Recycled teleserye

There is a bill being filed at the House of representatives seeking for a ban of foreign television soap operas during prime time slots. The author claims that foreign produced soap operas are eating prime time schedules and is unfavorable for locally produced soaps. It claims further that this bill will push local creativity and empower local producers to create content and employ more local talents.

The thing is, locally produced shows lacks creativity that would satisfy the audience. This is one of the reasons why foreign produced series are gaining popularity and occupying the prime time slots. It is because they are more profitable. Local shows, not just soaps, but sitcoms, talk shows, variety shows and full length movies have not evolved at all. The plot is the same, the formula is the same and there isn't much creative juice. Other than changing the character names, the location and backdrop, everything is just the same with each show and movie.

Lets take for example local soaps or as it properly termed here, "teleseryes". Which of these shows that does not feature a lead character as being from a poverty stricken family? The poor lead falling in love with the rich lead character. Or if not, the two lead characters are somehow related, most of the time as sisters separated at birth. Only to cross each others path when they are adults, the other suffering from poverty and the other being famous and rich. Different shows will just add some minor tweaks like the other was never a real sister or that the rich one is the good guy while the poor one is the evil half and they will just reverse these roles, play around with it but never going out of this concept, the plot is the same.

Another thing so common and one that I find disgusting is the plot of kidnapping. Why do they always add this on their stories? To add spice? Maybe, but it is lame. Jealous characters exacting revenge and resorting to shooting the lead or the lead's mother or wife. Then the police arriving very late or if not late has no purpose at all in the scene other then being just there for the sake of it. If it doesn't add anything relevant to the story then why put them in the scene? To make it more realistic? It only makes the scene stupid and not to mention stereotyping the police force as being useless.

Then there's the characters as being super rich and famous, really unrealistically super rich. Why can't they keep their stories grounded to reality? Owning large corporations, Presidents of a conglomerate or super rich politicians. And the sons or daughters of these rich guys will fall in love with the sons or daughters of a street vendor or circus clowns. It may be a modern day storytelling of Romeo and Juliet but it is way overused and ineffectual.

Plus take into consideration that most of these shows are immoral. Promoting adultery and sexism. Shows that portray women as weak and more of sex slaves. Always oppressed and suffering. Most shows would feature adulterous relationships. Then there's the portrayal of traitors. Thugs who will demand ransom from their kidnapped rich lead characters. Thugs who are related or close friends of the lead characters. Or if not, the traitor would contract hired guns to do the dirty jobs. Always most of the time the series will go on a darker tone towards the end of the show's run. It always does. What started as something that is wholesome , romantic and heartwarming will always go down the path of the dark side.  

This is the reality of local soaps, recycled plots or stories just being retold differently. Very little creative juice if at all there is. No wonder foreign shows are dominating the boob tube. Is not fair to blame the foreign soaps for eating prime time slots and moving out the local show to a less favorable schedule. All the more it is not fair to blame the foreign shows for killing the creativity of local talents. It is the lack of creativity of the locally produced shows that pushed them away from prime time. It is the lack of creativity that made them less profitable and thus resulting to producers to giving up on making productions.

Even if there is a ban of foreign shows during prime time, who would watch local shows if it were lame and lacks content? If the show is immoral, like almost all are because this is the formula, then it makes it even worse since TV shows and the media are very influential. More influential to young audiences.

The solution here is not for a bill banning foreign shows on prime time, but on writers and producers to think more out of the box. Throw out the plot formulas and stop recycling them. Instead of blaming foreign shows, they can learn from them. Learn from them but not copy them. Because another problem with local shows, is copying plot lines from foreign series and localize the stories.

This bill being filed will just be a useless and pointless law. We do not need this. It is up to the local producers to come up with something new and creative. They have to take the risks and push the boundaries of story telling and not be confided within the same plot lines and formula.

There are already some shows that are not so stereotype and not falling prey to the same old plot of siding with the dark side as the series comes to a close. There is the soap of teen love story which is lighter in tone and filled with humor. I said not so stereotype because although the show is refreshing, it still used same old formulas of rich falling in love with the poor (the female lead being a housemaid and of the rich male lead's family), the plot of the male lead having amnesia and completely forgetting the female lead (something borrowed from another foreign show) and the complete turn around of the evil mother to someone totally new and defecting to the light side of the force on the show's last episode. Cheesy!

Again, a bill banning foreign shows on prime time is not the solution. The bill is in ineffective and will not do much to improve local shows. It lies with local producers to reclaim the prime schedules of daily programming.