Pastsenger (2023)

I’d like to travel to the past, to keep them from making this show

Okay, that title may have been a bit harsh. It’s not that bad, at least not the first half of it. The second half is absolute garbage, but let me elaborate.

The first thing that irked me about this show was how they dealt with the whole time traveling thing. I don’t know how you’d react if you suddenly traveled over 20 years into the future, but I sure as hell would freak out. I think that would be a very warranted response. However, Kiew barely even reacted when this happened to him. He was seemingly more freaked out about the existence of iPhones than the actual time travel part itself. The people he told also reacted extremely calmly, and believed him pretty much instantly. This wasn’t a huge flaw, but I just found it silly. For the fact that everything else in this show feels very cartoony, they could’ve definitely gone with a more over the top reaction in my opinion. But this was one of the smaller offences.

Like in many recent BLs, the much bigger issue was, sadly, again the chemistry between the two main characters, or rather the lack thereof. Cooper is great as Kiew. He’s very charming and adds a natural charisma to the character, which makes it easy to like him. He’s not really a fully fleshed out character (none of them really are), but he’s enjoyable to watch nonetheless. The one I take issue with is Marc, in the role of Bamee. For most of the time he’s on screen, he looks constipated or like he’s in permanent pain. Granted, this expression suits the character in some scenes, since he’s not really supposed to be bubbly or a happy go lucky kinda guy. The problem is that even in scenes that are supposed to show the two characters falling in love, or Bamee being at least somewhat happy, he still looks like he’s constipated. As does he in scenes, where he’s supposed to be angry. Marc really struggles getting the needed emotions across, leaving Bamee to look about as intimidating as a cupcake, even when he’s supposed to be furious. I don’t know if this is an issue within his acting itself, or if there was simply poor directing. But I saw him in My Gear And Your Gown, and I vaguely remember having had similar thoughts. So maybe he just needs a little more practice (or a lot).
I think the lack of romantic chemistry between Kiew and Bamee resulted from this subpar acting. Kiew was able to portray at least some sort of chemistry towards Bamee, but sadly, that wasn’t enough. I think if Cooper was paired with another acting partner, I could’ve enjoyed this much more than I did. But sadly, that wasn’t the case. I actually liked the bond Kiew and Bamee formed over time, I just didn’t feel the romance at all. They radiated big sibling energy to me. So I think the show would’ve actually been better if this was a tale about a platonic friendship, rather than a romance.

I usually suffer from side-couple-syndrome. So I was hoping that maybe they would knock it out of the park, and make up for what was lacking between the main couple. Sadly, this also didn’t happen. They had no solid build up, and while they had more chemistry than the main couple, there also wasn’t a lot of it. On top of that, the only thing they did, was talk about Kiew and Bamee, which felt strange. Especially given the fact that Plawan used to have a crush on Bamee, and also kinda sorta on Kiew, I think. (Don’t blame me for not being sure, even Plawan himself didn’t know what the writers were trying to do with his vague feelings towards the two main leads.)

One thing I did massively enjoy though, was the whole dynamic in their friend group. They had a very sweet and supportive bond, which was very nice to see. I also liked how much time we actually got to spend with the squad as a whole. Again, I think this show should’ve just been about their friendship, rather than adding in these lacklustre romances.

This show is filled to the absolute brim with cliches and tropes. There’s so many in there, you lose count. If you made a bingo card with all the BL tropes and cliches, you’d definitely get bingo at least twice! There’s the painful trope of mistaking the love interest’s brother as their boyfriend. There’s a scene of the main couple getting soaked by the rain, and then Kiew drying Bamee’s hair. There’s an injury that happens when the couple is cooking together. And of course, because this is a BL, poor poor Bamee was then unable to do anything by himself for like a week. He got burned on one hand, but apparently he forgot that he had a whole other functioning hand, because Kiew needed to feed him for days. And obviously, he needed to help him wash his hair too. At this point I wonder how these BL boys would live, if they didn’t have a boyfriend to take care of them. If one gets a minor injury, they would just die, because they cannot seem to figure out that it only takes one hand to eat with a spoon. Anyway! You also have the accidental falling into a kiss scene with the side couple. For good measure, throw in a scene of one love interest wiping the other down with a towel. Oh, and don’t forget drunken kissing that one of the characters doesn’t remember the next day. Add a spoon (or bucket) full of jealousy into the mix, and you got yourself a recipe for the most standard BL ever. One would think a story about time travel has more to offer than that, but sadly, it didn’t.

If you’re into science, I recommend you don’t watch this, because you might get a heart attack at their stupid plan of sending Kiew back to the past by literally zapping him with lightning. I’m not kidding. They attempted to generate as much electrical power as a lightning strike, and zap Kiew with it, hoping that would get him back to the past. I mean, sure! But he would’ve arrived there like a roasted chicken. Also, the subtitles kept talking about the electric power of thunder. I hope that was just a mistranslation, and they were actually talking about lightning. Or they really weren’t aware that thunder is only a sound, while it’s the lightning strike that holds the electricity. I don't know much about science, but I know at least that.

