I will begin this entry with a rant.

Dear GMA-7,

What the heck have you done to our Full House??

(Agent P’s Side Note: For the benefit of non-Filipino readers of this blog, here’s a quick rundown of characters in the Filipino version and their Korean counterparts: Justin = Lee Young Jae; Jessie = Han Ji Eun; Luigi = Yoo Min Hyuk; Elaine = Kang Hye Won)

I was initially ok with the liberties they took with the characters and storyline since I understood that they had to adapt it to Filipino culture and tastes. What made me give up watching it is Richard Gutierrez’ bad characterization of the Justin character. The guy simply can’t act, period. He’s not even endearing. I get glimpses of a few episodes whenever it’s on because the rest of my family watches the show - why, I have no idea - but I feel like banging my head to the nearest wall every time I see it, so I gave up watching altogether. However, the series is ending tomorrow and I have this habit of checking out the first and last episodes of most dramas on local TV. Then I saw the teaser for tonight’s episode and I felt I really have to watch it. Not because it’s interesting or anything like that. It’s just that work has been too stressful lately that I felt that some good ol’ bad TV could make me forget about it.

When you read comments from people who are actually fans of this version of Full House and most of them say that they are frustrated with how things went with this show, you just know that the creators behind it did a pretty BAD job. The only ones who seem satisfied with it are blind fanatics of the lead actors.

You know what happened at the second-to-the-last episode of Full House, Filipino version?

1. Justin openly declared his love for Jessie while accepting an acting award. This was while Jessie was at the audience with her fiancee (!) Luigi because as we all know, Luigi is a movie producer so he should be there. Why Donald and Lisette (Dong Wook and Hee Jin in the original) had to be there, too, I had no idea. I haven’t seen enough of this show to find out what business do these two have to earn the right to have prime seats at an awards show. Side notes: On this version of the drama, Justin and Jessie somewhat became a couple, but Justin had no choice but to be engaged to Elaine because Elaine blackmailed him by using her illness (!) as the weapon. Meaning, Elaine actually forgot about Luigi and got obsessed with Justin. Meanwhile, Jessie ended up being engaged to Luigi. There’s even a part there where Justin, Elaine and Justin’s entire family had to migrate to the US to forget Jessie or for whatever reason I didn’t bother to find out because I feel like this is now an entirely different drama using Full House as a title.

2. After that open declaration from Justin, he disappeared (of course). Meanwhile, Luigi talked to Jessie and said he’s giving her up (eh?). After that, Elaine rushed towards Jessie looking for Justin (when the hell did Kang Hye Won became a psycho?!?!) and when Jessie was not able to produce him, Elaine grabbed a gun from a nearby security guy and… she shot Jessie! But Jessie was spared because… ta-dah! Super Justin to the rescue! He took the bullet for Jessie! Omigad! What the heck did they do to our beloved drama?!?!

3. Of course, they brought Justin to the hospital where Jessie was denied entry to the operating room (of course); Elaine was hiding from the police but Luigi found her (of course); for some reason Elaine was suddenly at the hospital and Jessie found her, there was a confrontation and… SLAP! Jessie slapped Elaine! OF COURSE. Then after Jessie left, Luigi came in and told Elaine that they have to leave because the police is all over the place and - of course - Elaine said she was the one who called the police.

4. Next scene: Jessie went inside Justin’s room and found his staff and family looking solemn. She was told that she should talk to Justin before it’s too late and when she got to his bed, Justin’s dad - who, as we all know, is a doctor - was covering his son with the white sheets. Meaning, he’s dead. And there I was saying, “ugh, he’s not dead, they’re just pretending he’s dead so that Jessie will panic and declare her true feelings for Justin.” Which was exactly what happened next. It was so damn predictable, even my adolescent niece was screaming, “ano ba, luma na yan, napanood ko na yan!!!” Although that shot of what seems to be an accidental boob slippage from Heart Evangelista (playing Jessie) was quite amusing.

5. Then they showed scenes from tomorrow’s finale and they promoted it as “kilig-filled”, but we were all so ‘MEH!’ about it. Geez, they already showed everything on the teasers, why should we still watch tomorrow’s episode? For Mamita (Halmoni) singing Fallin’ at the wedding? Uh, no thanks.

Suffice to say, the only saving grace of this show is Chiqui, the snooping gossip reporter played by John Lapuz.

In between commercial gaps, some clips of “random people on the streets” were shown with everyone saying they will miss Papa Justin and Mama Jessie. I bet my ass that this is really the Papa Justin and Mama Jessie that they miss:

I know I miss them.

Also, they have clips of students singing the Three Bears Song. I’m sorry, but are they sure that these kids learned that from watching this version and not from the original, Tagalog-dubbed one? Because based on my Kpop Con experience, even really young people know the Three Bears Song in Tagalog, and at that time Full House Pinoy version was just starting. Don’t try to kid us that this version is a success because sorry to say, it’s not. The competition is even killing it on the ratings game.

===

On to another disappointment, that is, American Idol Season 9.

They promote this season as having the most talented bunch, and it’s probably true, but if we base it on star potential? I think it’s even more lacking than Seasons 5 and 6. At least Season 5 had Daughtry and Season 6 had Jordin Sparks. We’re already at the semis and I haven’t found anyone to root for yet. Usually, I would find someone by the Hollywood rounds, then it might change after one or two performances. It happened to me the past three seasons. Season 6, I was initially rooting for Melinda after she sang My Funny Valentine at the semis but later on changed to Blake Lewis because of his artistry. For Season 7, I liked Brooke at first but switched to Cookie, then Castro. Last year, I liked Anoop after watching his Clefhangers performances at YouTube, but later on I ended up rooting for Kris Allen.

This year, I kinda liked Andrew Garcia at his first audition and Crystal Bowersox during the Hollywood Rounds, but I’m not excited about them at all. The only one that made a mark with me, so far, is Casey James. He’s an eye candy, he knows it and he’s using it to the hilt. However, he’s just a guy who can sing although he’s a killer blues guitarist. Then again, this is a singing competition, not a guitar competition. And he’s definitely not going to win this one, not when the AI producers seem to be gunning for a female winner this year since the past two seasons have seen an all-male finale.

We’ll see next week if things would improve. But right now, I’m not rooting for anybody. Yet.

===

I’m just thankful that my other two favorite reality shows, Survivor and The Amazing Race, seem to be delivering the goods, so far. My favorite Survivor contestant, Rob Mariano, is back at Survivor: Heroes vs Villains and he’s still good ol’ Boston Rob. He was simply amazing at last week’s episode. It’s just too bad that early spoilers say that he will get booted before the merge. As for TAR, lots of dumb contestants this season and it makes for good TV. I’m enjoying it, so far.

===

This is what I’m really looking forward to: the second half of Season 1 of Glee.

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This entry was posted on Friday, February 26th, 2010 at 12:20 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.