Moving down the 'morality scale'

The trend in the past: perfect role-model characters
TVB crafts many different types of characters for us. They can be funny, serious, impulsive, calm, outgoing or shy. No matter what, there will be ONE similarity. They have a GOOD HEART. Old granny loses her way, the helpful young girl will lend her helping hand. Helpless young girl gettting violated in the back alley, righteous kungfu hero comes to the rescue. Young teenager accused of commiting a crime he never did, determined social worker/lawyer finds out the truth. This is what 100% of the tvb main characters are in the past, and what 90% are today.

The reason?
The media wants to send the right message across to the audience. They also want the audience to love the stars forever. Hence, this trend will never die. Main character of each story=role model for all

The growing trend of today: hanging between good and evil
I just mentioned 90% of tvb main characters today are perfect role models. So where are the other 10%? They belong here. TVB likes to add flaws to each of their characters nowadays. War and Beauty is the best example. What about LWOLAP? Fung Hang Lit, our dear Raymond, torn between good and evil for 40 episodes, and everyone loves him. In the modern world, RDOV have the most of such characters.

The reason?
1) to create a refreshing feeling
2) to portray characters closer to reality so that the audience can relate to them

BUT MEANWHILE...
1) the producers will think of a thousand reasons for you to forgive them at the same time. "Character has no choice, character wants to protect himself," these are some common reasons thrown at us, for fear that the audience will end up hating the main characters. These reasons will be repeated over and over again, to make sure you know that the main characters aren't TOTALLY BAD
2) there will also be another SUPPORTING character, who has a WORSE personality than the already-flawed main character. Most evil character will NEVER be the main character, no matter what.


The Future Trend: ultimate villain=the main character
Why not?

It will be really cool to present things from a different perspective. I have an idea. That is, let the main actor play the bad character (maybe a schizophrenic murderer or sth), and let different supporting characters come and go to analyse and study his psychology. Wouldn't that be great fun?

It will be the best to use this concept on the detective and suspense genres. For one thing, no one will guess that the MAIN character, who is usually the victim or the investigator, to be the real culprit.

Comedies- is it possible?
If you watch the popular USA sitcom 'Friends', NONE of the 6 characters are normal. They are all crazy people, their lives are in a mess, we are NOT going to follow their footsteps. BUT, the sitcom is still extremely popular and LONG-LASTING. The audience can just watch it as a senseless comedy, laugh at them, mock them, and continue staying tuned every single night.