The iconic early noughties TV teen drama Tabing Ilog (literally “Riverside”), which could probably be best described as our local rip-off of the U.S. hit Dawson’s Creek, is getting a musical reboot.
Nearly two decades after its last episode aired, a teaser poster was released on social media last night touting Tabing Ilog The Musical, with the tagline “Kamusta ang barkada?” (“How is the gang?”).
The melodrama, which aired on ABS-CBN from 1999 to 2003, followed the lives of teenage friends Vic (John Lloyd Cruz), George (Jodi Sta. Maria), James (Patrick Garcia), Fonzy (Baron Geisler), Epifania (Kaye Abad), Badong (Paolo Contis), Anne (Paula Peralejo), and Corrine (Desiree del Valle).
So, how is the original gang doing?
Well, besides being two decades older, a few of them (Sta. Maria, Geisler, Contis) are still on TV. Most, however, aren’t acting anymore, and one — Cruz — is on showbiz hiatus and purportedly getting, uhhh, weird.
Unfortunately, apart from the revelation that the revived Tabing Ilog would be a singing-and-dancing affair, and the vague promise that it’s “coming soon,” no other details or casting information were released. Still, a musical reincarnation shouldn’t be that hard to imagine — the show’s theme song “Sa Ilog” (“By the River”) by Barbie Almalbis was something of an earworm, and probably just as famous as the show itself.
So, for now, we guess we’ll just be sitting here, thumbing through our old yearbooks, waiting to see if and when Tabing Ilog finally returns to the screen. And for those who need a more immediate nostalgia fix: you can binge-watch the series here.
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