Kim is the president of student council running an initiative against hazing with his 2 closest friends and is determined to make it a success. Then , we have Mek, a senior tin same university famous for making prank videos with two of his friends. Mek even pranks Kim, which doesn't go down too well and he threatens disciplinary action. In an attempt to sabotage his anti-haze plan, Mek plays another prank on Kim which backfires. The university chancellor is miffed but she also wants to capitalize on Mek and Kim's chemistry and growing popularity. She forces them to create BL content or she'll take away Kim's recommendation letter and enforce Mek's school suspension. Forced to work together, as you can expect, after a few instances the do start getting close to one another and eventually fall in love. In last two episodes, there is standard drama of Kim withdrawing his love so that Mek can be successful in life (I guess they haven't heard of long-distance relationship), but all is well that ends well.
We also see two other couple which are friends of Kim and Mek. One of their friends have been secretly a couple for almost 7 years but no one is aware of their relationship and we get to see some backstory regarding it. And the third friend of Kim has huge crush on the third guy in Mek's group and they get together without much complication until last two episodes. And then we have a guy Tim, another popular university student who makes videos and on whom Kim used to have crush earlier. Tim's best friend since school is Mai. The duo are always together, Mai is madly in love with Tim but something is stopping Tim from being his boyfriend.
Honestly, this series is above average at best, despite the fact it tries its best at being charming, lovely, with some fun romantic moments of each couple, topped with good dose of humor as well. The atmosphere is so playful that I can excuse the weak parts of the narrative. Sadly, the series just fails to life itself from the regular tropes. As I mentioned before , had the series ended after episode 7, I would have rated it much higher. There was absolutely no need to introduce angles of parents, Tim/Kim, the career decision and the temporary break up etc. All these stories were just not needed. The start was enthusiastic but the show struggles to maintain pace and momentum. The unnecessary meandering plot loses direction and the second half features heavier melodrama, but the angsty scenes expose the actors' limitations. On a positive note, the lead actors Kim and Mek shared an adorable chemistry. Their feud in the initial few episodes, hilarious banter and some passive aggressive flirting was fun to watch. I did appreciate the fact that the series focused and gave substantial importance to the other three couples as well and did not treat them as an after thought. They were given character arcs, we were told their backgrounds and how their love story grows. It was a good to watch it. The kissing scenes can still use a lot of improvement. They somehow come out as very awkward. The last two episodes just take the show to a completely different zone and you feel as if you are watching something else. The idea to cram too much into a single series didn't work in my opinion. But its still decent one time watch if you are still patient with the long drawn out multiple episodic Thai Bl dramas. (6.5/10)
Comments
I loved they added a long term couple. 7 years without telling your friends seems totally unreal but I have a friend who was in a secret gay relationship for 2-3 years and didn't dare tell me although I was already out so I won't judge here.
I've seen the main couple will have another BL together tha tI'll gladly watch.
I have good news for you Golu, with "Love in the air" thai BL are experimenting new crispier formats. Still 12 episodes but in 2x6, each session focused on a couple. And it works very well! Finally they heard you hahaha!!!
Maybe I will have to a ddd that to my list too :)
@ Sailor Maan - The 7-year-secret relationship... I actually get it. It's definitely not very common to keep private life private nowadays, and case by case sometimes it's the best, sometimes it's the worst possible solution to a situation - but when my instincts were in full working order, I met "my" empath and we decided to keep "us" to ourselves. Best decision ever. If we'd been like everyone else, we would have told his sister and my two friends who were sharing a flat back then. Then we pictured the evenings at a 3-bitch-apartment with no TV, no computers, no boyfriends of their own... gossip nights every night... and we had heard them gossip... no, our life belongs to us, not them. We even called each other "my secret weapon", since keeping us a secret sort of became our superpower (even his family don't know). Only a few chosen ones knew back then. Very carefully chosen ones. We are not an "us" any more, but we're still a team that makes ideas into plans and plans into reality. For ... 3 times 7 years (and counting) :) In the series I would have wanted to get more background of those two keeping their actual relationship status a secret, what brought them to such exceptional decision, since it didn't seem to be because of fear.
@Golu - Yes, seriously (about Love in the Air). Although I wouldn't get my hopes too high up if I were you, this time the 7+6 episodes for two main couples seems to be mostly due to the two parallel-storyline-books the script is based on. Please replace "maybe" with "definitely", because it's definitely a few levels up production-wise. Just finished the last episode and probably won't sleep tonight, my eyes are burning of all the crying. The very last episode had too many triggers for me, but that's my personal tragedy.
I guess 'Love is in the air' needs to added to my watchlist right away.