Last night, I tried unsuccessfully to convince Yalan that Channel 8's 25th Anniversary Gala 9 o'clock serial, The Little Nyonya, was sort of like Ian McEwan's Atonement.
I don't exactly appreciate all the misery characters in novels and films and cheesy local Chinese shows have to go through, but I continue watching or reading faithfully to the end (no flipping there directly for me!) because I like to see the Vindication of the Good People. No matter that there are pages of prose describing seemingly endless suffering to plough through, or that I have to sit through episodes and episodes of oppression and the Unfairness of It All. It's just Thoroughly and Extremely Satisfying when the Good Pretty Girl marries the Handsome, Kind and Generous Man and the Wicked Horrible People get their just desserts, usually by dying Horrible Deaths.
Just as you expected from the very beginning.
What a lot of capitalised words there were in that last paragraph!
But, judging by Atonement itself, some fairly recent Korean dramas (Stairway to Heaven, for instance) and the 9 o'clock show before last, Crimebusters x 2 (who comes up with these names?!), The Little Nyonya might well throw up some surprises and end with tragedy instead of a nice wedding and a Many Years Later epilogue in the last five minutes of the last episode.
Please, Channel 8, don't do that to me. Baz Luhrman changed the ending of Australia so Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman's characters could end up together. If there isn't a happy ending for Juxiang, you still have time to do something about it, although (the Very Pretty) Jeanette Aw is only Slightly Less Annoying and Simper-y as the titular character in the show.
It's your 25th Anniversay Gala Blockbuster Serial, after all. Do stick with a Predictable and Formulaic Plot. I can already see Cynthia Koh's character having an affair with her sister's husband, and I am eagerly awaiting the utterance of what must be the Most Famous Chinese Serial Line in all of your history:
爱情是不能勉强的, love cannot be forced.
On that note, Channel 8, I have to say that you've done a great job so far - it was very clever of you to decide to centre the story on the Babas. It has given you free rein to bring in all generations of MediaCorp actors and actresses to play random family members and friends.
A pity, though, that I might not be in Singapore for the last episode or the bulk of the show. But I'm sure there are ways for me to catch up on it.
***
I wish Jon would come to school. I want to buy a curry puff for a snack but I don't feel like going downstairs again, especially since I just bought a cup of tea and somehow it seems rather greedy to go down again for a curry puff.
I don't exactly appreciate all the misery characters in novels and films and cheesy local Chinese shows have to go through, but I continue watching or reading faithfully to the end (no flipping there directly for me!) because I like to see the Vindication of the Good People. No matter that there are pages of prose describing seemingly endless suffering to plough through, or that I have to sit through episodes and episodes of oppression and the Unfairness of It All. It's just Thoroughly and Extremely Satisfying when the Good Pretty Girl marries the Handsome, Kind and Generous Man and the Wicked Horrible People get their just desserts, usually by dying Horrible Deaths.
Just as you expected from the very beginning.
What a lot of capitalised words there were in that last paragraph!
But, judging by Atonement itself, some fairly recent Korean dramas (Stairway to Heaven, for instance) and the 9 o'clock show before last, Crimebusters x 2 (who comes up with these names?!), The Little Nyonya might well throw up some surprises and end with tragedy instead of a nice wedding and a Many Years Later epilogue in the last five minutes of the last episode.
Please, Channel 8, don't do that to me. Baz Luhrman changed the ending of Australia so Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman's characters could end up together. If there isn't a happy ending for Juxiang, you still have time to do something about it, although (the Very Pretty) Jeanette Aw is only Slightly Less Annoying and Simper-y as the titular character in the show.
It's your 25th Anniversay Gala Blockbuster Serial, after all. Do stick with a Predictable and Formulaic Plot. I can already see Cynthia Koh's character having an affair with her sister's husband, and I am eagerly awaiting the utterance of what must be the Most Famous Chinese Serial Line in all of your history:
爱情是不能勉强的, love cannot be forced.
On that note, Channel 8, I have to say that you've done a great job so far - it was very clever of you to decide to centre the story on the Babas. It has given you free rein to bring in all generations of MediaCorp actors and actresses to play random family members and friends.
A pity, though, that I might not be in Singapore for the last episode or the bulk of the show. But I'm sure there are ways for me to catch up on it.
***
I wish Jon would come to school. I want to buy a curry puff for a snack but I don't feel like going downstairs again, especially since I just bought a cup of tea and somehow it seems rather greedy to go down again for a curry puff.
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