My Engineer (2020– )
4/10
Not good, but not bad either
27 August 2020
Warning: Spoilers
Positives: The best part of this show, I would say, is the acting, especially with the material given. The actor's chemistry is the only reason I could consider this show fun to watch. It's surprisingly realistic with the script and sometimes really poor writing given. In my opinion, the most realistic pairings would be Ram/King and Boss/Mek. The others seems a bit forced and not that well written. The show is fun though, overall, and apart from some forced dialogue, it is decent enough to be enjoyable. On more technically aspects, I would say the camera work seems good and I don't think I saw any issue on that front. I don't recall any really interesting shots, but it was basic and well lit, good shots overall. The sound also wasn't the best, but it worked, though I'm not as good as telling technically aspects of sound work. The only thing that might be a turn-off would be that one of the actors doesn't speak thai and the dubbing is REALLY apparent, which could annoy some people like it annoyed me, but even with the language barrier, the actor did a really good job I would say.

Negatives: The worst of this show, in my opinion, is the constant fetishization of the (gay) couples, especially present with the most realistic slow-burn one (Ram and King). The three girls following them around completely ruined the own mood that was established by the writer(s), making a good scene barely watchable. When they weren't there, it was actually pretty sweet and I saw no issues with the acting and humour. If the cute gay guy couples fetish aspect was to be removed, it would actually be a really good light-hearted fun show, but the tropes and ''jokes'' ruin most of the fun in my opinion, especially if it is to be seen as cinema and not a fetish show. There is also the Duen and Bohn couple that starts fine but gets worst and worst dialogue wise, Bohn being more and more petty and manipulative. And it isn't really shown as a bad thing, it seems just shown as ''it's his quirk''. It wasn't cute, it was just bad. The more petty criticism I would still like to point out is the trope of everyone being gay around the main characters, that's always a big turn off for me, even if the couples are well portrayed. There are also some general eyebrow raising tropes, but those can easily be overlooked as the show clearly isn't trying to be clever, but rather fun and light-hearted.

Overall, I would still suggest you to watch this show if you like BL, as the acting really saves this show. It's less serious and more of a fun watch, even if the humour often miss it's mark.

Final scoring: 40/100 (80/100 without the fetishization)
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