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  • Fecha de ingreso: diciembre 7, 2019
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Step by Step thai drama review
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Step by Step
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by cdvmty
jul 12, 2023
12 of 12 episodios vistos
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Global 6.0
Historia 6.5
Actuación/Reparto 7.5
Música 6.5
Volver a ver 2.5
This review may contain spoilers

One step forward, two, sometimes three steps backward

Oh the potential this series had!
And no, I'm not writing a delusional review like a few I've seen in here that were written on April 18 (the day the 1st episode aired!) and on May 3, telling me how wonderful the show is and giving all perfect scores.
This show is far from perfect and here's why:

1. Plot/Storyline: Office love is nothing new... we've seen a few office BLs recently like the Korean "Roommates of Poongduck 304", the Japanese "Cherry Magic", or the Thai "Bed Friends", so no, not an original setting. The way it was executed was also part of the problem with Pat entering a gossiping nest of a company as Ying and other employees cannot stop criticizing their boss in the episodes 1-3 (more or less) and suddenly, they magically stop. Jeng is the son of the company's president but is a micromanaging boss who doesn't trust anyone to do the job so he is always verifying it behind their backs or trying to influence the way his employees do certain things. The company's president is Jeng's father and he is also secretly involved in many things as he controls his son's life the way he wants and Jeng rarely says anything.
All that changes when Pat comes to work, as he is brutally honest since the beginning and Jeng begins to understand his mistakes even if he doesn't do much to change during the show. Pat finds two good friends in Chot and Nan who shield him from the gossip around him and give some good advice inside the company and Ae helps Pat outside of the company. Both him and Jeng slowly fall in love... and I REALLY mean SLOWLY!... as the don't do much until the latter episodes as Pat is living with very low self-esteem and insecurities and Jeng is uncertain if Pat will like him. Plus, Put is always lurking in the initial episodes as he wants to get back with Pat despite having broken up some time ago. So far, nothing that exciting... and it shows, as the series moved at a glacial pace sometimes with never ending scenes that included useless meetings, commercial shooting, Pat crying 3,467 times, Jeng looking confused... which takes me to...

2. Characters: Pat is smart when talking about marketing and ad design but he is a whiny crybaby for everything else. His relationship with Put goes nowhere and yet, he takes him back. His relationship with Jeng should have been developed since episode 4-5 but we had to go through his insecurities and doubts and then his overly dramatic moments of being disappointed in what Jeng did. Mr. Jeng is a nightmare boss that wants to control every single detail but he transfers that to his relationship with Pat when he doesn't trust him at all on episodes 10-11 and goes behind his back paying influencers so Pat's project becomes a success... something Pat finds out thanks to Jeng's father (another manipulative person). Jaab acts like a spoiled brat sometimes and he likes Jan or Jane (his name was written in 3 different ways in the English translation) but he gets rejected and he tends to sulk and sigh all the time. Jane simply disappeared around episode 7-8 when he quits and leaves, then he re-appeared briefly in Ae's wedding and then he supposedly went to Japan for two years. Way to mess up the secondary couple! The other characters are mostly forgettable... Ying is a gossiping machine at first, then transforms into a model worker and then quits in episode 12 to become a BL novelist... and her book?! "Step by Step"... how original! Put is the third wheel in most of the scenes as it fell like he never really matched the mood of the other characters... he wanted pat back but didn't try too hard... he wanted to antagonize Jeng but he wasn't that mean or cunning, so it ends up being just another character. Chot is the only saving grace of the show as he is the boisterous and colorful character that brings some sense to the rest of the cast while providing some funny moments as well. This reflects badly on...

3. Directing/Writing: Not sure what the final purpose of the show really was. The main relationship develops at a slow pace, the secondary couple had no development after Jane leaves and the ending for them leaves A LOT to be desired, and the straight (Ae/Khanun) couple goes from dating, to being pregnant, to marrying, to having the baby... so they developed quite quickly compared to the main couple. The uncut episodes were quite long (episode 12 is 1 hour and 42 minutes long!) but in this case, longer episodes didn't necessarily meant better episodes. Instead of having the chance to develop the characters and the situations a bit more and a bit better, directing and writing fell in the same traps throughout the series. If there is a problem, let's have Pat cry on his father's shoulder or have him argue with Jeng (while crying) and finish it with Chot or Ae or both providing some advice to Pat and Tae giving advice to Jeng, rinse and repeat this cycle. We saw this trend several times on the show and it became dull and annoying as we knew it will happen eventually. Questionable directing and writing also caused problems in another area...

4. Acting: Man (playing Jeng) is the most experienced actor from the bunch and his acting skills were ok, particularly when he cries with Jaab and acts vulnerable for the first time in the series. But he looked a bit stiff in some other scenes when it was Ben (playing Pat) who had to express more feelings than him. Look for the scenes of Ben crying and Man is just standing there watching awkwardly and then saying his lines. Bruce (playing Chot) was finally in his element as a diva after we saw him as the bad guy in "Lovely Writer" and had a quick appearance on "Paint with Love". Here he shines as he looked comfortable in this character and sometimes even stole the scene over the two leads and Up (playing Put) who felt flat for most of the show as he did not have many things to do as a secondary character. Saint (playing Jaab) was a nice surprise as he not only is very attractive but his acting was decent at times... he still needs some time to develop them but he seems to be on track. Wind (playing Jane) was a mystery... his character had some moments with Jaab but then he basically leaves on episode 7 and rarely appears afterwards. And finally, we go to...

5. The finale: Oh boy... you would think that 1 hour and 42 minutes will be enough to tell us the end of this story. Sadly, this episode became a long and almost boring one with the usual 7 meetings per episode with filler characters taking fake notes and pretending to be relevant for the scene. The episode is set 2 years after the previous one and Pat has blocked Jeng and moved on to create a company with Chot and Ae but about 90 of the 102 minutes of the episode, he is distracted, thinking about Jeng but doing nothing to talk to him and solve the issue... something that could have been done in about 5 minutes, maybe 10. They finally reconcile in a cheesy scene in the restaurant's kitchen with Pat telling Jeng he never hated him and that he was not hurt, only angry about what he did to him before but he wasn't angry anymore... so, you blocked him for 2 years but you weren't thaaat mad? Then, instead of having some scenes with Jaab-Jane... we get NOTHING... we get more Pat-Jeng dull scenes with two birthdays in the span of 3 minutes, Pat acting like a child while eating curry and Jeng finally resigning from his father's company... oh and we met Jeng's mother for about 5 seconds before she leaves.

A few more things... the production cannot even get things right as the trophy "Broccoli House" wins for the Best Ad is misspelled saying "Best Ad Awrad 2024" and what was the point of having all the meetings with Ms. Nadia from Fjord group in English? Sabina (the actress playing Nadia) is Thai-Austrian and we saw her recently in the mediocre "War of Y", so we know she is fluent in Thai. In this series, she only speaks in English and when she does, she clearly has an accent and she makes several mistakes... so what was the point of that?

In the end, another Thai BL series that leaves me with the sense of what might have been if some things were done differently or at least, done better.
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