‘Confessions of a Torpe’ Rerun a Mere Stopgap for TV5

From December 8 onwards, ‘Confessions of a Torpe’ was re-aired on TV5 during weekday primetime. (Photo credit: TV5)

Season 2 of ‘The Amazing Race Philippines’ is now in the books, and TV5 was expected to make a worthy replacement.

Instead, ‘Confessions of a Torpe’ was re-aired anew, much to the disappointment of loyal Kapatid viewers.

From December 8 onwards, the rerun of ‘Confessions of a Torpe’ took over the 9:30 p.m. slot, which is not a good place for a re-airing program in the primetime slot. Considering the amount of pressure and scrutiny surrounding it, TV5’s decision to place a re-run on primetime rather than daytime proved to be a risky decision.

In fact, it would have been better for TV5 to air a new, or better yet, a long-overdue drama series in order to keep their loyal viewers interested. Remember their shelved projects ‘The Gift’ and ‘Pretty Little Liars’?

Yes, both programs have been planned by TV5 since Noel Lorenzana took over. And yet, for reasons unknown, production of both programs were halted for the time being.

The long-term postponement of ‘The Gift’ and ‘Pretty Little Liars’ proved to be a public relations disaster for TV5. With the announcement of new and returning programs on its 2015 agenda, Lorenzana and company now hope that the mistakes which befallen ‘The Gift’ and ‘Pretty Little Liars’ will never happen again.

Going back to ‘Confessions of a Torpe’, TV5’s intentions were clear. Rather than quickly debuting a new program, they decided to make a stopgap move with this series, all in hopes of starting 2015 with a bang.

That said, they were left with no options but to re-air ‘Confessions’, whether it’s for their own good or not.

Now viewers must hope that TV5 begins 2015 with something different. Otherwise, they would be stuck with the same old product all over again (save for their habit of airing Tagalized foreign movies, of course).

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So Long, ‘Face the People’ and ‘Let’s Ask Pilipinas’

TV5’s ‘Face the People’, along with ‘Let’s Ask Pilipinas’, bid adieu on November 21, 2014. (Photo credit: TV5)

The last remnants of the original ‘Everyday All the Way’ block are gone.

On Friday, November 21, 2014, ‘Face the People’ and ‘Let’s Ask Pilipinas’ aired for the final time on TV5. Three days later, ‘Movie Max 5’ took over the slot vacated by both programs.

And in a related development, both ‘Aksyon sa Tanghali’ and ‘T3: Enforced’ were once again cut to 30 minutes. This was in anticipation of the latter program’s year-end reports that are slated to air during Christmas and New Year’s week.

‘Face the People’ and ‘Let’s Ask Pilipinas’ returned with a second season on July 7, albeit on the late morning slot rather than the afternoon and early evening slots, respectively. The move to new timeslots paved the way for TV5 to air two PBA games on weekdays beginning in mid-October.

As a result, ‘Face the People’ and ‘Let’s Ask Pilipinas’ served as an appetizer to TV5’s noontime newscast ‘Aksyon sa Tanghali’, which debuted the following week.

The two shows also carried new hosts; ‘Face the People’ mainstays Gelli de Belen and Tintin Bersola-Babao were joined by Edu Manzano, while Ogie Alcasid replaced Aga Muhlach on ‘Let’s Ask Pilipinas’.

In all, 100 episodes were aired on both ‘Face the People’ and ‘Let’s Ask Pilipinas’ during their second seasons, which was not a bad run.

‘Face the People’ marked the swan song of Edu Manzano on the Kapatid network. On September 14, it was announced that Manzano will rejoin ABS-CBN following the completion of his obligations with TV5.

Meanwhile, Gelli de Belen and Ogie Alcasid will have new projects come next year, as TV5 recently announced its upcoming slate of programs for 2015. As for Tintin Bersola-Babao, it is unclear if she will stick with TV5 or move to another network.

With the cancellation of both ‘Face the People’ and ‘Let’s Ask Pilipinas’, TV5 now has an opening for any of their upcoming programs. For now, though, the same ol’ boring Tagalized movies on ‘Movie Max 5’ will take over the slot, albeit temporarily.