Amigo de Cama (2023)

Too much bad (especially the writing) wiped out the good

LIKEs:
Apartment and office sets were well designed.
Location scenes, like the temple and the Aunt’s place, the boating moments= beautiful
Good and appropriate wardrobe
Music that helped express feelings of the characters due to the lyrics being sung, were well chosen.
Actors and actresses for the most part well casted.
Finally a psychiatrist is suggested in a Thai drama where the main character goes through trauma!
I also liked that Uea’s healing was gradual.
The issue with the Stepfather was handled abruptly, but at least he was punished
Wardrobe was suitable and fashionable.

DISLIKES:
Writing:
UEA is abused by: mother, uncle, ex-boyfriend and Boss Krit
Ridiculous amount of abuse towards UEA, that by the time the Boss Krit gets in on the abuse, it has become sadly laughable.
Too many sex type scenes, so there is no impact by their intimacy. There wasn’t much chemistry between the Male leads, even though they tried to make it so.
Under developed characters: King’s back story
Plot holes were noticeable and the script was poorly created.
Every bad review on here talks about the terrible writing, so I won’t repeat what they’ve covered.
Production:
Bad editing where scenes cut off abruptly and then more filler scenes. Very bad editing. (Even towards end of series)
Music:
Abruptly playing music, even just audio while actress or actor speaking, then cutting it off suddenly. Doesn’t add suspense or anything and drowns out the voice speaking.
Acting:
The forced crying was just terrible acting. They could have panned the camera away, put in eye drops and made better crying moments. When the character Jade cried in the last episode it was so bad I hit mute.
Uea’s mother, the actress was not good. She over did everything, but that might have been the Director’s fault.
Directing:
Overly long moments where the actor/actress paused too long or stared forever, etc. This caused pacing issues, and the time could’ve been used more wisely.

OVERALL:
As with all Thai dramas the product placement was overly present. Unfortunately the bad writing and editing, etc., weighed down the potential of this drama. I wont rewatch it and there are better BL dramas to watch, so I wont recommend this either. Waste of time.

Leia Mais

I dont know what the focus was...

I dont know what the focus was....... You have a title like this with very pretty actors who dont hold back on the sensual scenes. You expect a fluffy fun romp of a show with a bit of hate, sass, and tension between Uea and King who dont exactly hit it off in the beginning. The show is clearly servicing... tracing fingers on bodies ecetera ecetra. All of this is meant to provoke a particular response. A spicy edge, no holding back kind of deal. Then suddenly you are hit hard with a flood of trauma after trauma of Uea's backstory. Anytime you think it was already bad, you get hit with something else. Uea's past is fraught with trauma and somehow he becomes a beacon in the current day that brings in more abuse in nearly all aspects of his relationships. So immediately my mind goes off and I had an unsettling thought.......is this show trying to provoke a response with this too? With Uea's trauma? Because thats pretty messed up if so. But after watching it to the end, I think it's more of a problem of doing too many things at once and the drama became unfocused because of it. So what came out in the end was a confused juxtaposition of the sexy time scenes side by side with the traumatic experiences that threw me off. Since they piled a load on Uea's story, there was no time to go through it all to unpack it. The drama tried to do too much and it just didnt work. But with the negatives aside, I do have positives. I particularly liked the actor who played King. I found his emotions believable and out of the entire cast he stood out to me the most. Had he been given a better story, better dialogue, and Im sorry to say a better acting partner...Actually, just a new project entirely.....I would watch that to see how he does. I think with the actor who played Uea, he was too...how do I say? Pretty? But, hear me out. When he is sobbing and breaking down, that's when I thought...pretty. Im not talking about "pretty" as in a beautiful performance, but too pretty as in...he's too perfect in appearance and in his acting. He doesnt let himself become imperfect, messy, or ugly. They made him look too angelic, flawless, and always put together and perfect. He doesnt look exhausted. He isnt even slightly disheveled or disoriented. I get that we gotta make these actors look beautiful. But, let's say there is no getting around a flawless image. You can still present a beauty who clearly has been through some shit with a skilled actor. It was impossible for me to believe that this is the same guy who experienced all of that trauma. His acting felt acted and not embodied. I dont think he was the right fit for this role. Clearly not the only reason why this drama didn't work for me, but its a contributing factor. Overall if i had to rate this, it's a 5.5 out of 10 for me.

