Philippine drama
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Philippine drama, notably called teleserye and/or teledrama in television is a form of melodramatic serialized fiction produced and aired in the Philippines. It rooted from two words "tele", short for television, and "serye", a Tagalog term for series. Teleserye is now used as the generic term for most Filipino soap operas on television, although the term officially came into existence in 2000 when ABS CBN aired its first official form of teleserye, Pangako sa 'Yo. Prior to this, Filipino soap operas were called either telenovelas (and still is referred to as such) and soap operas.
Teleseryes share some characteristics and similar roots with soap operas and telenovelas,yet teleserye has evolved into a genre with its own unique characteristics usually reflecting social realism of Filipinos. Teleserye are aired in prime-time five days a week, and replays during weekends, attract a broad audience across age and gender lines, and command the highest advertising rates. They last about three months to a year or more depending on its rating and come to a climactic close.
Teleseryes are produced by the two main Philippine TV networks and two independent companies.ABS-CBN, which is Philippine's pioneer producer and exporter of Teleseryes and, GMA Network. TAPE Inc. and the movie producer VIVA Entertainment were the two largest companies.
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[edit] Timeline
Soap operas in the Philippines originated in radio, then it expanded into television in early 1960s. The first Filipino TV soap opera was Hiwaga sa Bahay na Bato in 1963 produced by ABS-CBN.
Soap operas in the Philippines were usually shown during daytime. Among the most popular daytime soap operas then were Gulong ng Palad, Flor de Luna, Mara Clara, Annaliza, Aguila and Valiente. But in 1996, soap opera programming was move to primetime due to the popularity gained by Mexican telenovela, Marimar, aired on RPN 9. This is the start of telenovela craze in the Philippines. Major networks ABS-CBN and GMA Network followed the trend by having foreign telenovelas in their timeslot.
In 2000, ABS CBN, made a milestone in Philippine telenovelas when it introduced Pangako sa 'Yo, which was known to be the first official teleserye, and Kay Tagal Kang Hinintay. These teleseryes set the standard of present teleserye productions in the Philippines which also became a big hit in the Philippines and likewise to other countries. Because of this, subsequent soap operas shown on television are now referred to as teleseryes. GMA Network have made teledrama before ABS-CBN does but their series does not give too much drama which the audience are irritated.
Again, in early 2004 ABS-CBN revived the genre of teleserye which mixes soap opera, fantasy, myth, magic and enchantment. This genre was called fantaserye. The first official fantaserye that was shown on primetime TV was Marina. Marina undoubtedly set a benchmark for fantaseryes on television when it garnered consistent high ratings during its entire run. The ratings and audience share of the said fantaserye were even higher than the usual more established teleseryes during primetime.
In mid 2004, GMA Network, embarked on its own term of fantaserye which are called telefantasya. GMA produced Marinara and Mulawin, the latter becoming more successful which eventually started the GMA telefantasya craze. On the other hand, ABS CBN focuses on airing teleseryes for its primetime slots although it sometimes produces fantaseryes as well. It was this year that started further variations of the teleserye genre under the terms, superserye, sineserye and cinenovela.
[edit] Classical Philippine drama
[edit] Storylines
A popular plot of a teleserye is a love story between two different individuals, a rich guy fell in-love with a poor girl or a handsome guy attracted to a very ugly girl. Their romances is then contradicted by the mother of the guy because of their differences in life.
Another popular storyline of teleseryes is the search of a girl to her family members, usually the mother is being sought. The story goes, the girl was separated from her family at birth due to some circumstances, maybe by a bus accident or because the villain in the story wants to take revenge to the parents of the protagonist-the villain will either exchange the baby with other mother and let the baby protagonist live a poor life, or the villain just simply take the child from the mother and let it live a very miserable life.
Teleseryes usually focus on love, betrayal, jealousy, social status and revenge between characters, usually their family history and relationships affecting the later generation.
