QUITE A NUMBER of viewers like watching the fashion-world teleserye ?Magkaribal??for vastly different reasons.

Some are turned on by the show?s high-fashion look and similarly ?high-flying? melodrama, replete with arch and hissy confrontation scenes, grand entrances and even more floridly melodramatic exits, ?deliciously? quotable one-liners and patutsada, larger-than-life characters who turn out to be as vile as they are iconically lovely, etc.

To date, much of the florid fuss and bother has been over the show?s focus on ambition and vengeance in ostensibly high places, as vivified by the iconically beautiful characters played by Gretchen Barretto and Angel Aquino.

Taking sides

The competition between the two characters (and the actresses who play them?) has heated up so much that some viewers have been ?taking sides,? rooting for one great beauty over the other, for many different, personal, subjective and sometimes even contradictory reasons.

To their credit, the two actresses in contention have chosen to take the high road (well, most of the time) and have left the hissing and dissing to their respective cadres of fans?who have come up with some really quirky zingers, like ?Angel may be the better actress, but Gretchen?s jewels are real!?

That may be like comparing carrots to cumquats, but go figure!

Snoots, hoots

For our part, we are occasionally entertained by the show?s uniquely melodramatic combination of style and vile. But after a while, the merry mix of snoots and hoots acquires too much of a predictable pattern, and we find ourselves looking for other, fresher hooks to hang onto.

Occasionally, we?ve found them in the story?s subplots, the macadam seaminess of which contrasts nicely with the show?s overarching veneer of high-fashion hoo-hah, and reveals its underlying hypocrisy.

But, even that gets to be too predictable in due time, so we look for other elements to keep us interested?and they?re sometimes provided by the cast?s portrayals.

Most of the time, however, those blessings don?t include the leads? performances, which perforce have to be too stylish and florid to have genuine acting gravitas.

The sub-leads? portrayals don?t have to be quite so overblown, so that?s where we find the occasional acting gem that keeps us viewing.

Last week, for instance, Mark Gil, who plays a dastardly dad, had a belated change of heart, and the show took a welcome break from its constant ?fashionizing? to focus instead on his character?s pain.

In the hands of a lesser actor, the long and emotionally demanding scene could have come off as a shallow, trying-hard detour, or even a dead end, but Gil was so ?right? for the role and the ?moment? that he took it as far and as deep as it needed to go, which was ? very.

Grateful to Mark

Most of the time, even our best actors are wasted in supporting roles in teleseryes that require them to come up with shrill and even ?gargoyle? performances.

Happily, that didn?t happen in this instance, so aside from being grateful to Gil, we thank the show?s creative staffers for keeping the long scene in firm focus (for a change), to give the actor and his role their due.

We wish this would happen more often on the tube. And, we hope that viewers will find themselves moved and emotionally enlightened by it, aside form the knee-jerk kicks they get from teleseryes? more hysterical shticks.