The Shipper (2020)

In the past year the BL community has had the odd experience of three expensively-produced BL productions reaching their final few episodes only to collapse under their own aspirations, angering viewers and overshadowing all of the elements that they might have gotten right.

In all three instances it can be said that these series (HIStory 3: Make Our Days Count, 2gether, and The Shipper) were trying to do something "different" with the BL genre. For 2gether, the intent was to reach a more global and conservative audience by toning down the gay aspects of Boys Love and replacing them with bromance. For HIStory 3: MODC and The Shipper, the directors aspired to transcend the BL genre and deliver something more realistic and thought-provoking. Unfortunately, the way both of these series did it was by killing off a beloved main character.

For me, a main character's death is as inappropriate in a BL production as a high-kicking chorus line would be in a production of King Lear. In the case of The Shipper, an artful story was already being told very well, and the series actually did seem to be transcending the genre. So many commenters on the MDL page have mentioned how the body-swapping theme sounded unpromising at first, but after giving the series a try they found that it played exceptionally well. Why, then, did the series end up killing off one of the main characters, even before they'd had a chance to actually be in a relationship with their partner?

I still have yet to learn how Kim's death in The Shipper served the themes of the series. At least in the case of MODC, the director had a theme that she wanted to promote ("make sure you cherish every moment with the person you love because you don't know when they'll be gone"). Attaching such a theme to a BL series proved to be a mistake, but she had her reasons.

For The Shipper, the character death seems gratuitous because its theme about ships, shippers, and the people being shipped doesn't need for anyone to die in order to get its point across. (Plus there's that tease about a sequel in the very last moments of the final episode. If Kim can live on in a sequel then why not in the original?)

Now, I've seen where because the main character of The Shipper is Pan and the "real" Kim has limited screen time, people have said that the series doesn't qualify as BL. Pan's journey, though, is mainly about discovering who the real Kim is, and as she learns more about him the viewers learn along with her and their affection for him deepens. By the time she hits the paydirt that yes, Kim and Way have a relationship that goes beyond friendship, we've become completely invested in that pairing. We're in it to win it! We thrill over Way's epiphany that he actually loves Kim, then get even more excited over the proof that Kim also loved Way, and from that point on Kim has become as important to the series as any of the main characters who've had more screen time.

How sad, then, that none of these revelations can ever get acted on or rewarded because one of the boys turns out to be dead. We discover that what's been served up is a full-blown BL storyline but with a tragic ending. And if anything doesn't belong in a BL storyline, it's tragedy.

It must be said, too, that the longer Pan stays in Kim's body the less appealing she becomes as a character, deciding to intervene with the people in Kim's life to make sure they know that he's actually not a good person. At one point I became disgusted by her judgmental attitude and smug sense of superiority. I'm not convinced that she ever truly lived that down, thus weakening her standing as a main character that people can sympathize with completely. In this regard Way is the much better person, and all the more deserving of the happy ending that the series squanders on Pan.

It also bothers me that the hetero-normative couple gets the happy ending while the m/m couple gets the dead boyfriend. Back in the 1950's, death was in store for most gay characters because the morality of that era demanded that they meet a tragic fate. In this sense The Shipper is terribly unenlightened and regressive. It would have been so easy to give both the m/f and m/m couples a happy ever after, and it would have more effectively communicated how every kind of love deserves nurturing and respect.

A happy ending for all would also have been befitting the BL theme of the series.

I would have liked to listen in while the creative team for The Shipper worked on the storyboards and reached the decision that Kim would be killed off. What the heck were they thinking? They obviously misread their audience in a fundamental way, and I can only hope that GMMTV takes heed of misfires like The Shipper when they hire the next production company to mount a BL series.

In about three months I plan to do an experiment where I'll approach a few BL fans at random and ask them what they remember most about The Shipper. I think I know what the answer will be. In the meantime I'll be checking in with The Shipper's MDL page every now and then to see how many comments are NOT about the crappy ending. (Not many, I bet.)

This is the danger of messing with a genre that people absolutely love. But, after what amounts to three disastrous decisions in three expensively produced series, I'm starting to wonder if anyone in charge really cares.

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The Shipper is a love story, but not in the way you think.

From day one, as people fussed over endgame, what is and isn’t BL, what was appropriate for TV or what wasn’t, I felt something was different about this show. Scratch that—I knew something was different. The writing had something to say, and as I continued to watch the series unfold, what I wanted this show to be didn’t really matter to me anymore. I was simply content to see where the director, Aticha Muilanie (who has proven herself quite adept at injecting narrative with purpose), wanted to take us.

The Shipper, at its core, is a humble parable. It’s about trusting in yourself and trusting in others. It’s about learning to forgive and to be forgiven. Growth. Relationships (in and out of them). Love…

The Shipper is a love story, but not in the way you think.

This is a story about what it means to be loved. To understand that, no matter where our place in the grand scheme of things, we are worthy of being loved.

That seed is planted from the very first episode and carried all the way to the very end through all the shenanigans and hijinks that ensue. It will make you laugh, it will make you cry, but most importantly, it will make sure you remember what it has to say.

With its expertly directed cast, excellent use of colour, pleasing camera work, and charming soundtrack, it’s a grounded fantasy that’s hard to say goodbye to. I know I will be coming back to it again and again.

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