The show started to drag by episode 6. But it was a decent show up until then. Nothing mindblowingly good or bad. I would’ve probably rated this a solid 6 or 6.5 at this point, because it was entertaining enough and not offensively bad. But then episode 9 happened, and I was so close to just dropping this completely. If it weren’t for Cooper carrying the entire thing, I would’ve just given up.

You see, in episode 9 an incredibly forced, dumb and out of place amnesia plot line happens. I generally dislike that trope, especially since it’s never really done in a realistic manner. But this one was just especially poorly done. Because the plot needed him to, Bamee conveniently remembered everything aside from Kiew himself. That was the first dumb thing, but I was willing to look past that for the most part. But the way they handled it all was just horrible. Bamee’s step-mother, brother and friends all tried to pressure him into remembering Kiew. This went so far, that the step-mother actually made Bamee live with Kiew, despite not remembering anything about him. Imagine you’re suffering from amnesia, and your mother makes you move in with someone who is a total stranger to you, against your will. That’s horrible. Plawan was equally as bad, suggesting Kiew forces himself onto Bamee, thinking that maybe if they were intimate with each other, that would bring back his memories. It all was in such poor taste. Bamee acted like an asshole with his partial amnesia. That wasn’t really a problem, because that can actually happen. But when he regained his memory of Kiew, and kept pretending not to remember, I almost lost it. He played not only Kiew, but also Soda whom he had given hopes to. It was very messed up if you ask me. Obviously he only did it to keep Kiew from going back to the past, but it was still an asshole move.

This whole amnesia storyline felt so out of place. It’s like the time traveling plot came to a complete halt while this was happening. It felt like the writers had two ideas for two different series - one about time travel, the other about amnesia - and then they were forced to somehow morph it into one show. Which resulted in one big mess that sucked the life force out of me. It had one positive though! The scene where Franc (the former villain of the show) was pretending to date Kiew, in order to get Bamee to confess that he has regained his memory, had me laughing out loud. Franc and Kiew had more chemistry than Kiew and Bamee, if you ask me. They should’ve just ended up together, honestly. That would’ve been a brilliant plot twist and I would’ve definitely rated the show much higher if they had pulled that off. The other parts of the Franc storyline were problematic at best. Baiwan eventually falling for Franc, who had harassed her for a really long time (to the point where she needed to get a fake boyfriend and her friends needed to protect her), was pushing a really problematic message.

In my opinion, they should’ve cut the entire amnesia bullshit, and made this into a solid 6 to 8 episodes of time travel silliness. Because it was so dragged out, there was never a real sense of urgency about Kiew getting back to the past, even if we knew his mother’s and Bamee’s dad’s lives depended on it. It felt like even Kiew himself temporarily forgot that he was supposed to travel back. Altogether, you shouldn’t think about the whole time travel plot too much anyway, because hardly anything is explained.

The ending of the show was extremely weird. I feared that this would happen, but hoped it wouldn’t. But it did. If you saw it, you know what I’m talking about. If you didn’t, I’ll spare you the weird implications the end of it all had.

On top of all that, the background music was horrible. It sounded like elevator music, or the jingles you hear when you’re put on hold while calling a company. Once you hear it, you cannot unhear it, and it gets extremely annoying.

If I had dropped this after half of the show, I would’ve rated this a lot higher than I do now, after finishing the whole thing. Cooper was definitely the one carrying the show with his natural charm. He deserved a better script than this. If you’re a fan of Cooper, you’ll probably get some enjoyment out of this show. If you’re not, I wouldn’t recommend watching this. Or you might also wish you could travel back in time, just to undo your decision of wasting time on this.

Leia Mais

Starts with good potential but the development isn't always good

First of all, the time-travel premise is fun but not very well done. Why would a spirit transport Kiew to the future as a punishment? Nevertheless, there is a compelling conflict: Kiew falls in love with Bamee in 2022, but is also morally obliged to return to 1995 or his mother will die of grief, so it is going to be a poor decision whether he decides to stay in 2022 or return to 1995. (Yes, he actually does have a choice because he can return to 1995 as long as he fulfills his promise to the spirit).

Unfortunately, neither the time-travel premise nor the conflict is fully exploited. Sometimes the story veers into illogical or frivolous developments. For instance, the about-turn in the character of Bamee's stepmother is not logical at all. Then there is the time when Bamee suffers from amnesia--it's understandable that he would become cold to Kiew because he can't remember him. However, it does not make sense that his character would be so different that he would do things without thinking about the feelings of the brother he dotes on and still remembers. The beginning scene in which Kiew dreams of kissing Bamee even before he has travelled to the future where he meets Bamee is also not explained.

