I was gonna feel even madder if it ended with Mu ending his contract because you can't be an idol and be in love and the story being fine with that. At least they gave a momentary lip service to the, yeah, we don't do that.
01:01:35
Speaker
The other half of my half a thimbleful of credit is that we have seen one of their BL actors go very public with a girlfriend, and it seems like he was supported by the company in that, so okay. Presumably a little bit of their money is where the tiniest whisper of their mouth is, I guess. But yes, they should have said something. They're in the position to really tell a story about this. They should have said something. If they're gonna do this, they should have done it. Bestie, I respect your ability to give them half of a thimble of credit. I will be giving them nothing because they made the show. They put this in front of us. They're the ones who spent the whole fucking show making this question whether or not Mu as he is could be an idol.
01:02:26
Speaker
I'm not giving them credit. I feel like I slot in somewhere in the middle, more maybe towards the side of being pissed. And it really comes down to the whole payo story after the one year time skippies being shipped with Zhang. At the end of the story, there's a Pote payo ship that they're talking about. And at no point is there any indication that Mu is suffering because this is not quote unquote allowed, but somehow whatever is going on with the payo stuff, we're going to lean into that.
01:03:06
Speaker
For me, if you make a statement on that, then yes, I give you the credit, but you just put it there and you don't see anything about it.
01:03:19
Speaker
Television as a medium exists at the nexus of art and commerce. Television doesn't exist without commerce. It's not like film where people do it for the love. Television doesn't get put out if there's no money in it. Let's just be real about what TV is. The fact that this show is so mealy-mouthed about saying that, about accepting that, that is where it sits. I just don't like it. The art commerce thing for me, I sit with it, I'm usually fine. I can usually look at a show and be like, okay, I can see where they did this for the love and where they did this for the money. It's why I don't have a whole bunch of trouble
01:04:13
Speaker
with the branded pairing thing. My trouble with the branded pairing thing is always when it doesn't align with what the show is trying to do. But the whole act of casting branded pairs and things, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. And I prefer to look at the branded pair thing as, okay, well, in which way did this pair work for this set of rules and in which way did it not, as opposed to being pissed at the branded pair thing, because that's just the price of the ride. But this one, it just bugged me, man. I felt like if you're going to be so self-referential about the industry that you are in,
01:04:51
Speaker
that you have to make some kind of statement on it one way or or another.
Final Thoughts on Only Boo
01:04:56
Speaker
The show just didn't and I didn't like that.
01:05:06
Speaker
As I said in the Japan episode, telling stories about queer experiences in a respectful way is non-negotiable for me. in a genre profiting off of people's titillation about seeing boys kiss each other. I don't think that's an unreasonable position to hold. So as much as I love Mu as a character, and as much as I liked all of the bits we got to talk about early on in this show, this show fails as a queer narrative in a way that is unsettling, often annoying, and in some ways,
01:05:46
Speaker
kind of harmful and i can't pretend like that's okay let's rate jenny what are we racing only boo oh i think i'm coming in a lot higher than you two probably yeah i did really like the first two thirds and i think i was not as offended by the end so i gave it a seven ben how about you One of the downsides of me having basically a bad time with Global BL since Cooking Crush and Cherry Magic Silent ended is I'm now starting to wait endings higher. This is not fun. It is making the ability to watch these shows week to week with other people on fun. The shows start fun and we're like, hell yeah, this is a fun show. And then by around episode eight or nine, we're in various stages of grief.
01:06:41
Speaker
and they don't finish strong. We don't get to feel triumphant at the end. We don't get to lift that fish out of the stream and be like, we got dinner tonight, boys. And I'm over pretending that the idea of the show is better than the reality of the show. As a result, only Boo gets a five. I am, I think once again, splitting the difference because I did have a good time for the first eight episodes of this show. I was offended by the last two. A bad ending can ruin a show for me. It does not always, but it can ruin a show for me. But throughout the entire show from end to end,
01:07:37
Speaker
I have to say that through line of Mu and Kang and their relationship, I just believed them so much. Even when the show is crashing down around them, they are somehow holding together that love story and making me believe in it. I want to give it a six, but I think I'm going to end up at a 6.5 just for that. moo and kang and the moo and kang love story and c and keen as moo and kang are so good so what does that leave us five six point five seven what is that we're going to like a six two five i don't know what is math we can call it a six i'm a whole engineer and i can't do much we can call it a six i'm calling producer privilege this show pissed me off for gay reasons and i'm not going to pretend that the romance makes up for pissing me off for gay reasons
01:08:34
Speaker
okay it's a six from the conversation i want to talk a little bit about these two shows just from the sense of both of them as high school shows but also in the sense of them being shows that started out well and did pretty well through maybe half to two-thirds of their run and then faltered at the end When it comes to high school shows, as we have indicated before, we don't actually get as many of them as we think from Thailand. For me, the high school of it all is not the core of either show's problem. That's sort of incidental to just not having a clear understanding of the story. It was telling. Did some very charming work with some very charming actors and scenes.
