I'm one of the few people that isn't tired of university dramas. I know that we've seen similar love dynamics thousands of times, that we can predict every single move these boys will make. I'm okay with that because just because it plays into common tropes doesn't necessarily mean it'll be bad. What determines quality is how the show executes those tropes.

Unfortunately, Hidden Agenda doesn't do anything revolutionary, and having seen so many GMMTV shows, I don't know why I expected any different.

My main issue with Hidden Agenda, and many other BLs in general, is that the plot is nonexistent. Even if a show has so much potential, the writers complete the entire plot in the first three or four episodes and then drag out the characters actually getting together for far too long. It's fine to have scenes where characters are being lovey-dovey for the safe of being lovey-dovey, but that can't drive a plot.

And it seemed like the writers understood that because then they started throwing plot points at the show hoping one would stick -- an evil ex-friend, a stalker, disappointed parents, a debate competition! But all of those would be resolved fairly anticlimactically in an episode and a half each plot point. So what was the point? To show that their love can withstand all? I'm not really believing it.

There was a surprising amount of depth and complexity to Jeng and Pok's relationship - hiding their relationship when one clearly longs to be public. It was actually so much more interesting than Joke and Zo's plot, and because the writers were taking their time in building out their exposition, I had hope that Jeng and Pok's relationship would be the redeeming factor of the show.

But of course, like all plots in Hidden Agenda, it was completed too soon, too hastily that I was left to wonder if I was imagining the potential their story had.

And then in the last three episodes, the show decided to finally show its worth with an actually substantive plot. Zo is stressing over the upcoming debate competition as he believes it's his one opportunity to make his mom proud, and we find out in the last episode that Joke is the black sheep of the family and he struggles with gaining their acceptance. The latter is criminally underdeveloped and cobbled together and concluded in just two scenes, and sadly this is where we see the best performance by Joong. Despite horrifically awkward writing where we get whiplash by the grandpa who in basically less than five minutes both cuts Joke down a few notches by practically calling him a degenerate in front of the whole family AND THEN asks Joke for a hug and tells him he's proud of him, Joong manages to move my heart with his tears.

I knew going into this show, I probably would be disappointed. And I was, but not nearly as much as other shows, and in fact, it almost became fun since I was hate-writing pages full of notes. You get what you expect and nothing more. I need to stop expecting GMMTV to blow me away with an underrated gem because that hasn't happened in a long, long time.