Rak Diao is a vexing show to review. Heck, it’s a vexing show to watch. This series has the most intrusive laugh track I have ever encountered. (Note: I grew up watching U.S. sitcoms that routinely overused the device, but Rak Diao’s artificial laughs are other-level.) The canned laughter not only sounds unnatural, but the sound editor seemed under the impression that every line of dialog warranted hysterical guffaws to sweeten the comedy—irrespective of whether the writers were attempting a joke or not. The sound team was apparently paid per interjection because the corny sound effects that plague most Thai dramas infest Rak Diao like flies at a dump. Sound editing should have nothing to do with the quality of a series in terms of acting, writing, direction; yet, I’ve chosen to lead this review by addressing these issues up front as a courtesy to those in the viewing audience who quit watching Asian shows in frustration because they cannot tune out such artificial noises. Rak Diao is not a series you all should even bother to start, as the vexing bonks, bops, and laughter assault the senses in an unrelenting barrage. For everyone else, Rak Diao delivers a compelling BL plotline that manages to save the series from some inane (and vexing) plot choices in the early episodes.

Underneath all that noise, Rak Diao is uneven: cringey and dull at its worst; sweet and satisfying at its best. The series takes its time to find its footing, but with a 15-episode run, it had the luxury of time. The last half-dozen episodes are quite good (when you can hear them). In the opener, Rak and Diao meet randomly on the street and instantly dislike one another. The audience knows Diao is on his way to a job interview, and anyone who ever watched Any Sit-Com Ever knows Rak will turn out to be the interviewer. When Diao returns home, convinced this opportunity won’t pan out, his elder sister mollifies his chagrin with a piece of good news: she’s managed to rent the spare room at their house to a pair of brothers, who will move in that same day. As anyone who has ever watched Any Sit-Com Ever knows….hmmm, I bet you, Gentle Reader, can finish that sentence yourself. And that’s the set-up for the whole series: a solid premise both for a BL series and for a sit-com. The two men dislike each other, until they don’t. Rak is the boss at work while Diao, as landlord, rules the roost at home. They take turns provoking one another until feelings bloom. Given how much energy each devotes to annoying the other, all that attention transforming to romantic sparks was inevitable. The BL aspect is one the series’ best assets, particularly after the two enemies begin to comprehend their emerging attraction. For those who consume BL for the fluffy love story, the emotional resonance of this late arc overcomes many of the series’ more shaky elements.

The weakest aspects of Rak Diao are the supposed comedy and the character building. Humor depends on sensibility and cultural cues to a greater degree than does drama or action or thrillers. But even allowing that some humor will get lost in translation, I found Rak Diao notably unfunny in most episodes. All great situation comedies (or individual episodes thereof) succeed when the “sit” portion appears to be grounded in some plausible reality. The “com” follows as viewers relate to the universal human element and to the characters caught up in that crazy situation. (Any person who ever worked an assembly line job knows the seemingly simple task includes built-in pressure to keep pace with the conveyor belt; so, when the beleaguered Lucy and Ethel start stuffing chocolates into their mouths and clothes, the moment remains rooted in a reality familiar to viewers. That episode is iconic 70 years after it was filmed because it earns the hysterics from being true to life and true to the characters.) Situation comedies flail when the “sit” and the “com” fail to connect, or when the audience cannot sympathize with the characters. The writers of Rak Diao generated some truly bizarre “sits,” but they often forgot about the “com” altogether. It was if they thought dumping Rak and Diao into an awkward situation sufficed for laughs on its own. There are exceptions: the episode with the fortune teller was genuinely funny, in part because in this instance the “com” derived from the characters reacting to the “sit.” Their reactions felt more grounded than most of the contrived sit-com plots. For me, that was the episode where Rak Diao found its footing.

The most glaring liability in Rak Diao is Diao. Here, I mean primarily how the writers wrote the character. The actor playing the part was the weaker of the two leads by far, but his performance perked up noticeably in the last episodes. Not coincidentally, that’s when the writers gave him good material to play. In any event, “inexperienced actor” was never the character’s problem. Being an insufferable human being was his problem. Immature at home and unprofessional at work, his asshattery drove most of the conflict between himself and Rak. But, seriously, why would anyone, let alone the even-keeled Rak, ever crush on such a self-centered jerk? You’d just want to crush the creep instead. If we take a step back, and look at Diao’s character arc as a whole, the entire series could be understood as depicting Diao’s journey from callow child into responsible adult. In that regard, it’s worth pointing out that the later episodes rely on the emotional resonance created by Diao’s slow realization of his attraction to Rak. The BL portions of this situation-comedy, especially in the final half-dozen episodes justify the time viewers need to invest in the early episodes.

I recommend Rak Diao…but expect to find it a frustrating, vexing ride until it begins to deliver.