Leia Mais

Way too much of everything

this is my first time giving a low rating like that but I think its just my personal preferences that made me go with 4 stars only. I dropped this series because it was too much of uae's trauma scenes, too much off these sexual scenes with king. I mean sum hook ups are fine duh but every dayum 5 minute a s*x scene was really too much and it took the special meaning s*x can have in a relationship. I just wished for more focus on the development in Kings and uaes relationship but I also only watched 4 episodes. I just don't want to keep up with all these unnecessary s*x scenes, trauma scenes. But that's just my preference.

Leia Mais

Highkey Overrated

It's clear that the casting of the main couple did a lot of the heavy lifting in making this show seem better than it is, don't get me wrong, NetJames' acting is spot on! The writing however...

I really tried to like this show, and it started off with potential;
- Having a mature show with two consenting adults is hard to come by in BL so I was intrigued as to how they would approach it.
- I like the inclusion of setting boundaries for hooking up and showing that consent is important.
- A small detail I really liked was showing them going to the doctors to get tested, it's not shown in BLs because I feel like some cishet female BL watchers don't really see gay relationships as real relationships lol but anyway it's important to bring attention to this kind of stuff.
- I liked that it didn't feel like I was watching a straight couple, too many LGBTQ dramas end up shoving their couples into the heteronormative box, even though Uea presents more on the feminine side and vice versa it didn't fall into straight-ness so I can appreciate that.
- I don't like the way they wrote Uea's trauma, him being constantly harassed and assaulted throughout the whole series, I found to be kinda "inspriration porn" ish, it just felt like the show kept belittling Uea rather than having him heal from his trauma.
- Tell me why the HELL did King send that video of Uea getting assaulted to the whole damn office without consent... Top 1 thing NOT to do to your boyfriend who has a lot of sexual trauma.
- Overall King's character felt flat, his only personality trait was that he was a sleazy player but OH? He's secretly kind? Never done before!
- Uea had every right to run away and take time for himself and never come back, but King just expects him to come back to the office... Like uh okay?
- I'm so tired of dramas not knowing basic biology, you can't sick from standing in the rain for three minutes, let alone bedridden; unnecessary sick episode, should've gone without it.
- Overall the writing felt lazy, either Uea has a trauma or they are having sex, nothing else really happens.
- You can't put Tutor in the intro for the whole series and only have him appear in the last two seconds of the final episode, it feels like a scam.

Conclusion: If you like trauma and gay sex, watch it I guess

Leia Mais

Thirsty Bathrobe Bois The Series

Firstly. I don't vibe with starting off this arrangement while one was drunk. I think in the BL world we've evolved a lot from that controversial narrative and this series didn't need that. I get Uea "hates" King at the beginning, but come on just have him be lonely and horny one night to start off the friends with benefits stuff. I also put "hates" in quotes because Uea "hating" King was for really dumb reasons. They say he's a player but we don't see that much and honestly for someone whose a "player" he was very quick to want to only have this FWB arrangement with Uea. There was never cheating or bad flirting or anything of the sort. So I think Uea was being too judgy at the beginning. Though the poor boys been through a lot, like damn they put his character through hell so I got over it.

One question I had throughout the series was: What is up with all the mirror shots? Like I'm not sure if they were trying to be artistic or something lol. But it didn't work and it was very distracting. Another question I had was if we were going to get a side couple. Which we didn't and that was surprising! I was fine with it because it lent more time for King and Uea. However, the sexy scenes, trauma bombing and arguments were getting kind of stale after awhile.

So the ending. What an abrupt af proposal and ending, like did they run out of filming time? It was really weird and poorly paced. Also the "setup" at the end with Jade and Tutor's character lollll was so stupid. What a lack of a role! Overall this was okay. If you want spicy scenes and thats it, just skip around the series since the plot isn't super important.

