If there’s so much more to look forward to movies and tv series, it is the new plots and standards for Philippine Cinema and Series, I’m proud to say that from the movies released for the MMFF (Metro Manila Film Festival) last year, there’s a lot of big changes to the plots, the character build ups and cinematography. Filipino production has exerted efforts to catch up with the standards set by Korean TV series and Movies for the past few years.

This year, Star Magic (A popular celebrity agency and production in Philippines) has gone to lengths unimaginable, releasing so many TV Series that are best to compare to some of the Korean Dramas we have watched in the past. First of all, I would love to speak highly about the recently completed series Senior High, Starring Andrea Brillantes, playing the role of twin girls who entered an a elite school only for one of them to die and one to investigate the whole incident.

The series unravelled different sides of the school they were in, discovering that behind one twin’s death is more deeper cases of violence and abuse. By the power of money and authority governing the school, many of the students are scared to speak the truth and to be even heard and so, for years, they spent hell in the school until Luna died and Sky has to act as the main detective for her sister’s death. This series showed similar vibes to Riverdale and some other American tv series but at the same time, they managed to keep an originality by doing some twists among each character’s lives.

This article however is not about this series, but it is about the recently ended drama, suspense , rom-com style TV series, played by Belle Mariano and Donny Pangilinan. The story is about a Filipino-Chinese Family who tragically lost one of their members but after so many years, the death is still a mystery to everyone. Belle, playing the role of Ling, daughter of a Fil-Chi Business man who owns a huge company, was abducted and Donny playing the role of Bingo, saved her from the bad guys, making Ling in debt of Bingo for all the money Bingo has spent during the entire time she was being held captive.

Ling, as a business woman, promised to pay Bingo but not until they unveil who tried to kill her amongst her family. She initially suspects that it is one of her sisters because she grew up in the household where no one actually accepts her as family because her mother, Divine, the one who was killed, was her father’s third wife or the second mistress. Ling was determined to not only try to reveal to everyone who tried to kill her but also the person who killed her mother, despite of the fact that the police considered the death of her mother as a suicide.

Along came Bingo into her life, but fate did its own power by making them fall in love with each other only to tangle their lives more because Bingo’s mother is one of the people who was paid by Ling’s Aunties to get rid of the secrets that her aunties are keeping which involves her mother.

This connection has gone to a crazy obstacle of them covering all the possible evidence they are getting every single time, connecting them to different scenarios of what could’ve happened the night Ling’s mother died and Ling’s abduction.

Of course, I will not spoil the entire series because it has almost 100 episodes to watch and binge on. As a movie and TV series reviewer, this is the first I actually managed to finish an entire series without getting bored because I kind of like the story plots, of course there were some loopholes, it wasn’t that perfect but I kinda liked how they managed to create alternate realities or suspects for this entire series. They also managed to confused the viewers on who the killer was and who the perpetrator really is. This is the same as the Royal Blood, starred by Dingdong Dantes, where the series was also about the mystery of who killed their father and they just knew who the real killer was while filming the series, all the actors and actresses didn’t even know who among them was the killer until few days before the last shooting scenes.

This is how I wanted some tv series especially for those suspense, thriller and mystery genres. They deserve the mystery until its end and CBML series delivered it very well. I’ve seen so many people reacted about how surprised they were about the ending but yes, it was kind of not what we were expecting especially for a locally produced TV Series.

All in all, the series is not that bad, it deserves a place to the top with the Senior High Series. However, at first, I’d have to be honest that I didn’t think that it was a mystery series, I thought it was a rom-com one but the more I watched it, the more I noticed that they really focused on the death, not the love story between Ling and Bingo, although, during the series, they had to incorporate some of the rom-com vibes however, they Ling and Bingo seems to not have worked more than Irene and Snoop love team. The two, played by Maris Racal and Anthony Jennings, gained popularity more than the main characters themselves. Ling and Bingo were overshadowed by the comical scenes of Irene and Snoop, which I believe made me a little confused because the over shadowing made the series a little too boring when it is Ling and Bingo’s scenes already. I’d rather watch Irene and Snoop do their whole thing than watch Ling and Bingo go on detective mode, forgetting that the entire series is actually a drama, suspense, mystery but not rom-com.

Plot is good, but there’s too much of it. I could make a three different series amongst the different angles shown in the series. In the middle of watching 60 episodes of this series, I am already confused which genre am I really following and which ending am I moving toward. This can really confuse viewers, so I’d rather suggest to have a concise plot than mixing so many things in it. At the end of the day, we just want some good ‘ol story to binge on, not a series within a series.

I would recommend this because I find this series interesting, not only because I love the acting and cinematography but I also love the big changes compare to the previous drama series played in Philippine TV. However, there’s still more polishing needed especially with the story line. Bingo doesn’t need to be dying just to make the ending a little more new to the eyes of a viewer. I felt like I was watching Queen of Tears during the few episodes which didn’t really add any substance to the whole storyline.

I will give this a 87% wonderroanne rating. I hope they play more series like this one.