Wandee Goodday 1×01 Review: Episode 1

Yesterday was the premiere of GMMTV’s latest BL, Wandee Goodday (which offers a stark contrast to the channel’s Wednesday offering, We Are). The series stars Great Sapol and Inn Sarin as Muay Thai fighter Yoyak (Yak) and Doctor Wandee (Dee), who start as a one-night stand that transitions into friends with benefits and eventually becomes fake dating.

So here’s the thing. There are a lot of shows I watch and don’t review. It’s a debate I have with myself about a) if I’ll have enough to talk about to justify weekly reviews and b) if I’ll be able to keep current with a show. (Those of you who have been around for a while know that I have dropped probably as many shows as I’ve finished.) And I didn’t think Wandee Goodday, fun as it looked, would be something that I would have a lot of opinions on.

And then I watched the first episode.

OK, it’s not going to win any awards. It’s not the best show that ever existed. But it is fun and silly and sexy, and I find that that’s a pretty rare combination in BLs. They either lean more into fun and silly or they lean into the sexy side. After watching the first episode, I’m much more excited about the series as a whole than I was before. I enjoyed it way more than I thought I would.

First, the thing that has me most excited is that there is an actual, labeled asexual character in Dee’s friend Plakao (Kao), played by Drake Sattabut. I planned on watching the episode but was putting it off, and then I saw all the gifsets on Tumblr and went, “OK, I’ll watch it now.” I was so excited that I went ahead and made a reaction video, which I have never done.

I haven’t seen an ace character in a BL yet, although to be fair, I’ve only been seriously watching BL for about a year, and there are a lot of series that I haven’t seen yet. Right away, Kao is dealing with struggles in his dating life, as people don’t really understand the concept of asexuality. I really hope that Kao and his relationships continue to be a part of the show, and that they don’t just drop this after these initial scenes.

Like, I both hope that he ends up with someone at the end and dread that ending at the same time. Because I worry about how they’ll handle Kao’s asexuality going forward, especially if he ends the series in a relationship. But also, Drake is one of the GMMTV actors who is not part of a set pair, so it’s nice to have the uncertainty regarding his character. (Set pairs basically always end up together, even if it doesn’t make narrative sense. I’m looking at you, Only Friends.)

Something else that greatly excites me is that this is a series where the characters are adults. As I’ve mentioned a few times, I always love it when the actors get to play characters their age. And while I know that high school and college series are very popular because in general, the BL audience tends to skew younger, as a person in her 40s, I am forever appreciative of shows that focus on older characters. Queer people still have lives and loves after college, after all.

But of course, the big focus of the series is the relationship between Dee and Yak, which starts out adversarial. Yak, as a professional fighter, needs regular checkups, and Dee is the doctor doing his checkup. But later, when Dee is drunk and heartbroken (crushing on a straight guy – never fun), he hilariously tries to seduce Yak to prove to his crush that he’s not “too vanilla”. And it actually works, though not really how he expected it to.

I am seriously digging the dynamic so far. I know eventually they’ll become friends with benefits and then fake boyfriends (both tropes that I am exceedingly fond of). But even now, just as one night stands, I really like how much Yak checks in with Dee. (Consent is sexy!) When Dee freezes up, Yak notices and stops immediately, then gives him time to think about whether or not he wants to continue.

There’s also a really funny moment when Dee gets a leg cramp and Yak helps him alleviate it, and then that turns into them watching a series on TV. (The Eclipse, which had the same writer and director as Wandee Goodday.) It’s funny because “watching a series” was Dee’s excuse to invite Yak inside in the first place.

One thing that caught the attention of several people is that Yak and Dee don’t kiss at all during their night together. They actually go in for a kiss, but Dee redirects himself at the last second, and Yak seemingly respects this boundary and doesn’t make any attempt to kiss him again. This reminds me of Moonlight Chicken, where Jim and Wen don’t kiss until the end of the series. I have a feeling this is a similar situation. Kissing implies intimacy, and that’s not where they are in their relationship. Especially since Dee still has feelings for Ter, the straight colleague he confessed to earlier in the episode.

That means that when they finally do kiss, it’s going to be A Big Deal. And I will go absolutely feral when it happens.

We haven’t seen much from the side couple, O-ye (Thor Thinnaphan) and Cher (Fluke Nattanon), who are part of Yak’s team. But I am excited that they are an established couple, because that allows for a variety of storylines. An established couple is going to have different issues to deal with than a couple that hasn’t become official yet. So many BLs are about a pair getting together, so I’m eager to see what storylines they’ll give a couple that starts the series together.

It’s only been one episode, but I’m actually super excited about this series. It looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun, and while I’m enjoying We Are Wednesdays, it’ll be nice to have a show that’s a little more adult.

Wandee Goodday airs on Saturdays and can be streamed on the GMMTV YouTube channel.

Author: Jamie Sugah

Jamie has a BA in English with a focus in creative writing from The Ohio State University. She self-published her first novel, The Perils of Long Hair on a Windy Day, which is available through Amazon. She is currently an archivist and lives in New York City with her demon ninja vampire cat. She covers television, books, movies, anime, and conventions in the NYC area.

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