“Beyond the Star” is a Thai BL drama which revolves around the entertainment industry, where young people with passion and dreams gather to fulfill these different talent hunt AGENCIES who release and train artists. In the show” Beyond the star” is a project that trains a bunch of newly joined people in their talent agency. Since this show is based on Entertainment Industry, of course there will be a rival agency that will focus on the same thing. Now, in the first episode, we see both company Manger or say Directors, Araya and Kiat Sitting together dramatically drinking wine while talking to each other in a so-called classy manner. Though the faceover between trainees of both rival agencies in the first scene was good; the introduction of trainees happens so fast that it’s hard to remember who is who. Kengakla, Namo, Kita, Nathee, Tul, Trin, Copper, Mawin, Tonnam, Phupha and Phark are the characters who are trainees. In the first two episodes we get to know that Kita (Willi Arawill) and Nathee (Focus Poonyavee) are secretly dating even though the Agency has strict no dating rules but “love is love” and we can see two more future couples as well- Kengkla (Llouis Kitawat), Namo (Bank Chanwut) and Mawin (Tae Natthapat) with Mangkorn (Bigboss Woraphon).

After watching the pilot episode, the first thing that came to my mind was that they tried to include so much in the first 40 minutes of the show- where the first episode should be more about the characters introduction, story set-up and must have an interesting backplot impression; but in this show, the scriptwriter has tried to include all the things that don’t make sense. Secret Affairs, Jealousy, Dance, Trainings attempt to develop curiosity in viewers. Also it was hard to understand the show because of the delayed subtitles. The characters were not that remarkable because I usually remember the names of main characters from the first episode but here it’s kind of confusing though it gets a bit clear in the second one. Most of the time, I felt that the series feels more like any reality show.

Now, there are some funny moments and goofy characters that will keep you entertained but then there are some scenes that felt too dramatic, Like when Tonnam falls while practicing dance, the fact that the way he acted in pain was so superficial because it the fall was so soft that no one will twist their ankle like that. Due to that scene we got a cute eye contact scene, which was nice. Then the scene where Mawin was late for practice and Mangkorn gets angry was a basic scene but it felt way too dramatic. The choreography looks good and the actors have worked hard for this; they deserve the appreciation for dancing well and trying hard to make the show look good.

Even though the production looks alright, the direction and writing aren’t up to the expected standard. The show felt like it was created based on some good ideas and had potential that could have come out as something really interesting but because of mediocre writing, I think the impact is not the same. It feels like the focus of this show will be more on the romantic side than the struggles in the entertainment industry. But since only two episodes have been released, I hope the editing, lack of synchronized subtitles and bad direction will improve.

Rating- 3 out of 5

Streaming on- IQIYI