the eclipse series: a review
i will forever love this series and itâs characters. it will be hard to let them go and i will surely come back to them for comfort or nostalgia. i will miss the eclipse fridays, the community built around it and coming here to spend hours reading everyoneâs breakdowns and theories.
the incredible cast! (best thing about the series)
first and khaotung as the main leads;
two amazingly talented actors with great real-life chemistry, that translated beautifully into akk and ayan. the dynamic that they created for akkayan, their micro-expressions and eye acting elevated this series! theyâre amazing at the emotional, the dramatic, the serious, the fluff, the suggestive, âŠi hope to see more of them together. gmmtv hit gold with them, finding two actors that match so well. they have what it takes to surprise us with a completely different concept and story. i look forward to see them separately too, as iâve enjoyed their previous roles and have seen the evolution and range of their individual talent.
neo and louis as the secondary couple;
i had already seen them together in futs, where they were very cute. i had also seen neo, in a couple of other shows. it was interesting seeing their duality. neo being usually a comic relief character, got to show a more serious and tough side, while louis went from loud and clingy, to reserved and distant. iâm curious of what more they can offer as a pairing, and would certainly support them as a main couple. theyâve said that they want to continue working together so, will gmmtv make them stay as a secondary couple forever?
they did great in their roles for the little time they had for onscreen development; as the conflicted young new teacher that chooses to compromise, the misguided kid that wants to be included and belong, and, as the conflicted student with big dreams of becoming an indie movie director, respectively. i think itâs time that aj gets a main role (maybe with ploy? they seemed to be pushing them together a lot). he really impressed me in ep 11 when he was mad at akk, there was something in his eyes, iâd like for him to explore that. iâd seen all three of them before in other projects and theyâre pretty consistent.
pak, tee and petch: the world remembers gang a.k.a. the youth rights club;
i loved them. they were the strong ones, the victims all along and who did nothing wrong! they wanted what's best for everyone. they deserve the world! the actors played them delightfully. a series centered around them would be incredible! they were never used for laughs. the show always took them seriously and so did the characters, and i am so thankful for that! this is unfortunately not the standard in bl series.
the adults: pâyai, pâsine, pâiang, pâjum and pâron;
the âadultâ actors that stood out were teachers waree and chadok, and the principal. they were incredibly intimidating, and played great antagonists. i loved to hate them. i have questions about their characters, though that has nothing to do with the actors, like: did waree believe in the curse? was the principal a teacher for chadok, the same way he was for akk? did the principal allow all those changes to suppalo after chadok resigned? and moreâŠ. i liked ayeâs mother, and was hopping to see more of her. i also enjoyed uncle dikaâs performance. we saw him only as flashbacks from different charactersâ eyes, and he succeeded in transmitting every good thing that they thought of him.
the idea of showing a school as an allegory for a nation isnât new, but it always has great potential, and i believe that they hit the spot many times! it wasnât necessarily innovative, but it was brave. a courageous story to tell, from itâs preproduction and itâs crew, to the social commentary and political messages at its core, verbalized mostly by the world remembers gang and ayan.
the mystery wasnât perfectly managed, but it also wasnât really the focus of the series. it was largely the background for these characters to exist and these relationships to develop. however, it did keep me guessing at times and asking different questions, that were later answered, one way or another.
the diversity of queer representation
my favorite thing about this show was the different types of lgbt+ journeys:
akk who seemed to be only starting it, who was so scared and repressed to be himself. his economic background already made him stand out in the school, he didnât need to also not be ânormalâ.
ayan who had already fully and confidently accepted who he was, thanks to his uncle and mother who were so supportive of him.
the 3jums who never really had the choice to hide, so they owned who they were and fought for their (and everyoneâs) right of self expression.
kan who knew but wasnât sure, tried to repress it because society made him think that it wasnât okay to feel what he felt.
thua who was out, not explicitly by choice. he couldnât hide it, but he could make himself small, take as little space as possible, to the point of never speaking up, so he would be ignored.
chadok, who unfortunately lost his fiancé because of his own fear of standing up for himself. he chose the same antiquated system that had already hurt him so much for years, the system that doomed his lover, over his own freedom.
the cinematography and technical aspects
they didnât have much budget, but the plot didnât really demand it. the direction was purposeful and the cinematography was skillful; there were some very beautiful shots throughout the series. the symbolism of the eclipse always very present, sometimes quite obviously, but often subtle and organic. technically it was well done, with deliberate lightning and the sound being better than most bls. there were some small continuity errors, the biggest imo being the hair lenghts changing between some scenes.
