‘The Warp Effect’ Review – Wraps Too Much

What if your teenage self suddenly jumped to the future where you are a successful professional but apparently no longer best friends with all your high school buddies, whom you were literally hanging out with yesterday? Would you continue to live your current life to its fullest or instead try to fix all your past mistakes?

Directed by Ninew Pinya Chookamsri, the series stars New Thitipoom Techa-apaikhun as protagonist Alex, a high-school boy whose mother gives him a chastity ring, but he breaks his promise during a wild night of partying and wakes up in the future as a successful gynecologist. However, apparently he has burnt bridges with all his close friends and thinks solving their problems might help him go back to his original timeline.

Visually, the series looks great, it has an upbeat fun mood for most parts and a sharp looking cast. The plot however falters now and then. At a certain juncture, if feels like the creators made a long list of social issues they wanted to tackle and then portraying how they ought to be appropriately handled, ranging from underage sex and teen pregnancy to transphobia, infidelity, sexual preferences, unusual kinks and more. While the writers do handle some of the sub-plots well, they don’t do justice to all their themes and ‘The Warp Effect’ becomes a bit of a muddle. Ironically, the protagonist Alex has the most problematic plot as he wrongs his crush Jean (played by Fah Yongwaree Anilbol) and then simply expects her to forgive him easy.

The breakout star of this show is Fluke Pusit Dittapisit who plays Army, a jock who bullied Alex in High School but becomes his best-fried in the future as both become doctors. I last saw him in ‘Enchante’, where he played a supporting role that was more interesting than the leads, although he wasn’t as memorable in ‘The Shipper’, where he was one of the protagonists. As Army in ‘The Warp Effect’, Fluke is endearingly entertaining as a flirty gay doctor who wears his heart on his sleeves. His character could’ve been written in a better way, but Fluke carries of both sides of Army with ease – that of an insecure teen self who is in the closet and the older confident out-and-proud doctor who is sometimes too self-centrered. Thor Thinnapan Tantui plays Fluke’s crush Jo, and their chemistry was the strongest in this series. The other actor who stood out with her character’s portrayal was Gigie Chanunphat Kamolkiriluck as the beautiful single air-hostess Kat. Gigie is sassy, confident and sexy as Kat, a woman who has no interest in serious relationships and is vocal about what she wants, she doesn’t lead people on.

Viewers do get an interesting little twist towards the end to explain why Alex’s mother ‘cursed’ him, however, the resolution to his story is quite unrealistic. Regardless, ‘The Warp Effect’ was a fun show to watch.

It’s a 7/10 from me. Stream the series on YouTube.