Frankly speaking, I haven't yet fully recovered from the gruelling aftermath of DIA -- the mind-numbing sinetron featuring the oh-so-easy-on-the-eyes Lulu Tobing and Ari Wibowo -- which came to a close on Suria last Monday after three (or was it four??) draggy seasons. Hot on the heels of DIA is a brand new series, Hikmah, starring the beautiful Tamara Bleszynski, the leading lady from sinetron Ikhlas, which aired on Suria last year. For the uninitiated, Tamara is already gracing our screens on Wednesday nights in Gol, where she plays a soccer coach hell-bent on making the life of her father (who left her mom for a younger woman) miserable. Actually, Hikmah isn't really very new; its second season premiered in Indonesia in September last year! (But isn't that just the norm for us here in Sg?? We seem to be getting just the left-overs.. LOL)
Not unlike Ikhlas, Hikmah is choke-full of religious undertones which would coincide nicely (and fittingly) with this year's Ramadhan, due only in a couple months. However, as with any sinetron, I feel that Hikmah is just a rehash of old tricks -- generic plotlines and characters we've already seen before but just can't remember when and where; A pair of star-crossed lovers, a couple of matronly villainesses, a labyrinthine storyline and a bunch of impossibly gorgeous people as the good guys and voila~ You have a sinetron that would entice the hearts and minds of the makcik-populated Suria audience!!
The entertainment value of any soap opera (which is what a sinetron essentially is anyway) lies in its story and cast -- the more engaging, the better. In a soap opera, we watch our hapless heroine be taken advantage of, inhumanly mistreated, vilely reproved and have her love thwarted but it is always with the comforting knowledge at the back of our minds that everything will be right as rain in the season finale; the villains will get their come-uppance and our hero and heroine will get their happy-ever-after.
Why else do we fret about a sinetron's ridiculously outlandish plots yet continue to faithfully watch it week after week? The sole purpose of a soap opera it seems, is to create a world of fantasy in which weary and bored housewives could escape to inbetween their housework-hours and bedtime. Then again, sometimes the plots do get a little too outlandish for my jaded tastebuds.
Take Hikmah for example. Isn't Tamara abit too old to play the part of an impossibly kind-hearted orphan ill-treated at every opportunity by her small-framed stepmother? A younger-looking and petite-sized actress would have been more convincing. Moreover, Teuku Ryan in yet another graduating-student-with-a-bright-future role??? Talk about being type-cast...
(By the way, Tamara is so much more fun to watch in Gol; we get to see her display a more diverse emotional range rather than in a role that requires her to weep constantly and look pathetically lost and despondent almost half the time. =p )
Nevertheless, watching the debut episode alone will not enable us to predict whether Hikmah may be able to scale the heights of local popularity (or notoriety??) as DIA once succeeded to do. A sure determinant of a sinetron's success, I think, is in the chemistry of its leading stars. In this case, I feel that the Tamara and Teuku Ryan pairing may have something lacking as compared to the Lulu Tobing and Ari Wibowo pairing in DIA. But honestly, does it really matter??