Leia Mais

I'm still confused

At first I thought that the problem was me - this is a series that seemed very interesting based on the trailer alone, so I wondered if I my expectations were too big to begin with.
After watching 10 episodes (and having a hard time finishing the last two), I realized that the problem is in the series itself.

First of all, the idea that is supposed to be at the base of the series is not very clear. At the beginning I thought it would be some kind of spicy enemies-to-lovers story, but the ingredients weren't quite there - the reasons for Uea to dislike King so much are not solid enough to be convincing, and King's opinion of Uea at the beginning is a complete mystery. When the FWB situation started, I hoped that these things would be explored more as the series went on, but it never happened.
Instead of that, the story took an unexpected turn as it revealed Uea's turbulent past. I didn't mind the presence of such themes, but I was expecting them to be taken seriously and to be explored properly, which (again) never happened. If anything, it looked more like whoever wrote the story wanted Uea to have as many traumatic experiences and toxic people in his life as possible. I started to wonder if someone in the production team believes that "trauma is sexy" or something like that.
The series itself ended up failing with both the FWB story and the abuse survivor story, by never diving deep enough in either theme. The agreement between Uea and King becomes secondary very quickly, and Uea's problems only seem to grow in number. The relationships between the characters (not only Uea and King, but also their friends, colleagues and family) were also never shown properly, making their interactions always sound ambiguous - I was never sure whether one was supposed to be a close friend or a well-intentioned acquaintance. The miscommunication (which I was half hoping would not be there) and the awful pacing did the rest of the work to ruin it for me.
The acting is good enough, but since the story is so lacking in the first place, I was not able to enjoy it as much as I wished to. As for the music, it was too repetitive to add anything to the scenes. The sexy scenes were pretty mostly because the actors themselves looked pretty, I believe.

I was able to finish the whole thing thanks to some miracle, but I have no intention to touch this series ever again. I wish the writers chose one route and did it well instead of adding so many elements and handling them so badly. Its potential was wasted entirely and I can't bring myself to recommend it to anyone at all.

Leia Mais

EXCITING AND SEXY

This is the type of BL that feels similar to a wattpad fanfic with the amount of trauma the main character goes through. Whether that’s good or bad is up to you, I personally enjoy it because there's never a dull or boring moment. I enjoy how they chose to resolve the conflict and the way they handled the trauma with Uea in the end, I was worried in the beginning but they handled it surprisingly, very well and they are doing a pretty good job serving justice and punishing those who deserve it.

I absolutely love a good "friends with benefits" and "enemies to lovers" concept. This show has been extremely sexy with two actors who have fantastic chemistry in this series. They fit so well together and compliment each other very well both in aesthetics and personality.

I know originally this was supposed an 8 episode series and initially I thought its too short to properly resolve everything but honestly I would've been fine with episode 8 being the finale. A lot of my initial concerns and questions have been resolved and answered and I like the extra scenes they put into the last two episodes to really wrap things up.

Leia Mais

A fun watch that falls short

I want to applaud the consent in this series. It is not often explicit, especially not in nc heavy series. Speaking of nc, they were a bit lackluster. The heavy music over it and no 'love making sounds' (like smooching?)-- how do people expect me to get into it when all I see is some weirdly put together montage of them kissing and licking each other... The hottest scene to me wasn't even an nc scene, but the scene with pinkish lights were King and Uea are laying on their stomach, King on top of Uea, and they're talking.

Acting wise it's also a bit awkward at times, but fun to watch. James did really well in some dramatic/traumatic scenes, but others were a bit hard to watch. I like Net's acting. He's cute. Actually, they're both cute. The rest of the cast is forgettable and also not that great. Yim's character (I forgot his name) got on my nerves at one point with his 'crying'.

The ending felt a bit rushed.

6.0 all in all because it did well on some topics (consent, trauma, relationship development, I just love netjames), but lacked a lot as well (how is it focussed on nc (they're friends with benefits ffs) but the nc scenes are so lackluster, the acting and dialogue was awkward at times, the plot was weak, the ending was rushed, some things did not get resolved).

