Thai drama: The Next Prince

[autodach]

Mydramalist summary:The nation of Emmaly is known for its abundance, both by land and water. Emmaly is ruled by a monarchy and is divided into five regions and leaders. According to royal law, each region must send an heir to compete in order to become a monarch. The winning heir's father becomes the new king of Emmaly.

This story follows the crown prince and heir Khanin of the Assavadevathin royal family and his royal bodyguard Charan Phithakthewa, whose family has been the Assavadevathin’s royal guard for decades. Khanin lives far away from Emmaly and he doesn't care about seizing the throne. Charan, as the royal guard, has the duty to bring Khanin back to the country.

The very first episode was on fire: Khanin gets to find out he’s a prince, lose his father, and meet the love of his life all in one day. Seems at first like standard tropey bodyguard romance I’ve seen (and loved) a million times – that’s not actually what this drama is, though.

It had more politics than I expected. The true main characters in this show are the insufficient safety standards of Emmaly’s mining operation.
I liked that the show is not afraid to feature more serious topics, but I wish it hadn’t outshone the couple. I like when there’s balance between the romance and plot (ideally these would be intertwined, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves, haha).

Spoilers

The mining storyline ultimately gets dropped, which is a pity. The Secret Bad Guy obviously turns out to be the character who has no other role in the story.

In general, there aren’t any surprises, which is fine. The pacing was a little off, but at only 14 episodes, I can deal with it.

The main couple was solid enough, nothing groundbreaking. I liked the contrast between Charan who has grown up in this old-fashioned fantasy court setting, and Khanin who holds opinions and values in line with the outside (real) world. Like I said, I would have loved to see them fleshed out more.
There’s a BDSM side couple, of which I liked the bottom but disliked the top, and didn’t really ship them in the end.
Didn't form any opinion on the third couple.

Overall there wasn’t anything super exciting going on, although the seeds were there. They could have taken this drama in multiple directions, but simply failed to pick one – ending up with a compromise that just doesn’t fully commit to anything.

Comments

[profiterole_reads]

I enjoyed the show, except the fact that there was a huge disbalance of screen time between the main couple and the other couples.

[autodach]

I think this show would have benefited from having only one couple that gets properly fleshed out, rather than sharing the spotlight.

[bluapapilio]

I'll have to really think on whether I watch this or not.

[autodach]

Probably depends on how much of a time commitment 14 episodes are for you. I don't regret watching this, but if it had been longer, I would have dropped it.