Hormones: The Series

Production

Hormones is produced by Thai film company GMM Tai Hub (GTH) and its subsidiary production and casting company Nadao Bangkok. According to director Songyos Sugmakanan, Hormones was conceived partly as a channel for GTH to create acting opportunities for its teenage actors and partly as an experiment in creating a drama series that was non-typical for Thai television (which usually features Thai soap operas and sitcoms). With a concept partly based on Songyos's 2008 film of the same name and inspired by the British series Skins, Hormones seeks to explore and portray various aspects and issues of adolescent life. These include topics normally considered taboo for open discussion in Thai society, such as teenage sex and school violence.

In creating the script, Songyos and the writing team conducted online research on contemporary adolescent issues, but also learned from the experiences of the young cast members. He aimed to show the issues from a teenager's point of view and actively avoided any preaching, trying instead to have consequences of actions implied through the characters' experiences. Songyos opted to use the filmmaking techniques that he was familiar with in the creation of Hormones, adjusting them to suit a television production. Filming of the first season took place from December 2012 to April 2013.

Although originally planned for only one season, GTH announced towards the end of the first season that it would be producing a second one, responding to the show's popularity. Songyos switched roles to become producer for the second season, with Kriangkrai Vachiratamporn, who had co-written the series, becoming director. GTH also launched a casting programme with an accompanying reality series titled Hormones: The Next Gen, in order to select additional actors to supplement the original main cast from the first season.

Storyline, cast and characters

Hormones features an ensemble cast, with nine main characters in the first season. The story mainly takes place at the fictional Nadao Bangkok College, where the characters attend upper-secondary school. All the main characters are followed throughout the season, with each episode focused on one or a few of the characters and the issues they experience.

The main cast for the first and second seasons, in order of first-season billing, are:

The new character in Season 2 :

The new character in Season 3 :

Pachara, Ungsumalin, Sutatta and Sirachuch had already played major roles in GTH feature films prior to Hormones, while most of the others had experience in supporting roles in films or mini-series. Sedthawut and Kemisara made their acting debut in Hormones. Five new actors from the Hormones: The Next Gen programme also made their acting debut as supporting characters in the second season.

In Hormones, the main characters (with the exception of Dao and Koi, who are a year younger) are matthayom 5 students (equivalent to grade 11) in the first season, which is set during the 2012 academic year. The second season takes place a year after the first. Supporting characters include teachers, family members, classmates and various others.

Episodes

Each season of Hormones consists of thirteen episodes, with one special each at the beginning and the end. The episodes are as follows.

Broadcast and reception

The first season of Hormones was broadcast from May to August 2013 on GMM One, a satellite channel owned by GMM Grammy, GTH's parent company. It occupied the 22:00 slot on Saturday nights, and was also available to view online through GMM One's website, and for later episodes, YouTube live streaming. Past episodes were also made available for free viewing on YouTube.

Although the series began with some uncertainty regarding its profitability, it quickly proved extremely popular, despite not being broadcast on free-to-air terrestrial television. Each episode had about a million viewers, and by the eighth episode, the channel's viewership ratings had risen from twentieth to third for the 22:00 Saturday time slot, following only terrestrial channels 3 and 7. While teenagers make up most of the show's viewership, it has also received interest from their parents. And although the show started with only one major sponsor, it had at least ten competing advertisers by the end of the season. The success prompted the production of a second season, which was announced shortly before the end of the first. The show also developed followings in Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines. A DVD box set was released in October 2013.

Reception to the series was mostly positive. Hormones was widely mentioned by the press, who attributed its success to its production quality and its offering of new content lacking from usual television programming. However, it also received negative criticism, especially from conservative voices, for its inclusion of inappropriate behaviour. Controversial scenes included students attempting to have sex in a classroom, a female student visit an illegal abortion clinic after losing her virginity and female students fighting in a school toilet. Some members of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) have suggested that the show featured indecent thoughts and images and, by undermining public morality, might be in violation of the Public Broadcasting Act. A summons by the NBTC for the producers to discuss the show's content sparked further debate about media censorship, while supporters pointed out that some popular soap operas seen by wider audiences featured far worse behaviour. Director Songyos Sugmakanan commented that the series played an integral part in Thailand's culture because the issues this series touches upon like teenage sex, drugs usage and other adolescent problems faced by the Thai's teen were not usually discussed in Thai society. For him, avoiding such subjects basically was an example of "adults closing their eyes" to reality especially to the high abortion rate in Thailand. Ungsumalynn Sirapatsakmetha, who plays Khwan in the series, insisted that the series' aim was to provoke the audience to think and censorship was mainly to protect those who can't think for themselves. Ultimately, the broadcast of the first season was completely uncensored but with pixelization of some objects like cigarette and alcohol containers.

Broadcasting of the show's second season began in July 2014. However, it was switched to another GMM Grammy-owned channel, GTH On Air, which is available only through Grammy's own GMM Z set-top box. Although YouTube live streaming was still offered, the season's past episodes were now only available through the affiliated AIS Movie Store mobile application. Responding to viewer's complaints, GTH later offered a simulcast on GMM Channel, a digital terrestrial channel.

Due to the internet and the new media, Hormones also received tremendous response from audiences outside Thailand like Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and China. In China, Hormones has a huge base of fans that watch the fan-sub version of this series in various video streaming sites.