soap opera watching again

i only started to watch mara clara a week ago. this abs-cbn soap opera got my attention only because my students were watching it and my co-teachers seemed to be into it as well. so, i caught the episode whereby mara and clara got kidnapped.

so, what makes it work? abs-cbn once again has hit a goldmine because the dialogue is witty and natural. it's also quite honest in a sense that the characters articulate thoughts that the viewers might actually be thinking. i am hoping that abs-cbn will do a very good ending to this. over the years, my experience in watching soaps from abs-cbn has led to the disappointment in how they end it.

now, over at abc5 there is another remake, babaeng hampaslupa. now, i started watching this because a batchmate repeated some of its lines and she was so into it. i've realized why i can't seem to really get into it. babaeng hampaslupa suffers from choppy editing. because there are too many characters and big stars, sequences are cut into scenes involving each one. this, sadly, has resulted to short scenes whereby these characters and actors are not given a highlight at all. then, there are stereotypes far worse than mara clara.

mara clara works because most of the actors are new and not exactly good looking except for bobby andrews and desiree del valle, among others. babaeng hampaslupa has all the big stars from susan roces to alice dixson so this must be tough for the director because of the pressure to make sure all the stars get ample exposure.