May-June Variety Shows

It’s time for another round-up of TVB’s variety shows under the direction of Eric Tsang and Wong Cho Lam. Through May and June, it felt like TVB was producing variety shows at a breakneck pace and ended up giving short shrift to its shows. Many of the concepts have potential, but was not given enough time to develop. 

• Dub of War (好聲好戲): The show shined a spotlight on the unseen voice actors at TVB. It was amazing to learn about how dubbing works and all the skills it takes to do a good job. I was genuinely surprised by the excellent performances from some of the participants. Rating: 9/10. 

My top five most impressive performances: 

5. Yuki Law and Marktwo Lee - For newbies, this was an impressive performance. Especially when Marktwo says his first line, I thought they were using Ron Ng’s voice.

4. Moon Lau and Tedford Wong - Moon and Tedford were better at dubbing characters outside of their age range than the three finalists. 

3. Sisley Choi and Owen Cheung - They sounded as if they were playing the original clip. The chip goes through a lot of emotions and both of them were handled it well. Owen Cheung has always been more impressive doing imitations than using his own voice. 

2. Yoyo Chen - Yoyo was able to speak in another dialect as if she was fluent and no one even taught her!

1. Joey Thye - I was most surprised by Joey’s performance. She sounds just like Grace Chan and even timed her breathing and crying perfectly with the clip. 

Bonus: Coty Wong and Tinson Lung - They are instructors for a reason. Their performance was at the next level. 

• Case Unclosed (死因有可疑): In the first head-to-head battle with ViuTV, TVB brought a knife to a gunfight. The show looked like an amateur production next to ViuTV’s serious efforts. It is disappointing because I really like the concept of a murder-mystery show. Rating: 5/10. [Full review here]

• Top Sales (識貨): This was essentially an advertising spot disguised as a show. Zero interest from me when I couldn’t (and wouldn’t, even if I could) buy the products they were selling. But Yoyo Chen is on a hot streak. Rating: 2/10. 

• Prelude to TVB All Star Games: The Ring (明星運動會前哨戰: Fight盡): The show suffered from some major cutting issues. Training, interview and competition clips were haphazardly thrown together like a tossed salad. The show also makes a lacklustre effort to introduce the fighters to the audience. The audience can’t feel like they are part of the fighters’ journeys when they only see them for seconds at a time and barely know who they are. Rating: 4/10. 

• Mean Talk: I loved the juicy gossip that was being spilled on the show! Six episodes was definitely too short. There’s plenty more tea to be spilled. Rating: 7/10.