01:09:31
Speaker
but simply got lost at some point along the way. My overall thinking about these two shows and where they landed for me is I don't know what Thailand wanted to say about high school in these shows is or if they wanted to say anything about high school or if high school was just an incidental setting for these shows. What do they want to say about people on the cusp of growing up? What is it they want to say about the high school experience?
Reflecting on High School Narratives
01:09:58
Speaker
I feel like that's not something that either of these shows was particularly interested in. Maybe to some extent more 23.5 was interested in it than only boo. 23.5 was a high school show and I think one of the big ideas that they wrote on the board was some stuff about high school social dynamics that they occasionally highlighted and then completely forgot about for episodes at a time.
01:10:29
Speaker
The big problem both of these shows have is they don't understand that the crux of a high school show is about growing up and about how you can't go backwards anymore. The kids have to recognize that properly for the first time. I think both shows are trying to get there, but I think in almost every case they get lost in the shipping of it all. and not in the story that they need to tell. Almost all of these characters have broken arcs about growing up. Their energy is not focused on the proper culmination of the individual character arcs. They're focused exclusively on the romance arcs, and they believe that the resolution of these romance arcs
01:11:11
Speaker
is a good substitute for the resolution of their individual arcs. And it really frustrates me watching both of these shows, not really landing on a good place about what it means to grow up. Which is for me, what is at the core of high school stories. like Let's go back to the breakfast club and start over. and three I do not feel positively about either of these shows, and I'm not righteous about it. I'm disappointed and really frustrated. This is not a great place to be with the genre. I don't know what's going on, everybody.
Industry Needs and Frustrations
01:11:56
Speaker
I think we all need to take a good six-month sabbatical.
01:12:00
Speaker
Let's have a beach episode as a whole genre. Go plant some trees and go to the beach and hang out for a bit and then come back and work on some stuff. We all need a break. It feels like people are stretched really thin. I don't know what's going on, but this is feeling like a global issue at this point. The initial ideas are good, but the execution is not. And then it ends on a flat note or an unsatisfying note. I am a critic. Talking about stuff with people is more than half of the fun. Watching a show alone by myself is not the bulk of my enjoyment with a piece of media. My real fun with a piece of media is when I finish something and I'm going to go annoy the nearest person to me. It's like, hey, it's time for you to watch something. That's what's fun for me.
01:12:53
Speaker
These shows are not giving me that outlet. I don't get to share that with people who aren't BL fanatics like us. Sharing art with people is how I connect to people. And I can't share most of our shows with normies because they're like, this is bad. Why did you show this to me? See, that's different to seeing you and me. I gave up on the normies a long time ago.
01:13:24
Speaker
I really want the people who watch Young Royals and Hardstopper to connect with BL. So when they finish those shows, be like, what else is there? I'm like, we got the list, girl. It's right here. but Like that list is not growing this year. We need fresh content for the list. I mean, there is quite a backlog. So I feel like if they need to take a break, I will understand. They should take a break. It is summer. Everybody go to a beach, get some sun. Go have an encounter with a hot stranger. Get your mind right, and then come back. We gotta take a break, cause this is not working. I haven't been this grumpy since 2018. You are grumpy right now, Bestie. It's not good. We can split hairs and talk about what these shows did good or bad, but in the end, are we saying people should go out and watch these shows earnestly? No.
01:14:19
Speaker
We gotta wrap this up. So that is going to do it for us on the GMM TV school days episode. Say bye to the people, Jenny. Bye. Say bye to the people, Ben. Peace.