Pinoy Big Brother’s first season is ending this Saturday. Enkantadia is also nearing its end with most of the major characters already dying. Hollywood is gloomy too – Mr. Miyagi of the Karate Kid died last month and the “newlyweds” Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey finally called it quits – does anyone really give a rat’s ass?

While the Philippine movie industry is going to the dogs, there might just be hope for Philippine primetime shows. Disclaimer: I am not a fan of local primetime and I’d rather watch Tru Calling with its minimal but convincing visual effectsthan go through an hour of ridiculously-placed eye-candies on ABS’ Panday. However, two shows from media giants ABS-CBN and GMA7 are setting the bars high for next year’s family shows. They would have to be Pinoy Big Brother and Enkantadia.

Pinoy Big Brother stirred a lot of debates during its first few weeks but the show proved to have more values in it than the dozen teleseryes produced in the past years combined. The Insomniac, as well as PBB’s director is still baffled – How come the MTRCB find the torrid kissing in teleseryes more acceptable for viewing than the kiss shared by PBB housemates Say and JB (or Sam and Chx)?

GMA7 has been setting the standard for visual effects in cinema lately and it is evident on their fanta-seryes which I think started with Mulawin. Forget ABS’s Marina, the only thing sea-worthy with Claudine is her boobs. Every episode of Panday on the other hand is as convincing as President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s SONAs. We did Noli Me Tangere for our highschool play and it was really more compelling. Anyone remember Dolphy’s Once Upon a Time? That movie was decades ago but it's visual effects are more believable than ABS’ fantasy flicks today.

GMA7’s CG team is undoubtedly more superior than any other networks’. However, they use their effects very sparingly which is also a good thing because I think ABS’ idea of good ratings is proportionate to the number of epilepsy incidents their shows trigger.

No, I’m not saying our CG technology can already compete with CSI (that’ll be the day) but at least GMA7’s shows aren’t pretentious and they know their target market. Enkantadia, with the elaborate costumes and sets, is made for children and their yayas but the directors of the show still recognize that the parents who might share TV viewing with the kids aren't stupid. When I do get to see an episode of Enkantadia, I am able to enjoy it not feel that my intellect has been insulted.

Enkantadia, which includes some Mulawin appearances is concluding but GMA7 has Etherea (which is also related to Enkantadia) queued. I admire the network’s inspiration to build fantasy worlds that are closely tied together. If they keep it up, they will be following an already successful template which has started on similar grounds – Disneyland. I’m not getting my hopes up, it’s not their fault anyway if they don’t share the Insomniac's vision.

ABS-CBN needs to lay-off the fantasy genre. They already bagged the jackpot with Pinoy Big Brother. This hopefully opens the gateway to reality shows that has that edge. Please, enough star-struck-circle-quest-american-idol wannabees already.

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