Kudos to any production company for choosing to film a series in the middle of a pandemic. Not only do you have challenges of filming during a pandemic, where the director and crew have to be creative with interactions but choosing to film in a video chat style adds to the complexity of the filming. Couple that with young and green actors and what you end up with is a series with a lot of potential but a bit lacking.

Pandemic aside, Hook Up is a homemade series which doesn’t have the budget, equipment, or expertise that the exceptional Gameboys and Hello Strangers series have. Hook Up will be invariably be compared to those two as it shares the same video chat style, was filmed at the same time, and is one of the trailblazing Filipino series in this genre. However, it would be completely unfair to compare it solely against those two due to its inherent limitations beyond the pandemic.

The acting, directing, editing, and script of Hook Up looks to be geared as if it were a theatrical live play that you’d watch as a school drama production rather than a style based the limitations of a vid chat. The actors always seemed to be doing monologues instead of actually interacting with each other on a vid chat. At times it seemed like poor chemistry between two actors, as the conversations seemed so unnatural and scripted - one of those where I think I don’t talk to that way to other people on vid chat. However, if you look at it like a live drama production where your words have to convey so much more about what the character is thinking and feeling then you can kinda understand the way it was being portrayed and maybe why the chemistry seemed inconsistent. Imagine a dark stage with Mark Lee on one side and Henry on the other. As one talks, the spotlight would be focused on him while other one be in the dark.

The storyline of the relationship between Mark Lee (played by Mark Ersaga) and Henry (played by JC Lopez) was ok. It was decently developed but not clearly resolved - it felt as if they danced around the topical issues rather than creating a clear storyline and the twist and turns seem to be deliberate (segmented) rather than natural. I think this is due to the theatrical play style that the director chose to go with in this series. Much like a stage play, it’s hard to keep multiple storylines going. The biggest plus was the addition in the later half of the series of Lukas (played by Niko Badayos) as the call boy antagonist. He’s an unusual but an interesting character addition to the story.

The main actors are ok for nw actors. They need work but improving. Mark Erasaga is getting better since his first effort in Truly Very Yours. Both he and JC Lopez struggle with having to covey a lot in the monologue, theatre style. In the theatre you do that with deliberate movements and hand gestures, In the single frame, vid chat format you have to do it with your eyes, facial expressions, voice tones and subtle character actions which neither do an entirely consistent job at. The most successful character in this style was Tita Baby who plays Tita Cassie, the wise sage who always gives timely life/relationship advise to Mark and Henry. She’s so awesomely over the top and her character thrives in this format. As well as Niko Badayos as Lukas - his I know what I want monologue works really well in this format.

We all know that you can create an exceptional vid chat format series, even in this pandemic. Take the time to watch the greatness/master-class level series Gameboys and nearly as good Hello Strangers as excellent examples of how this style of filmmaking works. In this vain, Hook-up is ok. I think it has a lot of potential that’s held back a little by the theatrical style the director choses to film this series. I don’t know if that pandemic related or a style choice. This style makes it unique from the aforementioned two series. What it needs is for the main actors to develop further to pull it off.

Is it worth your time? Yes. There are other better series in the same genre from the Philippines and other countries now out there but it’s an ok way to kill time. To be fair to it, don’t compare against the best series out there. It doesn’t have the budget nor the experienced acting, directing, or screenwriting that those series have. It does however, have an interesting enough story, an interesting theatrical style, and the characters are endearing enough to make time to watch it.