Rushed, but super interesting

Wednesday Club was one of my favorite shows this year. It's a story of a group of young people who came together in hopes of becoming friends. That didn’t exactly work out. Each of them came with their own problems and challenges, family conflicts that spilled into political and societal issues, and while their stories interlocked, the friendship promised in the official synopsis never really materialized.
The show was super interesting and had some of the most talented actors in GMMTV. Unfortunately, it had one major flaw: the plot could easily be stretched into 14, 16, or even 20 episodes. There were so many characters and so many stories, 12 episodes were not enough to do any of them justice. As a result, it felt rushed. Very rushed.
Other reviews talk enough about plot and writing, so let me just summarize my feelings.

Kong – Ohm Pawat was the best actor in the show, and Kong was the purest and most wholesome character. It’s a shame then, that he’d been relegated to mostly a background character. His family story was kinda in the center of everything that happened, but even that was very shallow.
I’d love to see more scenes of Kong interacting with his siblings and know more about how he felt about the whole situation. In the end, even the family scandal was swept under the rug and forgotten.

Palee – was the kind of character you could replace with a coat rack with no loss to the series. The acting was also like that of a coat rack. Given that, he and his love escapades were given entirely too much screen time.

Kanya – if Palee was a coat rack, she was a coat.

May – I can see why she was the favorite character of so many people. She started as very toxic, (which was later explained), and gradually changed to be a better person. Even when she manipulated Tam to get together with Palee, she gave her some genuinely good advice about makeup and protection.
In the beginning, she was interested in Kong and it bugged me how many people shipped them. What did my boy ever do to you that you wish him so ill? Somebody said they would end up like Mink and Karn, but I doubt that—May would eat Kong alive.

Tam – an innocent girl, the complete opposite of May. I felt like she could be on an autism spectrum, given her constant spinning, her avoidance of eye contact, and her strange custom of giving names to everything. Or Film just picked up some of Pennhung’s behaviors from Home School.
Her story was one of the most developed in the show, but I still don’t like how it ended. Spoilers ahead.
We don’t know how was her biological mother’s situation 20 years ago, but she said she worked like an ox to be ready for her younger daughter. It must have been hard for her to have an unplanned child earlier, and giving Tam up was the best of the terrible options she had. Is that a surprise that she didn’t want to talk about it with a virtual stranger? Especially in front of her very young daughter? Tam should go back to her and have a proper talk—not starting with stupid questions.
On the other hand, her adoptive grandma was abusive as hell. Every time we saw her, she was berating Tam, yelling at her, or beating her with a cane. And all of that is supposed to disappear because of one sappy message she wrote twenty years ago? I’m not buying it. I know for some people family is family, and they can treat you like dirt, but they love you, and it’s supposed to make their abusive behavior fine. It doesn’t. I’m glad the old hag is dead and I think Tam is too, even if she wouldn’t admit it.
Now she just needs to go talk to her biological mother.

Kul – look, I’m old and cynical, I don’t give a damn about young people’s love polygon. But a story of a male escort? Hell, yeah. Gimme full 12 episodes of that!
Unfortunately, for most of the show Kul only got one scene per episode and his story was criminally underdeveloped. I'm especially curious about his relationship with his siblings and friends outside the club. Even at the end, a lot of threads were left loose. Did he pay off P’Dream? How did he deal with P’Yam?

Pheem – the character was meant to be played by Joong and I won’t lie, I was initially drawn to this show by the promise of seeing my favorite himbo. However, Satang did very well in this role. There were just a few scenes where he lacked Joong’s physicality: when Baby Satang says he’d protect the ladies, it’s hard to take him seriously, but if the same lines came from Joong, across Bangkok, Karn would wet his pants. On the bright side, Satang can play guitar.
As for Pheem, I feel like his character was also underdeveloped. Even most of his screen time was about Mink or May. I’d love to see more of his interactions with his family, know what drove him, and what his goal in life was.

Max – yeah, you guessed it, another underdeveloped character. To the point, where I don’t even know what to say about him. He was important to the plot and Kay did a great job portraying him (I saw him previously in Home School, where he played a totally different character), I just… don’t feel anything about him.

But even without the full development, the slices of lives we glimpsed grabbed me. The ending left me feeling melancholic. I wish it was longer. I wish we could see all characters getting their happy endings. Who knows, maybe in five years they will meet again and become friends they failed to become now?

And yes, the irony of GMMTV making shows about how people get different opportunities in life while giving main roles to the same chosen few, and keeping other, genuinely talented actors as eternal supports, is not lost on me.

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This series really feels like the director didn't know what he wanted to do.

