To Catch the Uncatchable

Starring: Ada Choi, Dayo Wong, Michael Tong and Marco Ngai

A detective story with the bulk of the series involving Dayo (the smart detective) solving mostly murder cases, and somehow always involving Ada with the case. Ada is an insurance package seller whose only motivation throughout the series is to bombard people with insurance plans because more plans = more money and recognition for her within the workplace. Michael is a fitness instructor who helps Ada and Dayo at the gym.

THE CRITICISM
Granted that this is a comedic series with a primary purpose to entertain and send us into uncontrollable bursts of laughter (of which its success is questionable, I’ll get to that later), but the non-existent character development leaves it hollow and lacking audience affection for the main characters. Ada’s character is one dimensional and she has no interests outside of her relentless pursuit of customers. Dayo has no interests except solving cases and watching old movies with his mother as the star. Michael Tong also has no life and purpose except to chase after Ada and Marco Ngai’s character is remarkably similar to Ada’s -- desperately seeking new customers to try to outdo her and gain power within the company where they both work.

Ada:
Although I have long been a fan of Ada, her performance in here has disappointed me tremendously. Her portrayal of a loud, fast talking, and unscrupulous woman falls well short of being likeable. Her one-dimensional character leads the audience to question: who is this person other than a desperate, selfish saleswoman? Ada obviously over-acts throughout the series and her extremely expressive facial expressions (when she is captured as a hostage and is in terrible fear) are not natural and thus she fails to portray a genuine character. She becomes quite annoying as you progress further. The conclusion is: she is trying way too hard at a role that doesn’t suit her acting skills.

Dayo:
Dayo’s “comedic genius” is baffling to me as I see no evidence of his hilarity. He is a very natural performer and I guess he remembers all his lines, but he portrays this character in such a lifeless and disinterested manner that his rare humourous comments fail to achieve the desired effect. The conclusion is: Dayo underacts in this series and does not possess or is willing to display true acting talent.

Michael Tong:
As mentioned above, Michael has no life in this series and his main purpose is to provide scenes that are entirely unnecessary and to act as the hated third person in Ada and Dayo’s relationship (obviously an attempt by TVB to provoke audience interest in the Ada-Dayo romance but a failed attempt because the romance is non-existent). When Michael takes Ada on a hike (the purpose of this hike is hazy and at best stupid: Michael apparently wants to reach a waterfall (jeez!)), and after successfully reaching this target it starts to rain and Ada suggests that they climb up the waterfall. Firstly, why would you risk your life climbing up a waterfall in the rain? I know that comedy doesn’t have to make sense, as long as it’s funny, but pitifully this whole hiking episode fails to provoke even a slight laugh.

Marco:
The only impression he makes on the audience is: that guy who always criticises Ada and tries to embarrass her in the office. He also has no life and purpose other than to give Ada a hard time and occasionally being the comic relief who is wrongly accused of murder many times (so repetitive).

THE REPETIITON
The same concept is used far too many times and is the main factor in why this series is tedious.

1. As Ada or Marco walk into their office, they overhear their coworkers backstabbing them from a mile away. Apparently, they are talking so loud that the sound travels all the way through the ventilation pipes and reach Ada or Marco in crystal clear condition, causing them to cringe with anger and shame. One or two times this event may be amusing, but every 20 minutes is way too much, as this becomes very tiring and not in the least amusing to watch.

2. Ada ALWAYS strolls into the police department and sits down to listen to progress on murder cases as if she lives there. What happened to case confidentiality? And the reason why she is always there is because of her endless selling of insurance packages: she even continues to come after she has successfully sold an insurance plan to everybody in that police unit. How pathetic.

3. The murderer is always obvious: don’t excite yourself by thinking that cases are “whodunits” that require viewers to deduct clues and come to the conclusion themselves, oh no, this is DEFINITELY NOT a "Detective Investigation Files 4". The murderer is apparent even before the killing takes place: that’s how pathetic it is. Dayo’s role is to trick murderers into exposing themselves, after which they are arrested and he goes through a painfully tedious and repetitive recount of every single event and every single thing he and the murderer did. TVB obviously do not have a high opinion of viewers and thinks we are all too daft to put two and two together. Dayo explains EVERYTHING.

CHEMISTRY BETWEEN ADA AND DAYO?
They are an extremely unimpressionable team and I see limited evidence of their chemistry, their performance falls well short of their “My Favourite Team Award” at this year’s TVB anniversary, very undeserving winners I think.

MY CONCLUSION
This series is definitely overrated, is rarely humourous and very tedious. Ok I’m being too harsh: the first three episodes are quite funny, but it surely goes downhill from there, so down that it is hard to bear more than 20 minutes at a time, with the constant repetition and lack of chemistry between the leads. Not a series to be enjoyed.