Wansapanataym Presents: OFISHially Yours

Filipino TV series Wansapanataym (Once Upon a Time) is a fantasy anthology with fairytale-like or fairytale-inspired stories. Most of the stories seem to be told over a single episode, while other stories take place over multiple episodes. In season seven there's a nine-episode story titled OFISHially Yours, which features merfolk.

Elisse Joson is Stella, the spoiled and self-centered only daughter of Lorna, a wealthy woman who's given Stella everything she's asked for. Stella wants to run her mother's night club and immediately runs into a problem when her attitude causes Darker Than Black, the popular boyband that's been performing at the club, to walk out in protest. The boyband's members all know Stella from their school days, and one of them in particular, Jason, confessed his feelings to Stella back then and she rejected him in a cruel way.

Stella gets a wake-up call when she almost drowns and is rescued by a group of merfolk. Argon (Jeric Raval), leader of the merfolk, falls sick, and Stella is given the task of returning to land and finding Argon's human wife, Elisa (Desiree del Valle), who is the mother of Princess Almira (Sammie Rimando). Stella returns home and begins her quest, as helped out by her mother and a now-sympathetic Jason and the rest of Darker Than Black. But Stella's mission is a cover for a sinister plot to usurp Argon by the mermaids Balintuna (Giselle Sanchez) and her daughter Merlina (Ria Atayde), and as it turns out Lorna has a tragic connection with Elisa that needs to be made right as well.

The story has more going for it than it looks at first, and there's elements of environmentalism and justice in how the characters figure themselves out. The tails looks great for television, though while Stella swims quite a bit in a pool there's no significant underwater scenes because it's not that kind of show.

All the episodes can be watched on youtube with English subtitles HERE.