Water Boyy (Thai Series)

I really need to start watching these Thai BL dramas as and when they come, otherwise in a situation like this, where this show came 5 years back is so not to watch. Th dramas have evolved, the way their stories are told have also evolved, so watching these shows form the past are a perfect recipe for rolling your eyes, wonder what is going on and so forth. Having said that this show is not that bad as I am making it sound. One of the very few dramas in which even though there is clearly one main couple, almost every single character has been given proper character arc, storyline and their moment to shine.

We are introduced to a college swimming club where Waii is the undisputed champion. He has a difficult relationship with his father, who is also the swimming coach (we later find out that he is in a gay relationship with a former student who also used to be swimming champion). A new guy app joins the team, who also ends up being Waii's roommate, and a good part of the series also focuses on their growing feelings for each other, despite Waii having a girlfriend. The big overall premise of the story is how this swimming team will come together under Waii's leadership to prevent itself from being abandoned since they have not brought any medal for the university in all these years. There are many other characters. The runner Min, who starts off a cat-and-dog relationship with the Student council head Wan, who hates Waii and swimming team for some reason.We have lesbian Pan, part of swimming team, who bullies the nerdy guy Fah to help her get close to another girl. Then we have this other guy who is fascinated by a junior boy who happens to run Waii's fan club. Then of course we have Waii's father and his lover and a new coach , a girl who happens to be Min's ex-girlfriend.

I have many problems with the show. First of all there are way too many characters and it takes time to get a hang of who's who and who should you invest your energies on. For a show like this where swimming should be the core, we do get to see a lot of scenes with naked boy in swimming shorts but we barely see them swimming. Its all talk. Coming to various couples, the only one that stood out surprisingly was the straight couple Min and Wan. App and Waii were so charmless and barely had any chemistry at all. Their performances was very mechanical. As a character Waii doesn't have any justification for any of the things he does. I felt him more of an anti-hero, if anything. There were other couples and relationships where the writers kept flip flopping between friendship and relationship and no clearly boundaries were established. The whole coach and his much younger boyfriend relationship was also odd with hardly any background explained. At 14 episodes each of about 45-50 minutes, the series goes on and on where the stories of each individual is dragged beyond reason (something like you would do in a daily soap). And then as expected magically everything is resolved in last two episodes. Not only the club is saved, they bring medals, everyone finds a happy couple, relationships are mended. The one good thing about the show was much better written female characters, surprisingly even better than male ones.

Th storyline is lost at times and dragged at places. If you really wanna see it, just watch first two and last two episodes and trust me , you would not have missed a thing. (4.5/10)