On one hand, there was a sappy love story, on the other the exposing of dark secrets of BL industry... But then the second part fell apart and it ended up more of a sappy love story with not-so-subtle jabs at the director's previous company. Still, the tonal shift between the two was just ridiculous. In one scene we have Bas being molested by Tee, in the next James and Ait enter James' apartment all happy and in love, and when they see Marco their only question is whether he's in love with James. It's not like they don't know that Marco just drove Bas to meet his abuser. They just... don't give a damn, I guess?
Although that may be because James is a certified moron. When tasked with delaying Tee, he asks him to meet, but can't come up with anything to talk about. The series they work on? The press conference? No, let's just randomly order six bread rolls, that should work. Kinda reminded me of that scene in ep 1 when he sat in a cafe for two hours waiting for Ait and was speechless when asked why did he need a ride. Like... In two hours he could have come up with some crazy story about how a parrot flew into his car window. Or just walk to the studio, I guess.
Ait also annoyed me by being constantly angry at everyone. But I understood why he kept walking out on people when they kept whining "let me explain" and didn't explain anything.
Marco... I don't even know what his deal was. His actions didn't make any sense.
Honestly, I kept watching it for Bas, because he was precious and needed a happy ending, but in the end, all of his problems magically disappeared. The thing with food he struggled with throughout the entire season 1 was forgotten. Family issues were thrown in in a most unrealistic way and didn't lead to anything. Tee's abuse got exposed to the public, because taking it to the police would be too mainstream, I guess? I'm just not sure why doing it made him so happy. And all of his depression vanished in the light of Marco's love. Sigh...
The ending was messy and disappointing, but at least it made it clear that it was, at its core, a sappy love story, and everything else that happened wasn't nearly as important as the main characters' relationship. Exposé what? Dark secrets whose? Inappropriate relationship? Doesn't matter. Love conquers all!
Also, I don't usually do this, but this show dragged so much, I watched most of it at 1.5x speed. There's only so much of James not knowing what to say I'm willing to watch. That made music absolutely unbearable, but it was a price I was willing to pay.

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JoongDunk: The Series

Let’s get this out of the way: this is very much "JoongDunk: The Series". Everything else: the side characters, the plot, themes and conflicts, were put aside to make way for the main couple’s cuteness. And don’t get me wrong, they are cute. They have great chemistry and their intimate scenes are *chef’s kiss*. And although many people complain about the acting, honestly, I've seen worse.
Still, I wish the series was more.
To me, the biggest problem was that all the conflicts were thrown seemingly out of nowhere (unless you paid attention to a single line mentioned by an extremely side character a few episodes earlier), then solved immediately and never mentioned again. That made the series seem very fragmentary, with no overarching plot that would connect all the episodes into one coherent story.
I can’t help but think about Tee Bundit’s other series, “Something in My Room”. I watched it uncensored (70 minutes per episode) because the censored version had some really bizarre editing choices, with key scenes being removed to the point where the plot didn’t make much sense. I wonder if the same thing happened here, except we’ll never get the full show.

Here’s how I would make it:
As many people said, Jeng and Pok should have more scenes. Jeng coming up with excuses to avoid being seen in public, Pok being increasingly bothered by it, until he can’t take it anymore and tries to break up. Jeng with his football co-players (I can’t call them friends), witnessing their machoism and homophobia. Pok crying in Zo’s arms. And so on.
The debate club should play a bigger role. We should see more debates, preparing for debates, etc. The screenwriters could use this opportunity to discuss social issues, like marriage equality or queerbaiting in media (tee-hee). Also, the big competition should take at least half a season, not be mentioned twice, then thrown in at the last minute.
During the preparation, Wave’s distaste for Joke should become prominent. And mutual. Zo may have noticed and asked Joke, who’d say it’s not his place to say. Maybe he’d known about what happened between Trine and Wave, maybe he’d just known they had a conflict. In any case, Zo would have to do a bit of investigating.
While we’re here, I wish Nita would get more screen time, so we could get to know her as more than a “love interest”. Maybe give her a reason to want to win the scholarship? And us a reason to root for her?
James should show up earlier, stick around Zo, but always disappear when Joke or even Zo’s friends show around. Zo’s friends would notice there’s something off about the guy, so it wouldn’t feel like Joke’s just being paranoid.
Also, Zo’s mother should be more present, calling or texting Zo and putting pressure on him (even interrupting his dates). Maybe a scene or two of Zo scrolling social media and seeing her pose with her accomplished students? Also, the situation should be resolved with something more than it was (an apology maybe?).
Same with Joke’s father. I know it was meant to be a surprise, that Joke was going through the same thing as Zo the whole time, but the resolution we got left me feeling “wtf just happened?”. Joke’s father goes from 0 to 1 in a matter of seconds and for no reason other than “Zo told him to.”
To accommodate those changes:
The pointless faux-breakup in the last episode could be cut, it didn’t serve anything.
While Puen’s story was important in explaining Zo’s initial hesitation, the reconciliation could be cut. No one cares about him and he never shows again.
A lot of Joke and Zo's dates could be shortened.

Anyway, the series we got was a mindless fluff, something to switch your brain off and relax. I don't regret watching it, but I wouldn't do it again (although I will rewatch certain scenes, because damn).
If you really have to watch it, stick to the last parts of ep 4, 7, 8, and 10 and the beginning of ep 11. Thank me later.

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