Overall, Past Senger isn't a totally bad BL series, but I would find it hard to come up with a strong reason to highly recommend it. If you are bored and have watched all the better BLs, why not? But there are probably more interesting things out there.

Leia Mais

The fantasy series ended into a reality

The final episode is what I am looking for. This fantasy series finally ended into a reality where their love wins the impossibility. Ep12 is the most solid episode of this series. No annoying background sound and no overacting scenes. It's just pure mellow scenes and the emotional OST.

Episodes 6-10 are somewhat disappointing but the series fairly brought its way back to being decent. I love the past and present Kiew's friends. Well, it ended but Baiwan couldn't still pick the right one. hahaha

I know Past-senger has a low-budget production but even a low-budget production can make a better choice of sound effects and video editing. The storyline was so good but they really picked annoying BG sounds, messy script and cut the scenes in the worst times. Am I right? Yes!\

Cooper, Baiwan-Frong-Pokpong trio, a little bit of Bamee and the OST are the stronghold of this series.

Leia Mais

Unexploited potential buried in implausible ending

The series started with an intriguing premise. Kiew, the main character, is transported into the future where he connects with his now older friends and their kids that who are nominally the same age as he and become part of his new friendship group. The writers could have exploited more story potential. Kiew's old friends having matured beyond him could have provided some story moments. The changes in societal attitudes and technology could also have been used more.

Kiew is distraught to find out his mother's and best friend's fates that he thinks are due in part to his sudden disappearance and is determined, with the support of his older friends, to find a way back to make things right. In the meantime, he becomes more and more involved with the current generation of friends and starts a romantic relationship with one of them.
This could have been a fantastic story with him attempting to find a way back and slowly coming to the mature realisation that his future has to be in the present and not the past.

Ironically, any story involving fantasy and the supernatural can't be fantastical; it needs to have a plausible framework to make it work. Unfortunately the writers thought they could get away with breaking the time line constraints of time travel fiction and presented us with an unsatisfying ending.

Leia Mais

Errr the ending? ?

Ok so I really enjoyed this up until around episode 9ish. I thought Cooper was so funny he even made me laugh loud when he was hanging off the bed, I wasn’t expecting that.
He made the series fun and I was really hopeful that would keep going until the end.
Mark was a lovely partner for Cooper, I thought they were cute together but it was a little slow to get off the mark.
The ending urgh. Ok so I thought the whole amnesia part went on for too long. I could understand his reasoning (slightly) but I just thought that could have all been done in one episode.
The part where he came back as a grown man was confusing because at first life had just gone on in Bamees world, his dad wasn’t there, they just couldn’t remember who was missing. Then all of a sudden dad is back, Kiew is a man and is going to go against his mate to get with his barely legal son. Nah, I felt like I would have even taken a sad ending over this. It was just too weird. I’m not bothered about age, it just felt too forced.
I’m a little disappointed because like I say I was really enjoying it until this.

Leia Mais

Despite the bad directing...

Towards the middle of the series, I finally thought the story line gets much better as the I felt when Kiew planning on leaving Bamee just when the younger finally left his dark place; dad, step mom and now Kiew ! Oho~ Haven't this boy been through enough?

Anywho, I've been following Cooper & Marc's drama & series and I say they acting skills is a great one and they have so many potentials. I mean, have you seen We Are & My Engineer?! I think it's a great series; the plot is there! However, due to the poor directing for this series, they really looked bad. Trust me, there are so many times I wanted to drop it.

I love the adult versions of Kiew's friend. They are so hilarious and never serious with each other; always have each other's back. Nevertheless, the teens supporting actors (Bamee's friend & brother) acting is kinda cringe, needs more work on that.

Plan & Mudaeng is worrisome, still being a school kid - age difference; already have his hands on the kid.

As many viewers mentioned, the ending is really cringed & creepy for me. But oh well. What's done is done. Welp ~

Leia Mais

Everything was fine, until...

