"Code Of Law" and "Derek" showrunner Lee Thean-jeen reminisces about his — and Singapore television's — tumultuous journey with the Nice Singaporean Boy. Spoiler-free.
I can still vividly recall that day in 2017 when Desmond Tan walked into the office to screen test for the recurring role of a banker-by-day-serial-killer-by-night we had created in the then-latest installment of Code Of Law — Season 4.
Maybe it was the fact that he was slightly tipsy (see article "Desmond Tan nailed serial killer role with drunken audition") when he came in. By the time he finished the scene (the final version of which made it into the pilot episode of Season 4), Bee Lin (COL co-executive producer/my wife) and I knew we had found Derek. It further sealed the deal when she asked the rhetorical question, "Would you suspect him of being a murderer?"
The truth is, Code Of Law Season 4 was never meant to be anchored around Derek Ho. In the first half of the season, Derek's story arc barely ate up 20% of each episode, if we go by scene count. He doesn't even appear until the very end of the pilot episode.
But something happened. And by the time the pilot episode of Code Of Law went to air, we had created a monster. Credit must go to Desmond for taking this psychopath by the horns and immersing himself in the role (see article "'Some days I'm a bit of a nutcase': Desmond Tan on his most intense role as a serial killer")
Code Of Law Season 4 ended with Derek being caught, tried and sentenced to death. He also named Stephanie Szeto as his accomplice (she was investigated, but not charged and eventually chose to maintain a low profile, out of the public eye).
Case closed ...
... or so we thought.
When the idea of a spin-off series for Derek was first mooted, my initial response was ... what could we possibly do for an encore?? The guy's in prison, waiting to die.
The only way to go was back — into Derek's past. But we needed a spin on this spin-off series: a "greatest kills" was just not going to cut it.
Prior to Code Of Law, my first experience working with Desmond was on a feature film, The Big Day 简单的婚礼 (watch the trailer on our Projects page), in which he played a romantic lead.
We thought, could Derek the Series be a romantic drama instead?
What would a young(er) Derek's love life be like? Who would he fall for? Who would fall for him?
Given Derek's character — and his past — it was a foregone conclusion that his relationships wouldn't follow the idyllic trajectories of a rom-com. Derek's love life would not be a walk in the park, unless there were dead bodies stashed in the undergrowth.
The series had to be a romantic drama filtered through the lens of a damaged soul like Derek Ho. Hence ... Stephanie An Meiling, an equally (if not equally homicidal) damaged soul.
There was another tonal aspect of Derek the Series that would distinguish it from Code Of Law. Since this was going to be an intimate drama about intimate relationships, a certain degree of — well, intimacy — would be inevitable. In retrospect, no one in her peer group could have possibly portrayed Stephanie An Meiling with the candour, sensitivity, and daring abandon Chantalle Ng brought to the role ... though even she balked (see article "Chantalle Ng requested for bedroom scenes with Desmond Tan to be toned down") at some of passages in the early drafts of the script.
I won't delve into the narrative trajectory of Derek here, since I promised this post would be spoiler-free.
By the time we embarked on Derek II, we had to be careful not to tread on the same ground when it came to Derek romancing the girl of his dreams (or nightmares, depending on how you look at it).
For that narrative arc, I felt we had to go back to the fundamental question of what made Derek tick? Since Derek — both in character and in series — had always explored themes of duplicity and dual personalities, we figured: why not go one step further and embody these qualities in a pair of twins?
Thus ...
... Jessica (Jessie) and Cecilia (Ceci) Sun, both portrayed by one ably talented Jae Liew,
whose most challenging scene — where she had to engage in a tense confrontation with herself — had to be scheduled (due to circumstance) on the first day of shoot. It's a tour de force performance that (I can reveal now) was nailed on the first take of each set-up.
The other challenge of Derek II was, this could not be yet another story that played out exclusively in the past. There had to be a narrative connect that drove this story in the present day. But how, when — again — our main character is stuck in a prison cell, awaiting his death sentence?
It wasn't Derek or Code Of Law, but another spin-off, Forensik, that finally provided the answer, in the form of a season finale cliffhanger that would hand the narrative baton over to Derek II. The case of Leong Li Li gave us the opportunity to explore a story that could take place over two timelines that unfolded in non-linear fashion.
At the end of the day, however — be it past or present — the stories in Derek and Derek II have to dovetail back into the show that thrust Derek onto unsuspecting audiences ... Code Of Law: Final.
This much we know from the (post-credit) ending of Derek II (and from the trailers): Derek mounts a daring escape from prison.
But where will he go? What will he do? And will he face a final reckoning?
Again, I promised this post was going to be spoiler-free.
So ...
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