as a whole (mostly the last two episodes) the writing was somewhat underwhelming, not meeting my initial expectations, nor the potential of the series⊠while most of the elements to make this series exceptional were there, what really affected the quality of the writing ânot saying that it was otherwise perfect, but it was good enoughâ was that 12 EPISODES WERE NOT ENOUGH TIME!
this story, these characters, these conflicts needed, at least, a few more episodes to develop and come to a conclusion, at most, dividing everything into two seasons.
the pacing of the first 10 episodes was so pleasing to me. it gave me AND the characters, enough time to examine their feelings and talk through them. it focused on how the environment and the interactions in it affected the characters! we saw them exist in their world and with each other, without anything being rushed. it felt natural, i loved it.
but we lost this in episode 11. it was just revelation after revelation, leaving no time for the viewer, nor the characters, to process what was going on. unfortunately with one episode left, there wasnât much they could do. so they ended up skipping what had once been their main focus; the internal emotional journey of the characters.
episode 12 was cute and fun;
i loved that we got to see akk come out to his parents, as well as him and ayan introducing themselves as a couple to them. those are important moments in the lgbt+ journey! especially for a teen.
i loved to see how after being finally out, the freedom akk felt was visible not only in his relationship with ayan, but also in his face and his whole existence.
i loved all the moments between akk and ayan; the rooftop scene, the pool side scene, everything at the beach and in akkâs room, the little classroom exchange, the âin the words of a twitter mootâ mutual pinning,
i loved the full circle moments of opening and closing the series on the red boat, and, the school bathroom scene with the hoodies. these showed growth, making us think back at how akk was and felt at the beginning vs now; and how akk and ayan were and felt when they met vs now.
it brushed over the huge revelations of the previous episode and so the build up of the whole series fell flat.
the apology to the world remembers was one sentence each? i said it before, they deserved apologies and reparations! i needed akk to officially apologise to them, as well as thua, the prefects, ayan, all the students, and the teachers, too. i did like how akk wasnât expecting to be forgiven.
actually, within the friend group, no one really apologized to one another. i wanted group therapy full of tears and apologies.
the outing was not addressed (as expected, but i had a slimmer of hope).
the changes to the school (although great) felt unearned⊠we didnât see who made this changes and why? it just, felt weird to shove them in a couple of minutes at the end of the episode, when the school and its antiquated system were the main villain of the series! the change of heart of teacher waree also was too sudden.
i wanted to see a serious conversation between kan and thua about everything. i wanted thua to acknowledge his wrongdoings the way akk got to do, multiple times, with ayan. i wanted to see kan be there for him while he went through it. i needed this for closure with their characters and their relationship. these posts by heretherebedork go further into this better than i can. honestly, thuaâs character as a whole felt very abandoned to me. they hinted at him having a possibly abusive stepfather, but then it was dropped. they showed us signs mental health struggles, with him wanting to disappear (did i imagine that?), they dropped it too. his friendship with ayan, or whatever they had going, was also dropped at some point. i think that, with him, they focused too much on kan, and not enough on thua as an individual. heâs the only main character that didnât really grow and learn? everyone else ended different than they started.
WHAT WAS TEACHER SANI DOING AT THE BEACH WITH THEM, THEY WERE DRINKING? she traveled with them all the way to akkâs house⊠i was scared until the las second that she and wat would have a thing.
the ending felt a little too âcoming of ageâ teen movie. not very fitting when the series touched on quite serious and heavy topics. i donât mean the happy ending, i mean the way itâs was all so quickly wrapped up and summarized. i half expected the voice over to name each character and what they became. âafter graduation, wat became a big name in the indie film scene; the world remembers gang became youth leaders for the community; kan and thua decided to adopt singto and moved in together; and as for me and ayan, heâs thinking of studying political sciences, to no oneâs surprise. me, i donât know yet what i want to do with my life, but thatâs okay! for now we are taking some time off and traveling the world together, as boyfriendsâŠâ
all in all, i thoroughly enjoyed this series; the talented actors and lgbt+ diverse journeys being the main pull. a lot of work was obviously put into writing (most of) the characters, but the plot was underdeveloped. there was a weird tone and pace shift between the last three episodes, and i want to attribute that to a time issue. sincerely, i would not want to sacrifice the pacing of the first 10 episodes, for parts of 11 and 12 to feel less rushed. it needed additional episodes, not a faster pace.
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