Low Frequency (2023)

Irregular Frequency

I'm not sure how a novel adaptation has managed to become a dull and sometimes boring TV series. This show had the perfect combination (or imperfect, maybe) of bad editing, an interesting plot that turned into a laugh, questionable acting and a small studio that has already produced very mediocre BLs such as Hidden Love and What's Zabb Man. So, let's talk about each.

1. The plot is not a new one as we've seen plenty of ghost-human Thai BLs starting with "He's Coming to Me" (with Ohm and Singto), "Peach of Time" (the Korean-Thai co-production with Jimmy and Tommy) and the more recent "Something in My Room" and "Ghost Host, Ghost House", among others of course. All the series I mentioned had the mystery component of finding either who killed the ghost, why, how and finding a way for the soul to reach the afterlife safely. In this case, Thames has an apparent accident that leaves him in a comma and, suddenly, his soul leaves his body and he is able to communicate with Mon (his manager's brother) and interact with him. The pair form a type of Sherlock Holmes-Watson dynamic trying to find clues as to who caused Thames's accident and why before time runs out for his soul to return to his body (otherwise he'll die). So far, it sounds good, right? Well, that's as far it goes because the storyline falls into the same traps we've grown used to in recent BLs where managers or agents or producers try to exploit actors for their own benefit (Thames is a famous actor in this series). Thames discovers the tricks Thanit is doing while managing Ai, records him, and Thanit discovers Thames and chases him down and almost kills him. So, sadly, instead of trying to find something a bit more original or creative, we have all the usual pitfalls that are increased by the terrible...

2. Editing... oh boy! The problem of having a series with only 8 episodes is that the producer and the director have to be on-point and be almost flawless in the way they link the scenes to solve the mystery and give us a happy ending. Unfortunately, this doesn't happen as some of the continuity in the scenes got lost by having flashbacks to tell us what happened to Thames at the party before the accident and also to introduce some of the characters and their storylines. In one scene Thames and Mon will be talking in Mon's house and the next scene he will be sitting in his work desk talking to his friend Pete or Thames will be chatting with the house guardian Guy and next he will be cuddling with Mon in the living room. Some of the major moments did not get the proper editing like Thanit's capture (a joke of a scene by the way) in episode 7 or the non-sense between Guy and Thames just before he comes back to life where magically, we find out that the house guardian was actually Mon's childhood friend who died in an accident and that Mon blames himself for all these years but he never recognizes him at all?! Now, not all is the issues happened because of the editing... some have to do because of the...

3. Poor acting. I get it, Guitar and Ping are cute and look good together... end of story. The reality is they had virtually zero chemistry and I don't know why they were instructed to give their lines the way they did (actually, all the actors were the same). Thames will say a line, he will wait for 5 seconds of staring into Mon's eyes, silence, Mon will then say his line, wait another 5 seconds and just stare into Thames's eyes, rinse and repeat. ALL the actors did the same and I'm not sure why the acting coach and the director decided to do this. No actor had really complicated lines with medical terms or difficult words or had to talk for a long time... so I think this prevented me from being more engaged in the story as I was just pressing the fast forward button to skip several seconds of silence and awkward stares. The chemistry part is a bit more worrying as the lead couple had Ping trying too hard to be cute and Guitar not doing enough as he fell flat in most scenes, in my opinion, to be the lead couple.
The other actors were there just to be there... Mon's sister Bua seems like a possible culprit of Thames's accident when she pulls out Thames cellphone out of nowhere in episode 3 or 4. Then, she disappears for a lot of moments and stays at the hospital with the grandmother but does nothing relevant. Pete is a useless character who works with Mon and later ends up being the son of a mafia boss (another laughable storyline). Ai is exploited by his manager Thanit as he has to have sex with clients until he lures Thanit to catch him. Beam (playing Mark in this series) has already appeared in a few BLs (most notably "Check Out", where he has an extra steamy scene near the end of the series) but in this series he likes Ai without anything interesting happening between them aside from brief flirting scenes. The house guardian, played by Bonus (who we saw in the disasters that were "What Zabb Man!", "Gen Y" and "Gen Y Season 2") also does nothing until he appearently helps Thames's soul to return to his body before telling him he is Mon's childhood friend.
And, let's talk about the scenes in episode 7 where Thanit gets caught... Pete brings his mafia gang to catch him and despite being surrounded by 6 gunmen plus Mon, Ai, and Mark, he still manages to have a half-ass fight and shoots his gun. I mean, there is no police in Thai BLs or all the characters are masochists who enjoy getting hurt or putting themselves at risk just to be the heroes?

So, once again, Kantana gives us a nice idea but a far from ideal end result.

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slow frequency

Overall: a promising start was bogged down by slow pacing, nonsense plot things and a lack of chemistry. 8 episodes about 40 minutes each. Aired on iQIYI. Re-aired on Kantana Kol YouTube channel.

Content Warnings: murder, attempted murder, violence, coercion, manipulation, vomiting, drug dealing, non con picture taking

What I Liked
- Thames' manager and Mon's friend?/sister? was a good wingwoman
- Thames bought lube at that convenience store
- good reveal in ep 7
- ep 8 glad they didn't go a cliche plot route at the beginning
- negative consequences for the evil doer
- production value, natural light towards the end of ep 4

Room For Improvement
- the series moved really slowly at times
- because they didn't show right away why Thames liked Mon I couldn't enjoy their sweet moments (and even then that's a pretty weak reason to like someone that much)
- the first scene was horror/serious which then didn't fit with the fluffy intro, eventually we do learn what happened in the past
- not much world building/convenient world building (can't taste food, then randomly can taste food)
- nonsense plot things (terrible unbodyguards, why did the other ghosts look like zombies?, why is a stroke victim getting an mri and then appears to be totally fine a couple days later? why are they at docks but there is zero boats/water?)
- flashback transitions needed to be more clear
- very choppy, they'd be somewhere and then suddenly somewhere else
- dead fish lip presses

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