A show about growth - beyond episode 4

This starts off pretty ham handed with the parodying of American sitcom style drama, and the laugh track does my head in. Despite this, there is something about this show and the development of the characters that had me hooked.

I do have to admit that I speed watched the earlier episodes. Especially the scenes that were rehashing the same dialogue between different characters. Having done that made it easier to enjoy the brilliant and mature relationships that develop between Rak, Diao, and their friends and family.

The conflict and resolution is mostly episodic, but the way the characters react to the topic for the episode is wonderfully crafted to show them learning and them developing each week.

I can't say much more without spoiling anything, but I really recommend this show! Also Diao becomes A LOT less frustrating (it's part of his growth).

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Poor production choices let down what could have been a gripping gritty mystery

I tried really hard to carry on watching this show.

Some of the sex scenes were alright, the ones I didn't care for I just skipped or paid half attention to. A couple were great. You can tell the actors are trying their best for the most part - the director and everything else are failing them substantially.

The biggest issue I have is that the main plot line of the disappearance of Nant isnt very well written. When the investigations happen they either go nowhere (like the party?), or happen suddenly with all the motivation or reasoning for the characters chosing to follow that route of investigation completely skipped over.

I enjoy a mystery show and am left sorely disappointed by the ham handedness of the writing and production choices.

Another gripe I have and the reason the sex scenes are pretty skippable is that I don't think most of the characters actually enjoy them? It seems like the kinks were written by people with a distaste for them, who want to portray them as inherently 'wrong'.

I understand that they're trying to showcase some of the realities of sex work especially somewhere where it's criminalised, but it doesn't need up to 14 hours of sexual violence to showcase it. At that point it just feels like the reason some self-gratification being sought by the production team.

Maybe it's changed in the subsequent episodes since I dropped it but this would have been better as a 3 hour movie with way fewer couples. I'm going to continue reading spoilers for the show so I can find out what happened to Nant in the end but I'm not wasting another 7 hours of my life when I know most of it will be filler.

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