Teresa Mo, Wayne Lai Lead Strong Cast in “Come Home Love: Dinner at 8”
Airing to 995 episodes from 2012 to 2016, Come Home Love <愛·回家> became TVB’s third longest-running sitcom, after the Hong Kong ’81 to ’86 series <香港八一至香港八六系列> and the 90s sitcom, A Kindred Spirit <真情>. For the viewers who grew up watching Come Home Love, having to say goodbye to their favorite dinner time show was bittersweet.
In a gesture to continue the spirit of Come Home Love, TVB renamed their channel’s 8:00 to 8:30 pm timeslot after the show. The first sitcom to occupy the new Come Home Love block is Come Home Love: Dinner at 8 <愛．回家之八時入席>, which premiered on April 4. Dinner at 8, slated for 120 episodes, stars the golden duo Teresa Mo (毛舜筠) and Wayne Lai (黎耀祥) in their third sitcom collaboration after 2008’s Off Pedder <畢打自己人> and 2010’s Some Day <天天天晴>. It also features a strong supporting cast consisting of Power Chan (陳國邦), Chung King-fai (鍾景輝), Florence Kwok (郭少芸), Angela Tong (湯盈盈), William Hu (胡渭康), and Eric Li (李天翔). It is produced by Law Chun-ngok (羅鎮岳) and Sandy Shaw (邵麗瓊), also the head scriptwriter.
“Dinner at 8” to Feature Numerous Guest Stars
Dinner at 8 revolves around the employees working for the broadcaster, TVI. After inducting a new general manager Wan Fei-fei (Florence Kwok), the television station embarks on a period of new admin adjustments, and Koo Hiu-san’s (Wayne Lai) new show, a cooking program for housewives, is on the brink of cancellation. Desperately, he calls for the help of Lam Siu-siu (Teresa Mo), an accountant, to replace the host of his show.
The show explodes to popularity, thanks to Siu-siu’s oral ability and cooking talent. Hiu-san wants Siu-siu to stay on the show as a regular host, but Siu-siu is hesitant about having an on-screen career. Siu-siu then negotiates, telling Hiu-san that she would only stay on the show if she gets to have regular work hours. Living with her younger uncle Lam Yi-mak (Power Chan) and younger half-brother Lam Wo (Ricco Ng), Siu-siu wants to be home in time to cook dinner for them every day.
As Dinner at 8 mainly takes place in a television station, the show plans to feature famous guest stars. The first confirmed guest is Anthony Wong (黃秋生), who will be playing himself on the show. Anthony’s role in the series is to encourage Power to pursue his dream of being a makeup artist.
Veteran Supporting Cast
The cast of Dinner at 8 is led by a strong supporting cast. Florence Kwok, star of Come Home Love, returns in a strong businesswoman role. Her character arc focuses on her relationship with William Hu, who portrays a has-been idol, and Eric Li, who portrays her assistant.
Angela Tong portrays a makeup stylist and Teresa Mo’s close friend. Dinner at 8 is Angela’s first drama since giving birth to her second daughter Kassidy in September 2015.
Veteran actor Chung King-fai makes a comeback to star as Wayne Lai’s elderly father. His close relationship with Teresa is what brings her closer to Wayne.
With a strong supporting cast headed by Wayne and Teresa, ratings for Dinner at 8 are expected to come off strong and steady.
Source: Mingpao
This article is written by Addy for JayneStars.com.
Cast the newbies as guest stars or something. It’ll be good training for them.
Have not watched this sitcom yet! But after watching Come Home Love, my favorite is still A kindred Spirit. Indeed, it was super long but good. My mom rewatched AKS twice. Besides, there were many actors and actresses in AKS that we rarely see them on TV drama nowadays.
@nori My favorite the same as yours, A Kindred Spirit and Virtues of Harmony.
Nothing beats ‘A kindred Spirit’ with the number of good actors that have appeared in it over the years it ran.
@jimmyszeto I also enjoyed A Kindred Spirit and yes that was definitely one of the best sitcoms from the 90s. For me though, nothing beats the classic sitcoms from the 80s – almost all were well-scripted, well-acted, and had guest stars galore (which is actually one of the things I miss most about TVB’s sitcoms). A good sitcom is hard to come by nowadays, especially with TVB’s habit in recent years of casting the same people in one sitcom after another, which to be honest, makes it hard to differentiate one sitcom from the next (especially when the overall story concepts are similar too). Over the past decade, it seemed to me that TVB had been putting their sitcoms on the back burner and not attaching as much significance to them as they used to, which is a shame given that this was one area that TVB truly exceled in way back when. Hopefully Dinner at 8 will change things, though it’s too early to tell at this point whether the sitcom will be able to bring back all those elements that made the classic ones so great…I guess we’ll have to wait and see. I am definitely looking forward to Anthony Wong’s cameo appearance though!
@llwy12
The best sitcoms are the ones that have the warm feel and are watchable after a stressful day at work. It must also relate to our daily lives and covers the same issues we face. A kindred spirit certainly did that. After virtues of harmony, the sitcoms have gone downhill with the same actors specialising in every sitcom and a lack of familiar faces. This new sitcom finally is starring a group of established actors which is a plus but using the ‘coming home love’ title is not necessary. TVB has declined and it clearly shows.
Like the cast for sure! Teresa looks different though.
Saw the first few episodes and so far so good. Teresa, Wayne, and Power’s acting alone are enough to carry this series in my opinion, but it definitely helps that the rest of the supporting cast is strong (most of them anyway) and consists of artists I actually like. Script so far is a bit clichéd, though this is of course expected from TVB. Glad to see that TVB is going back to doing the guest star thing again, as that was a defining feature of TVB’s sitcoms back in the 80s and 90s and it was also one of the factors that made these sitcoms so fun to watch. While I don’t have much confidence in TVB script-wise, I will probably still continue watching this one, even if it’s mainly for the acting.
My first love will always be A Kindred Spirit. That’s the show that got me interested in TVB series, so I will always have fond memories of this show for that reason. It was also really comforting because it was such a long sitcom that it became a fixture in my weekly life. None of the shows after matched up to its quality.
There are some close ones like “Welcome to the House” with Lawrence Cheng. Lurve Lawrence in general and I also quite liked the show – it was witty, charming and funny! Too bad it ended much sooner than it should have. I enjoyed it a lot.