Top Secret Together (TST) is a series that’s just a bad riff. It lacks any story originality, taking its storylines from other more successful Thai series -which I will outline from where later - and passes it off as a credible series. Add to that, two too many couples and you have a hot confusing mess. TST is a rom-com ish series that does a poor job of connecting and developing a cohesive storyline for most of the couples in the series. Instead of focusing on one or two couples, TST ambitiously squeezes in 5 of them to the detriment of the series as it needed to spend time with all the couple’s storylines. They should have invested in a more streamlined series with two or three couples. The three seasons of Hormones, My Engineer, and even Make it Right are examples of very successful large multi-couple/multi-plot series’s that should be templates for any new producer/director undertaking this style of series. Otherwise, you end up getting TST.

The couples and the riffs (spoiler alert):

Couple 1: Sinmai/Lukmo are the main couple of TST. The story is your typical grumpy aloof guy that gets changed by an enthusiastic, naive younger guy. Pretty much a riff of the Phu/Kao couple from the Oxygen series - Ram/King from My Engineer also comes to mind here as well. Sinmai/Lukmo have their good moments early as Sinmai breaks down Lukmo’s wall only to have it come crashing down when TST decides to throw a couple of ethical wrenches into the mix by making them have a brother/step-brother relationship. Honestly, an unnecessary plot twist. They should have dropped that part and spent more time focusing them moving to becoming a couple. Embellishing Lukmo’s challenges with his mom’s passing or built-off his fight with co-workers would have been far more interesting. The cliffhanger of Sinmai leaving to go overseas, like Phu did in Oxygen, was a good wrapper. The whole brother/step-brother and the parents wanting to keep it a secret just leaves all kinds of dirty in that storyline for no reason.

Couple 2: MaiEak/Phob - Phob crushes on MaiEak. MaiEak doesn’t reciprocate back till the end till when he realizes that he really does like Phob but by then it’s too late. This is a riff of Khai/Third couple in Theory of Love. The main difference is that Third drowns out his sorrows by taking showers fully clothed, while Phob waits hungry for hours for MaiEak which gives Phob stomach problems. The Boss/Mek storyline from My Engineer as well as the Tee/Fuse storyline from Make it Right are also very reminiscent. Those three couple’s storylines were very well developed. They each made you feel the challenges and the pain of the one-sided love that each of the characters were going through. In TST, they rushed what seemed to be a bromance into a one-sided crush. They didn’t give the couple enough backstory like the aforementioned couples from other Thai series. They brought it to a head quickly with a funny accidental text and gave them a good confession scene where you could empathize with Phob’s one sided feelings and MaiEak not having the same romantic interest. But as the two drifted away, I became less and less empathetic with MaiEak. That’s where this storyline fails. I never rooted for this couple to succeed. It ended up being MaiEak being selfish and possessive, even in his approach to wooing Phob. It would have been far more interesting had MaiEak thrown himself into wooing Phob like Khai did with Third in Theory of Love. Cliche as that would have been, it would have been a far more interesting watch vs MaiEak just asking advise from everyone and bugging Phob on the phone 24/7. I guess that’s very Tee/Fuse in Make it Right. Even the wrap up was a bit weird. I definitely was rooting for the other guy to get Phob. Maybe it was the COVID restrictions that limited what they could do with this couple?

Couple 3: Nampu/Copy - a straight copy (pun intended) of the storyline of the much beloved SOTUS series. Distruptive Freshman woos the SOTUS Head Hazer. TST is just a slimmed down version of the SOTUS storyline. The beginning of the their storyline was rushed - would have been nice to have seen a bit more SOTUS related tension between the two and more of Nampu breaking down Copy’s wall. But, of all 5 couples this one developed and wrapped up the best. Highlighted by Copy’s coming out to his dad (which was very inventive) and the subtlety with the way that Copy professes his affection and commitment to Nampu. Overall, the couple that I enjoyed watching the most and the one I rooted the most to succeed.

The two that they should have thrown out or minimized (Spoiler Alert):

Couple 4: NewYear/Both - long term couple that run through an insecurity patch in their relationship. A typical cliche storyline done with no originality. From an overall TST storyline perspective, they are the glue between the first two couples I noted above and Couple 3 and 5. Otherwise there would be no link or storyline interactions between them without this couple. Their coffee shop is the hub of where all the couples go to hang-out get advise. Beyond them being the oracles in the story, their storyline is so superficial. Insecurities around one not ready to get married despite being together for over 10-years and perceived infidelity because Both gives an employee compliments of how he looked and gave him a valentine’s gift in front of NewYear, that’s the cause of your tension? They should have left them as oracles, no need for any drama related with this couple. Their issue and expanded role didn’t advance the overall series.

Couple 5: Plawaan/Suea - Suea crushes on HS Senior friend (Plawaan). Suea reconnects with Plawaan several years later when he’s a Senior in HS and Plawaan is a Senior in College. Their mutual connection is basketball. Plawaan is practicing a lot because he’s trying to make a college/club basketball team. I think they were trying to riff the storyline from Project S: Spike. Whether they were or not, it didn’t succeed. This is frankly a throw away couple. Their storyline is just not that interesting. I mostly felt like fast forwarding anytime they showed up on screen. First off, they needed to cast a person who could at least passably play basketball. It was obvious that the actor that played Plawaan couldn’t play any basketball. It was painful watching him try. With basketball being the main focal point of his character, it was important to cast an actor who could show a bit of competency to make it believable. Watch any of the Project S series or HIStory 2: Crossing the Line to get what I mean. In TST, they had too many basketball specific scenes to hide his deficiency which detracted from the credibility of the storyline. Additionally, the premise of his failure to make the team in the past was because of his height wasn’t entirely believable as his height was similar to his antagonist and his mentee Suea. The storyline and the vibe I got was that this was a random add-on couple to the series. Like it was a couple in the book that the series was based on or the producer said that they needed to add these guys as a condition to funding the series so they included them for no other reason. This couple ended up being more of a bromance than anything else. Not that there’s anything wrong with that but storyline kinda just bumbled through it, not sure if they should make it a romantic pairing or not. That and the fact that Plawaan was an unconvincing aspiring basketball player, made this couple a hard watch. Instead of spending what probably amounted to a whole episode of screen time with this couple, they should have of just dumped them in favor of more focused time on the first three I mentioned above.

Conclusion:

TST is a series that takes riffs from other Thai series as well adding cliche aspects of their storyline (let’s go vacation to the beach to profess our love for each other) and made a marginal series with little originality. The acting in TST was ok. There’s some weird dialog here and there but they’re passable and really wasn’t the problem in the series. Other than one character, they were definitely better than just cute. The problem came down to weak and uninteresting storylines for 4 of the 5 characters without enough development time. As I mentioned, the Nampu/Copy storyline was the only one that held any interest for me. The rest were eh, mainly because I felt little to no empathy for any of them especially at the end.

Is it worth watching? If you’re bored and willing to overlook the cliche storylines then maybe. Honestly, you’re far better off spending the time re-watching SOTUS, My Engineer, Theory of Love, Hormones, Make it Right, any of the Project S series, any of the HIStory series, and/or Oxygen. Those are the real deal and are far better uses of your time.