Yes, I did enjoy the drama then, and I re-watched it today and decided that it was time for a review.
If you look at the story, it is not the first time traveling drama but it's usually in the past, here it's in the future.
It is cute as its about sexual discovery for a boy born in the 80s and a teenager, Kiao, of the 90s (at the end, we're from the same generation), so is reluctance to accept loving a boy is understandable. Yet, it's 2022 (in the drama), in Thailand and it's more acceptable (again, in the drama). So he fall in love with his best friend's son Bamee who had died years ago. At first, he just want to take care of him like a nephew, but his feelings towards him grew deeper. Some people may think it's creepy, but you need to remember that at the end, he's still a teenager and they're the same age. Plus, even if his real friends are now older, he is still young with no experience . However, he grow during the drama. He want to go back in time, not only to save his own mother, but also to save his best friend (Bamee's dad).
The trouble comes when Kiao tried to go back but got sucked back into the future and Bamee forgets him. To me, this is when Kiao should have tried to change his lover's future as he knew he had to go back soon. He should have make Bamee love someone else. THAT would have been the highlight of the drama. I would have loved for exemple that in the past, Bamees dad would have been in love with Kiao, and that why he got divorce instead of dying and they could have been together. Kioa not remembering his love for Bamee also would have been more logical as he changed the future. He would have been better if he only remembered missing is mother and his best friend.
So, by not doing something more mature and logical, the have chosen to make Bamee (20) meet the OLD Kiao (40) and remember him then AND KISS !!! Yep, that was what many people thought nope, that's wrong!!! First because Bamee has his dad back, second, what would he kiss a guy twice his age, and his dad's friend? And why is Kiao, who was very cute, still single and waiting for his best friend's son? So this was what made us think the ending was so wrong!
If they wanted to make it simpler, they could have chosen to send Bamee in the past and live with Kiao and his mum and make everyone forget about them! After all, his step-mum wasn't his mum and could have had his parents closer to him while growing close to them while loving the man of his dream!
But hey, they didn't ask us what we thought if they choose this ending, or if they should have done something else. For the reviews, they really f.cked up!!!

Leia Mais

концовка которая добила

И так...Я попалась на крючок с необычным сюжетом. Итог... разочарование. Я честно пыталась искать логику, смысл, но потом поняла - смотри как чью-то дикую фантазию. Первый вопрос- это что был за конец? Таиланд... Вы там как? лол...ладно, хорошо, пусть будет так (опять отсылка на фантазию сценаристов) но вы хотя бы понимали, что актеры абсолютно разные? Если бы главный герой так и состарился, то все-равно это два разных человека. Обратили внимание на глаза? У одного карие, а у старшего вы хотите сказать выцвели на столько? лол, ну ладно. Я правда смотрела как в меме: ежик плакал, но продолжал есть кактус. Столько скачков по сценарию. Между всеми героями - парами, не было ни химии, ни вообще ничего. Единственное отлично показана дружба. Мне нравятся сюжеты про путешествия во времени, но тут... и концовка меня убила в край. я просто сидела в фейспалме и орала неееет. Ну Бами забыл Ки и хватит об этом. Нет, нам дают взрослого мужика, который смотрит на мальчика (ну он ему как сын уже получается) как маньяк какой-то. О влюбленности во взгляде и речи нет, там реальный хищник жаждущий своей добычи. Об актерах тоже не могу ничего сказать. Единственный за кого я переживаю - это Купер. После двух прекрасных ролей, ему стали давать бип роли. И эта не исключение. Я искренне надеюсь, что в будущем у него будут хорошие роли и он будет счастлив.

Leia Mais

I honestly don’t even know what to say

It’s okay to watch if you like boring and cliche dramas. I don’t get why its even 12 episodes, and i dont know why i keep watching it. i guess im just curious how the MC will get back home and IF he even will. The drama overall is boring, and the acting is really not good. The emotions are obviously fake (even when they laugh), and it’s really hard to get into the drama. The only potential i see here is Cooper, he would be really good in some comedy etc but definitely not romance. You could watch the first episode, and judge it yourself, because it just won’t get any better.

Also its my first time writing a review, so i get that it could be not helpful at all

Leia Mais

scifi turned to reality

Past-senger..
The title really caught my attention.
From the trailer to the end of the story, you will undeniably hook with the series.
STORY
The story was unique in bl genre (for me, this is my first series to watch with this kind of bl genre) but the idea of going to the future was really a big no, that it will happen in real life situation, but let us set it aside since it was just a story. I like the idea that the story was focus on the title itself Kiew as a time traveler (past-senger) that he learned something in the near future that he can used. The thing that was caught my attention to the series is the last episode where in Kiew as a time traveler he won't be able to get the future gadgets to the past, the time that he was still exists in the future when he returned to his time and lastly the time that Kiew talk to Bamee. Creepy they say at their present age in that story but let's face it, there are some relationships that exists like that.
ACTING/CAST
The main couple was lit! Been watching Cooper at My Engineer and Marc at My Gear and Your Gown. They hit their role. I really love the way they act it. They were really into it. Hope to see them both together again in another series. Not really familiar with the other casts but they were really lovable and funny at the same time. The older ones can act like as a teenager and the younger ones can be matured in their roles also.
MUSIC
Really! I've been looking forward for the MV of the OST of this series, even though I cannot understand Thai language I was able to love the music because of the tune of the music that I think that it gives the good message of the song that was connected to the series. Every time it plays in the series I can't help myself but to listen to it.
REWATCH VALUE
Yes! I want to rewatch it over and over again. I love the story. Been following it from the trailer up to the last episode.

Leia Mais