[edit] Twists
Among the most common twist in the romance between couples is that they will find out that they were brothers and sisters, but in the end they will also find out that they were not siblings because one of them is an adopted child.
Teleseryes are notorious for adding new characters to an already convoluted plot which adds more twist in the story. Usually the girl will meet a new guy which will eventually be her new love-interest in the story.
Sometimes teleseryes play with its viewers that makes another twist in the plot. For example a character which was known to be killed or died in the story will eventually appear in the latter part of the story. The usual reasons of this situations is that he or she was saved in the accident or maybe the person buried was not him or her.
[edit] Villains
Villains are created to make the life of the protagonist especially miserable. Old Filipino soap operas had very rude, violent, greedy, almost sociopathic villains.
Character of villains in teleseryes have changed from the old soap operas to the present teleseryes. In old soap operas villains were very violent and usually used power and money to make the protagonist miserable. Often, they aim to full-out kill the protagonist.
Villains in present teleseryes are less violent compared to the old ones. They no longer murder a character in the story to take revenge, except that they are still evil and cause the protagonist to suffer.
[edit] Ending
The story usually ends with the villains meeting spectacularly violent, gruesome, painful and gory end. Most complications will reach a resolution and the protagonists will end up getting married and with a child, sometimes, even twins.
However, the predictability of teleserye endings have become an issue and audience sometimes complain that the plot and ending of teleseryes are becoming repetitive, predictable and tiresome. Because of this, scriptwriters have endeavored to change the ending of some teleseryes to provide additional twist and originality.
[edit] Classical to Modern Drama
When ABS-CBN launch the first official Telefantasya/Fantaserye, GMA Network followed it and produce better Telfantasya than ABS-CBN had been produced. Until ABS-CBN, returned to their strength, Dramas. GMA Network is also a long time producer of dramas but GMA Network stayed on their strengths but still produce Teledramas. Those teledramas are considered as not as heavy before instead, it evolved into a Mellow Dramatic Series. Those series are also packaged with new genres and concepts about a revival of some resources.
[edit] Modern Philippine drama
[edit] Storylines
Common love stories was renovated like having a son or daughter to make the protagonist easier to return their past. Some dramas such as Bakekang and Bituing Walang Ningning gives importance to the showbiz industry. Former friends and siblings were fighting for fame and popularity. Other storylines used on the classical dramas were enhanced. Still the main topic of this Dramas are Love, Jealousy, Family and Revenge.
[edit] Twist
Unpredictable twist were used even though the artist is almost stating the upcoming twist. Modern twist were being build-up in the start of the story, a little detail will be made into a big detail that may affect the story so much. Some twist like the protagonist and the villain were sisters was very common enough but the script writers think another way of making the story more tweaky like the protagonists will argue because of his or her sibling. Some twist like killing the persons who are close to the protagonist after he and the protagonist have a misunderstanding which will make the protagonist be a suspect.
[edit] Villains
Modern villains was the same as before but they are not so brutal as before do. Powerful persons were the brutal one, perons who are not that so important in the middle of the story. Villains have different motives; love, jealousy, revenge, revealed secrets and money. Though they are not that brutal, they use the events that will make them blackmail the protagonist
[edit] Ending
The ending of the story was now very different. If before the villain might died, now they might just hide because an incident made their face ugly. Another ending was also used like introducing unknown characters to lead the second part of the story like in Maging Sino Ka Man were Angelika Panganiban and Rosanna Roces was introduced and lead us to Maging Sino Ka Man: Ang Pagbabalik.
[edit] Additional genres
New genres were packaged with melodrama like Suspense-Drama, Thriller-Drama and Supense-Thriller-Drama. Dead characters were mostly used under this genre like what happened on La Vendetta and the hit Patayin Sa Sindak si Barbara. Revenge was the common topic on this stories. Some dramas were turned to Musical-Drama just like on Kaputol ng Isang Awit, Bakekang and Bituing Walang Ningning. Action-Drama-Adventure-Fantasy also became popular after Asian Treasures successfully billed the charts.
