The Journey: Our Homeland (Chinese: 信约：我们的家园, also known as Our Homeland) is the third and final season of Mediacorp Channel 8's nation-building trilogy The Journey, the previous two being The Journey: A Voyage and The Journey: Tumultuous Times. Production began in January 2015 and debut in 16 July 2015 with a total of 30 episodes. It stars Rui En, Shaun Chen, Felicia Chin, Rebecca Lim, Romeo Tan and Zhang Zhenhuan as the main casts of the series.
Like its predecessors, Our Homeland will be the third periodical drama to use CGI.
The series will be Channel 8's 2015 mid-year blockbuster celebrating Singapore's 50th National Day (SG50). The series is partly sponsored by the Media Development Authority (MDA) of Singapore.
Channel 8 the journey our homeland episode 8 trailer
Plot
This drama serial is the finale of the trilogy “The Journey”. Spanning two decades, it depicts the development of Singapore from her budding steps post independence in 1966 to her era of prosperity in the 1980s. Life diverged into different paths for these spirited youths. They had once lost, fallen and grudged. Nonetheless, kinship prevailed over all and blissful reunions were enjoyed in the end. Together with other families in Singapore, they moved on to strive and work towards building a blessed homeland. Singapore eventually evolves into an illuminous star of Southeast Asia through the united efforts of her people.
Jeanette Aw is the only cast member to have appeared in all three seasons so far. This is the first series where Aw and Romeo Tan will not have any scenes together.
This is Li Wenhai's dual role in the trilogy series, as he appeared in A Voyage as Chen Guang, Zhang Tianying (Allen Chen)'s master and Zhang Huiniang (Joanne Peh)'s life saviour.
Romeo Tan's third villainous role after Joys of Life and Tumultuous Times and also his first dual role, playing antagonist Zhang Yan in earlier parts of the show and protagonist Hong Kuan in later parts of the show.
This will be the second series after Against The Tide to have at least five of the "8 Dukes of Caldecott Hill" appear. Incidentally, three of the five dukes in this series will play villains; Zhang Zhenhuan (Yan Yisheng), Ian Fang (Wan Zicong) and Romeo Tan (Zhang Yan).
The store that the Hong family opened was a reference to The Little Nyonya, another successful period drama series with their theme song also composed by Olivia Ong.
The screengrab of Zhang Jia (Shaun Chen) and Yang Meixue (Rui En) eloping suddenly flipped two slides into the end of the credits reel of episode 22.
Aloysius Pang and Jayley Woo also had scenes together in Tiger Mum and Super Senior, two preceding MediaCorp Studios series, with the exception that they are not paired up here.
Rebecca Lim first collaboration with Venus Lim as younger version of her character
Ian Fang first collaboration with Ezekiel Chee as younger version of his character
Romeo Tan first collaboration with Ian Teng as younger version of her character
Cheryl Wee first collaboration with Isabel Yamada as younger version of her character
Shane Pow first collaboration with Andres Neo Bo Jun as younger version of his character
Jeffrey Xu first collaboration with Alston Yeo as younger version of his character
The Series repeat its telecast on Channel 8 at 5.30pm succeeding Mind Game
The series was adapted as a comic and has been selling at Popular Bookstores since November 2015, targeting at upper primary and secondary students. The comic showcases the best of the series, and is promoted by the Committee to Promote Chinese Language.
Controversies
Malaysia's satellite channel Astro Shuang Xing was to air the show first in Asia, beginning from 9 July 2015, Sundays to Thursdays, as with Mind Game (aired on 30 April) and Super Senior (11 June). However, on the discretion of MediaCorp, Shuang Xing has to air the show on the same day as Singapore from 23 July 2015, Mondays to Fridays. Hence, the show was pre-empted five times there. This caused Taiwan SET's Be With You 2 episodes back-to-back telecast to be pushed forward to 5.00pm from 16 to 23 July. In fact, Astro shouldn't have aired MediaCorp dramas first before Singapore does so beginning with Mind Game, as it did not perform well in Singapore and is also nominated for only one technical award in Star Awards 2016, and that only Super Senior and The Dream Makers II were the only dramas in the planned First Global Premiere to win performance categories. The changes in schedule partially influenced Shuang Xing's timeslots of series airing later — following the end of Hong Kong's HKTV global premiere, with effect from 24 September, the channel resumed airing dramas on Mondays to Fridays, and back-to-back encores on Saturdays and Sundays, with the first series to use the new timeslots being Chinese series Best Get Going and MediaCorp's Hand In Hand. Other dramas, such as Youth Power, K Song Lover and My Husband is a Cartoonist, changed their schedules as well, with the exception of same-day telecast as Taiwan series Love Cuisine.
Jeanette Aw won six voting-based awards in Star Awards 2015 Show 1, including three Most Popular Regional Artiste Awards, Social Media Award and Favourite Female Character award for her role in The Journey: Tumultuous Times. Aw expressed her wish to withdraw from voting-based award categories in the future. Speaking to the media after the ceremony, Aw said that the move is due to her concern about rabid fans who left messages online saying that they would harm themselves if she did not win enough awards. However, it can be seen that voting for Star Awards 2016 Favourite Female Character for both this series and The Dream Makers II did not remove her from the voting list. Mediacorp quotes that as these awards are determined by online voting, she still had to participate in these awards. She went on to win the Favourite Female Character and Favourite Onscreen Couple (Drama) with Qi Yuwu for The Dream Makers II in 2016, which was the last time the Favourite categories were held.
2016 Accolades
Our Homeland has the next-to-most number of nominations for Star Awards 2016, with 16 nominations - 7 technical, 7 performance and 2 voting-based - in 14 award categories, down from 17 in 2015. The series has at least one nomination in every technical award for drama programmes, winning the Best Cameraman (for Drama Programmes) award. Along with 118, Crescendo, The Dream Makers II and Tiger Mum, it is one of the five dramas to be nominated for both the Best Drama Serial and Best Theme Song.
