Passionate student Ryan gets an internship as an assistant director where he meets Jane, an AD with a unique ability to extinguish the fires of people’s passion. Ryan’s suffering is vented to this year’s fellow trainees, including a couple consisting of account executive Ba-Mhee and editor Teh, Pah in the art department, and Pie in production. As Ryan continues his training, however, he finds that P’Jane is kinder than people think, to the point that Ryan’s heart sometimes skips a beat and it becomes his goal to win Jane’s heart.
Featuring Off-Gun in key roles, “The Trainee” is a fresh new GMMTV series, about college students who are an interning in an advertising agency. Ryan (Gun Atthaphan) is an economics major student who has a printing press as a family business. Ryan along with his friend goes for an interview where he meets, other students Tae (Sea Tawinan), Pie (View Benyapa), Pah (Poon Mitpakdee) and Bahmee (Piploy Kanyarat) who are also there to apply for the internship. A little misunderstanding during the recruitment program leads to Ryan working as an Intern Assistant Director, where he gets acquainted with Jane (Off Jumpol), a very strict senior in his department. Ryan and Pie are selected as an intern in the Assistant Director department, Tae is chosen as an intern in the Editing department, and Pah is choosen as an intern in the Art department.
After watching the pilot episodes, I was surprised that even with the old set up of romance between an intern and boss, the story seems fresh and exciting. It has the right amount of playfulness and narrative. Two side characters who stand out are Sea and Poon, who play Tae and Pah; especially Poon who comes out as an innocent & adorable character. Sea and Pi-ploy as a cringy couple doesn’t feel irritating because they are hilarious. The series along with its lightheartedness keeps up with the struggles of an intern who has just joined a new workplace and struggles to adapt to a new environment as well as the people. “The Trainee” has one of the most famous couples in the BLworld as their leads; Off and Gun have a perfect chemistry, and they are very comfortable working with each other. From watching Off in SOTUS till now, he has come a long way in terms of his acting and I hope the freshness we see in the first two episodes keeps up till the end of the show as well.
Rating- 4 out of 5
Streaming on- GMMTV YouTube Channel
The BL Xpress 
GMMTV knows there is a global market for its product and invests accordingly – whether it’s sending its actors overseas, shipping merchandise around the world, or providing very clear subtitles in its series. Drama, horror, and action genres generally “translate” much better than comedy, which can be quite parochial. Much praise to the writers of THE TRAINEE for making a comedy that is (hopefully) funny for its Thai audience, but also incredibly funny for non-Thais.
My favorite plot point so far is the ongoing discussion surrounding Ryan’s name. In episode three, Jane & Ryan reference the film, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. which resulted in me visiting Wikipedia for a reminder of the story. I had to laugh at myself since apparently Thai writers have a better grasp of American pop culture than I do!
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