Past-Senger (Thai Series)

My feeling after finishing the show is that I somehow survived. Although I was warned indirectly by my friends here, I was still hoping for something good. A time travel story could go either way and we are seeing a lot of those coming through these days. This series is light hearted and for whatever reasons doesn't take itself very seriously. But then it is year 2023 and watching the same old BL tropes of  foes turned lovers, cliched romantic scenes, some cringe worthy BL tropes; all this can take a toll on you. Especially when it just gets repeated over and over for 12 episodes of each 40-45 minutes.

The story starts in 1995 where Kiew and his friends have just passed the college entrance exam. Previously, the group held a worship ceremony to wish for good fortune in their school enrollment. They return to pay their merits and express gratitude to the higher power. Kiew somehow doesn't believe in the whole thing and the next thing you know after the prayer is that Kiew finds himself mysteriously in future by getting sucked into a vortex of sorts after a heavy rain and storm. He finds himself in a university where he meets a student named Bamee. Bamee and Kiew's first interaction doesn't go well. Finding no way to go back, Kiew starts adjusting until he realizes that one of the university professor Prach is his friend from 1995. He makes him understand everything and assumes a fake identity as son of Prach's friend from abroad and enrols. He makes a good circle of friends and as you can expect, over the course of next 8 episodes we see how Bamee and him eventual becomes foes to friends to lovers. But all this while Kiew also wants to go back to his original world. The friends are old of they repeated the same situation when Kiew got transported, it would help. All grown up friends come together but one friend (Bamee's father) is no longer alive. Kiew asks Bamee to come help and he gets into an accident. The last 4 episodes are a mess where Bamee just forgets any memory of Kiew completely. Eventually in next 3 episodes things get back to normal and with help of Bamee, they are able to help Kiew go back to his old world back in 1995 and everyone form present time forgets the memory of Kiew. Few years later, kids are graduating and a new grown up Kiew also show sup rekindling the romance (cringe) of an older Kiew and Bamee.

This is the kind of show where you are supposed to simply sit back, set aside logic, and enjoy the silliness that unfolds. To be honest, for first few episodes I did enjoy it actually. But then the side stories of friends, love stories, unnecessary dramas, sort of took me back to the similar shows that I was ok with maybe 5-6 years back , but now my tastes have changes and expectations have gone up, so I look for something meaningful and here I was getting none of it. There were some genuinely funny moments, but by then I had lost all interest. The show had to do something substantial to bring me back into it. They do something drastic starting Episode 8-9 but instead they make it even worse. The whole partial amnesia thing was so not necessary. The whole last 4 episodes can completely be eliminated and the main love story of a time traveler could be squeezed into tightly edited 6 episode format and the show would have been wonderful. I don't know whether to feel offended or laugh incredulously at the outrageous ending. The clumsy final is not bringing any glory to the eventual plot anyway.

To the writers’ credit, even though the time-travel element is arbitrary and amusing, at least they avoid confusing viewers. The story is kept simple, too simple and very cheesy. The actors do their best but given the script itself is not serious, there is little they can do. Kiew was funny but actor playing Bamee just had this constipated look throughout the show which got so annoying after sometime. The storyline of Bamee's younger step brother and Prach's son was again not needed, but by now we all know that every BL show will have a main story and at least 2-3 parallel stories that you will have to deal with, whether you want it or not! What surprised me were some of the silliness that older actors bring to the show. And that was quite new and neat and fun. Besides that this series is easily forgettable and just gets added as yet another attempt in the time traveler BL series genre, which seems to be forming its own list now. (4/10)