Maybe the audience never outgrew the teleserye. Maybe the industry simply stopped making the stories they loved. Look at how vertical dramas are thriving on heightened emotions, romance, familiar archetypes, and unabashed melodrama. So what exactly did the networks miscalculate?

Imagine spending decades cultivating an audience and their love for teleseryes, then declaring that their tastes have changed when the platform that can fund your shows starts demanding something else. What if the audience never changed but the industry simply followed the money?

I think Finale is the biggest testament to Regine Velasquez treating longevity as an ARTISTIC CHOICE. Among her contemporaries, she’s in a league of her own, having earned the rare privilege of deciding what the defining moments of her career look like.

This includes WHEN and HOW she wants to bring a chapter to a close. Artists of her generation have spent years trying to recapture the magic of their heyday, but Regine has managed to grow with her audience, carrying them through every stage of her career.

I think part of the problem with film criticism ngayon is that we’ve reduced it to “vibes” and “feels,” as if feeling something while watching a movie is equivalent to understanding what it’s doing.

By all means, sabihin mong chemistry was chemistry-ing at emotionally unemployed ka pagkatapos ng ending. I support the gays and their vibes. Pero after the initial reaction, what have we actually understood about the film?