Leia Mais

Average

This was not so good but it wasn’t so bad either, it was just basically average IMO.
People who go through the type of trauma Uea did, need to seek professional help. This BL dramas infer that once you fall in love, you automatically get healed, I am by no means a professional but I don’t think it works that way. The one series that I have watched where one of the main character was suffering from mental health problems and was in therapy was The Eight Sense.
There was some heavy emotional scenes in this but I felt it didn’t translate enough through the acting, there was some crying scenes but no actual tears were shed. The actor that played King did the best job IMO and was hence the bright light/spot in the acting department of this series.
This is another series that I have watched where the parents were there for the engagement (first was Hidden Love), is that becoming a trend now in dramas?
There were some steamy steamy scenes in this (I guess that’s what some people referred to as soft porn in their reviews) so if you like that then you won’t be disappointed.
I won’t be rewatching this though.

Leia Mais

Jumping Out Of This Bed

Going into this drama, I really didn't have high expectations. Based on the title alone, I figured it would be something pretty mindless, something I wouldn't have to concentrate on too much. And in many ways, I was correct. It suffers from a severe lack of story or plot, the characters, while charming in their own ways, are not well fleshed out, and thus far, there's just a lot left out. That being said, it also has some nuggets that I actually really appreciated like the focus on consent, the way mental health is addressed, and the absence of a few all too common tropes. Those nuggets don't make it a good drama, but the fact that they are present is promising and makes me hope other dramas will follow suit in that regard.

Again, the storyline/plot is severely lacking. While I wasn't expecting anything deep, I did expect there to be some semblance of a plot. Instead, the first 6 or so episodes is essentially made up of our leads flirting, mostly on King's part, and a fair number of awkwardly cut bedroom scenes. And then suddenly, it's like they decided that they actually did have a story to tell and the sex scenes all but disappeared and now its time to focus on Uea's trauma and fixing everything. On the one hand, I like that justice was served, but it also didn't flow with the rest of the story. The final episode didn't add anything really other than more lovey dovey scenes between our leads and introducing Tutor's character of Mai from Middleman's Love.

Speaking of Uea's trauma, good lord did they dump on the poor guy. What I initially expected and could have gotten on board with, was something where both Uea and King had some kind of trauma which came to light as their FWB relationship developed into something more and they helped each other cope. Instead, everything falls on Uea. He's abused by his mother and sexually assaulted by his step-father, his ex AND his boss and those are just the big ones. How he's functional at all is beyond me. And King? Well, there's nothing really wrong with his family other than his parents wanting to arrange a marriage for him and his mother seeming a bit hard-headed. Again if the trauma had been shared between King and Uea, I think it could have created something interesting, but with it all belonging to Uea, it just feels like overkill. The sexual assault perpetuated by his boss, however, does open the door for two positives. First, the fact that even though Krit is related to the main boss, there is no leniency. It was gratifying to see someone higher up in the company taking care of his employees, to the point that he gives Uea information to see a psychologist. The second positive is the fact that Uea's deteriorating mental health is addressed at all. He talks about seeing the psychologist and he's on medication to help keep his mental health in a good place. With so many of these dramas you have characters that clearly need professional help, but their mental health is never addressed or is skimmed over and it's treated like having a hot boyfriend solves all your problems. No, it doesn't. It helps to have someone there to support you and love you, certainly, but they can't replace actual professional help.

