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The second series that I worked on during my time at the Television Corporation of Singapore was Shiver. It was deemed by different people on the production team as a fantasy, mystery, horror and some would dare say, confused series. It also happened to be the English drama series with the most number of episodes in a single season: 30.
When it was first conceived, the title "Shiver, Shiver" was suggested. The show was supposed to deliver a moment at the end of each episode when the viewer would get a chill running down his spine. Nice idea, bad title. The writing team managed to whittle the name down to just "Shiver" which was a slight improvement.
The show had its share of bouquets and brickbats, many justified. But there were enough stand-out episodes for the series to stay on people's minds. It also allowed many local actors and actresses to try new and different roles.
For me, it was a great chance to try different genres and story styles with each episode that I wrote. I was free to bring out stories and characters that had been living inside my head for years and give them a life and voice and to share them with others. I wrote a total of five episodes which are detailed below. To be honest, I'm providing summaries based on what I remember. My notes and scripts were saved on 1.44" disks and so are mostly damaged. I've already forgotten many character names and the actors who played them. But to the best of my memory, here are synopses of the five episodes:
Worry Doll
 | Lisa Ang
in Worry Doll |
Serene is nothing like her name suggests. She worries about her job, her colleagues, her husband, everything. Then she gets an Indonesian patung (doll) which apparently can remove one's worries. So Serene shares with the doll her innermost fears and to her increasing shock, her worries are each removed in horrific and unexpected ways. Her boss who is stealing her best ideas gets silenced by a heart attack. Her rival colleague who is flirting her way to the top gets disfigured. Her husband whom Serene wishes would keep his eyes to himself gets blinded in an industrial accident. When Serene realises the doll is causing all this, she tries to but a stop to it but she falls deathly ill. The final straw is when her mother, in desperation wishes on the doll to take Serene's worries away and the doll's solution is to snuff the life from her. "Worry Doll" starred Lisa Ang in her first dramatic acting role and Mark Richmond as her husband.
Invisible
 | Mark Richmond
in Worry Doll |
A young heartless woman gets cursed by an older lady to a life of obscurity. Thinking nothing of it, the young woman begins to notice strange things happening to her. Automatic doors don't open for her; Lift doors don't jerk back when she tries to enter at the last second; her security pass fails to let her in. Soon people on the street keep bumping into her and she finds great difficult in attracting a person's attention.
She soon realises people have stopped noticing her. Her boyfriend tries to console her, telling her she's imaginging things but pretty soon he not only doesn't recognise her but can't even seem to see her when she's right in front of him. She realises the older lady's curse about being unnoticed has come to pass. She tracks down the older lady and tries to get her to revoke the curse but ends up killing accidently in the fight that ensues. The yong lady realises she's truly doomed when even her identity card fades and goes completely blank. She has in essence, become invisible. "Invisible" starred Eileen Wee and Nora Samosir as the woman who sets the curse.
A Home For Emily
 | Suzanne Walker
in Stolen Memories |
Malcolm is an only child with a penchant for playing with an imaginary friend whom he refers to as Jie. His often bickering parents only get wind of this imaginary friend when she leads him to try ever more dangerous games including leaping into a swimming pool despite the fact that Malcolm doesn't know how to swim. After some investigation, Malcolm's mother realises that her son's imaginary friend isn't so imaginary after all. She is in fact, the spirit of the baby girl whom she aborted more than ten years ago. Malcolm's imaginary friend is 12, the exact age her daughter would have been had she been born. So to appease this spirit, both parents acknowledge their daugther and provide her with a headstone with her proper name: Emily.
This episode got me into a lot of trouble with the censors because while it's never mentioned that Emily was a ghost (she wasn't since she was technically growing older), that appear to be what Emily was. Add that to the fact that she was from an aborted child, the whole episode sounded creepy although its tone was more melancholic. In the end, we got away without cuts by screening this episode at a later timeslot, on Halloween and with a PG rating. A first for a local English drama.
A Star is Born
An up-and-coming starlet gets her body forcefully swapped with an aging has-been actress. The old actress gets to relive her youth again and begins to build a career with a newfound body. With her great new looks and her previous acting talent, she makes a name for herself and gets the life she wants. Meanwhile, the starlet now trapped in the old body schemes to get her original body back. And she suceeds but not before the old actress manages to swap bodies once more with an even bigger star. "A Star is Born" starred Aileen Wee as the starlet, Aileen Tan as the washed-up actress.
Stolen Memories
 | Lim Kay Tong
in Stolen Memories |
A man wakes up one morning from unsettling dreams. He begins to suspect that his simple life as a single isn't all it's supposed to be because his dreams seem to too real to be just dreams. He begins to find evidence in his life that the images of a wife and son aren't just images but a part of his life. As he probes himself further and tries to relive these fragments of dreams, he discovers that he indeed was married and had a son. He finds out that his best friend and his boss are actually his brother- and father-in-law and somehow the two of them have managed to wipe out his memory. After forcing them to return his memories (via the original accupuncturist who locked them away in his mind), the man realises they were only protecting him from his suicidal grief. He now remembers that he was responsible for the death of his wife and child through a boating accident. But he realises he'd rather have his memories (good and bad) intact or he will be losing his family for a second time. "Stolen Memories" starred Lim Kay Tong, Suzanne Walker, Mark Richmond, Brian Richmond and Lim Kay Siu.
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