There is one over-riding reason to watch “The Effect”: to see the moving and deeply affecting performance of James Prapatthorn Chakkhuchan as Shin, the first year university student whose life is dramatically changed by his relationship with an older student. He captures the demure innocent-looking freshman with a convincing sincerity.

Shin admits he’s not an ‘A’ grade or even a ‘B’ grade student, but that does not mean he can’t think for himself or have his own opinions. When senior student Keng (played with a nice degree of ambiguity by Oat Chakrit Boonsing) spots him on campus and, taking a liking to him, contrives to meet him, it sets in motion what could have been a story of the younger man discovering himself and falling in love for the first time. That would have made for a conventional Thai BL series familiar to all by now; but that is not what happens.

Instead, Shin’s misfortune is to be impressed by Keng’s surface allure of an A grade senior who, beneath his impressive resume, conceals his own secret struggle. Add to this Man, (played impressively if a little too villainy by Mike Weerapat Nimanong), a fellow senior who openly pursues the reluctant Keng, and “The Effect” takes this triangle love interest into the darker side of the powerful forces unleashed by attraction amongst the young.

The damaging forces that align to catapult Shin into injury, shame, depression and worse are painfully written in the performance of James Prapatthorn, who displays a remarkable emotional grasp of his character’s despair. The first-time director, Worawut Thanamatchaicharoen, does well to give him all the screen time he needs to chart his Hades-like descent, because in three hour long episodes, there is little time left over for the many other issues the drama raises.

The limited scale of this series results in numerous other matters being dispensed as if reading from a pamphlet on sexual violence; on top of that, parents are showing over-reacting with inappropriate responses, friends turn up with glib advice, doctors dispense pre-emptive medication with vivid descriptions of side effects for an affliction feared but not yet established and without at any time suggesting counselling for Shin’s trauma which is evident for all to see.

Worse is that the perpetrator of the violence keeps reappearing, spurred it would seem by the writers’ intent to fashion somehow, incredibly, a happy ending from the poisonous seed they’ve already sown into the plot. Certainly, Shin, with considerable justification, has made up his own mind about the senior he initially respected, yet the writers persist & insert a fantastical final plot twist, which is to no-one’s credit.

“The Effect” production is also plagued by the seemingly incurable Thai BL filming sins of staging dialogues in unnatural line poses, over-lighting interiors and unrealistic coincidences of characters arriving at a scene at exactly the right time to intervene in the action.

The series does not make for easy viewing. Still, the creative team are to be commended for tackling such a serious subject, and, thanks hugely to the casting of James Prapatthorn as Shin, they get most of it right.

Shin’s initial admiration of Keng stems from what he himself calls his gut instinct; he is more guarded later when Man takes a surreptitious photo and uses his seniority to imply that he could be trusted how he will use it. As events escalate, Shin’s confusion about developments beyond his control and his powerlessness in the face of a social media tide are both etched in his face and reveal better than words his struggle to articulate responses that will steer him between the competing elements that have invaded his life. When he senses he may have feelings for Keng, his instinct stops him from acting on them; but what is at play here is no longer Shakespearean - Shin’s fate doesn’t rest on his own character. Instead, it has become classic Greek tragedy, where Shin has become a plaything of the gods, at the mercy of others.

When, at the series end, he finally wrests back control of his own life, it would be nice to think that the bad that happened to him was now in the past. But here the creatives upended their own good works; we know traumas such as Shin suffered are not magically erased by three years of work & study and gaining a degree; nor are wrongs erased by wistfully sighting the guy you still have feelings toward after a long absence.

There is a postscript note the producers have inserted referring to Shin and Keng having found a new place; in my view, it is as crass a piece of after-the-event plot connivance as I’ve come across. It should be ignored.