The character's themselves don't make much sense. A good part of that is because they're so one dimensional, King in particular. And maybe I'm just forgetting, but I don't recall Uea's animosity towards King ever really being explained other than he just doesn't like the fact that he's a player. For the way he treats him initially, it felt like it should have been something much more personal. I understand not being a fan of a player, but his reaction felt over the top. There also wasn't enough background information to understand his relationship with his family. All that's shown is the trauma and nothing else. I know trauma affects everyone differently, but I wanted to know more about his state of mind. With the level of abuse he suffered, why did he maintain any kind of contact with his family aside from his sister? Why, as an adult, did he let his family continue to treat him the way they did until he finally just snapped? Same with Krit, he was clearly being sexually harassed, and yet, he didn't even try to report it? And his interactions with King showed that he could stand up for himself and speak his mind, so why didn't he with others? There's just so little to the character that it was impossible to even begin to try and understand his mindset and what he was thinking. Same with King, I don't have a good feel on why he loves Uea so much aside from physical attraction. And some of his reactions just don't make sense. His assumption that Uea was willingly with Krit the night Uea was assaulted was completely irrational. He knew Krit was harassing Uea, he knew Uea didn't like it, so where did that thinking come from? Furthermore, with the whole arranged marriage, why he didn't shut that down right off the bat didn't make sense either. Why was it so hard to tell his office mates that he had no interest in this girl, he loved someone else, this was being forced on him by his parents and he was looking for a way out? I'm aware that both these instances were likely included to fuel the drama and to create a rift between King and Uea, but if you're going to create drama, at least make it believable to some degree. I also took issue with Uea's treatment of King even after they were together. There were times where he was clearly baiting him, daring him to break the rules he had set in place. I didn't appreciate that, especially when it came down to refusing to let King touch him in any way there towards the end, even in a non-sexual manner. It was so clear that he was taunting King and enjoying himself doing it. It's one thing if it's mutually understood that this kind of behaviour is okay and desired by both parties, but I never got that impression from King so it just made it uncomfortable to watch.

The one positive with both these characters was the aspect of consent. Considering what he'd been through, consent was obviously a big deal to Uea and I liked the fact that they laid out rules before beginning their FWB relationship, although King didn't always strictly follow them. I also appreciated that King really did respect Uea and made a concerted effort to follow his rules for the most part and always made sure that he was okay. The one downside is that Uea was drunk their first time together and I'm guessing King was not fully sober either. However, this is somewhat addressed later on when Uea gets drunk again and comes onto a sober King who does not let the same thing happen twice. Uea even mentions afterwards when King asks for a reward for showing restraint that he behaved as he should have. It's something that's not often seen in a lot of BLs, certainly not repeatedly throughout the drama and I found it's inclusion to be a big positive.

The acting is hit or miss. Net and James are both attractive young men, there's no denying that, but to be an actor, you need to be more than just a pretty face. They are both old enough and have been in enough other dramas that I expected more from them. James' acting felt wooden at times and he is not good with emotional scenes. The crying with no tears got old fast. It feels fake and takes away from the emotional impact the scene could have had. Net is better, but his expressions got a bit monotonous after a while. He did have some great moments where he absolutely nails a scene, he has the ability to convey a lot of emotion with his eyes alone. Their chemistry was also hit or miss. There were times where they seemed to match really well and other times it felt forced. I liked Yim in Cutie Pie, his acting and character were two of the only things I liked in that drama, but here he just felt very one note. It doesn't help that Jade just isn't that interesting of a character, but I feel like he could have done more. He also suffered from the whole issue of crying without tears which seemed very fake. Honestly, the only actor that I felt gave a good performance thus far was Ya Janya as Uea's aunt. I know she's barely featured, but her emotions and reactions felt more raw and real than anyone else's.

The production value is a bit meh. There's some awkward editing, scenes that were just cut weird. Some of the cinematography got a bit repetitive. There were angles that just didn't work, odd lighting and in general it was just a hodge podge because there were some really beautifully shot scenes, it's just that none of it was consistent. The music was overall pretty forgettable. I gave it a 7.5 because while it wasn't memorable, I also didn't find it distracting.

As expected, the final episode didn't make much of a difference. It's basically forty minutes of fluff and not much else. I think this drama could have been a lot more than it is, I think it could have gone deeper and been more than just the sex scenes and trauma, but unfortunately that's not what happened. It has a few positives and I will say that I think they are major positives, but the negatives just far outweigh and overshadow them. Here's to hoping that Middleman's Love is better than this mess.

Leia Mais