Come Home Love: Dinner at Eight – 愛．回家之八時入席 (Episode Summary 176-200)

A spin off of the long series Come Home Love but has totally new characters and story line.  It takes place at a TV station.

Link to High Level Summary

Link to Episode 001-150

Link to Episode 151-175

176-200 Highlights/Recaps continued

• 176-177 Koo Hiu-san confesses to Lam Siu Siu at another location.  He tries to stop the video of him confessing but the Boss says he was the best in the show that did not buckle under pressure.  Koo Hiu-san lets Lam Siu Siu go to Malaysia to be the bridesmaid of Paula.  They use the code word "bake lamb chops" as "I love you"  Upon return she is very aggressive in trying to win the competition for wedding prizes.  Koo Hiu-san misunderstands that she wants to get married but later finds out she just wanted to win it for Chiu Lei-hung who regretted never having a real wedding with her husband.  At her wedding Koo Hiu-san catches the bouquet in his seat when she throws it.
• 178 Elsa gives a Walkman recording of crickets to the prop Head Ming to give to Cai.  Ming loses it.  Meanwhile Koo Hiu-san is upset that the prop team keeps buying props they already have wasting budget.  Elsa helps and the team fixes this to include description and photo of props.  Later after a fight with Ming, Cai finds the missing Walkman and is happy that Elsa gave it to her which indicates an acceptance of him meaning the relationship is progressing.
• 179 Tung's father wants the best for his son.  He wants to make his son a director to fulfill his dream but Tung refuses. Koo Hiu-san talks to the father who realizes all he wanted was for his son to be happy but instead he wants his son to succeed but the determination is by him.  His father later supports his son in what he does by being an assistant to the PA.
• 180 Terry gets recruited to do a fitness show.  All the girls get attracted to his fit body.  He really wants to spent time with Kai Lei and get her acceptance.  When Kai Lei accepts his invitation to do feather-ball sport Dina tells him he switch shooting days.  He refuses since it is very tough to get a date with her.  Kai Lei stops him and later brings him take out.  The guys laugh at him considering he finally got Kai Lei's attention although Terry is clueless.
• 181 Koo Hiu-san does not want others to use Lam Siu Siu his girlfriend as his weakness.  This is what happen when Joanne made a mistake of not submitting his check to be sign by the Boss and Lam Siu Siu takes the blame on herself.  He shouts in front of everyone that she does not get special privileges.  Later he plots to have the Sun producer take over Lam Siu Siu's show to avoid complications.
• 182 Koo Hiu-san is upset/yells at Lam Siu Siu for doing things for others (helping Joanne take the blame for the check, working for Dina with little sleep).  Lam Siu Siu says at the end everything works out.  Koo Hiu-san says he does not place his belief in other's conscious.  Everyone thinks that Koo Hiu-san would try to get Lam Siu Siu back from producer Sun.  Aunt Ping is afraid that they might breakup since he doesn't care.  Lam Wor says they have there way of dating/showing affection and he recalls the scene where Lam Siu Siu feeds Koo Hiu-san some of the food when she is cooking but Aunt Ping just sees him at the couch and her cooking only without talking.
• 183 The guys hideout get exposed.  Koo Hiu-san actually had a hidden voice recorder in the place so he heard all the stuff they said but he never exposed them.  The guys thought Koo Hiu-san did it but it was actually because Prop Ming didn't cleanup after himself had mice that made management find the hideout. Koo Hiu-san helps them keep the place and avoid getting warning letter when he tells the boss it will cost a lot to build a set but if they use the hideout and renovate it the cost will be cheaper.
• 184-185  Lam Siu Siu misinterprets that a Koo Hiu-san is going to propose and that he has another women he is seeing in Taiwan.  The ring was a prop for a show and the women was a author that was in talks for him to sign on a project with her which is why he is going to Taiwan to discuss on his vacation.  If he accepts he will quit TVI and go to Taiwan for a few years.   He takes her to a law firm to add her name to his house in case he decides to go.  She says she will take care of his family regardless.  Lam Siu Siu is in full support since it is his dream even when he ask if she was ok with it.
• 186 Tung does a story on the use of medial injections for beauty.  He captures a video of a high government official going out of one of those clinics.  Unfortunately he also capture the Bosses' sister coming out to.  He hides this fact by editing the video and tries to get the show segment cancelled.  It doesn't work. Koo Hiu-san says he will take responsibility.  The Boss in order to pacify the sister fires Koo Hiu-san and hires him back as a consultant and removes his one year notification leave.  It is revealed that Koo Hiu-san actually knew about the whole incident and this just help him get out of his employment terms since he was planning to quit anyway.
• 187 Koo Hiu-san is officially the consultant and Tong Chong-shu becomes the acting producer.  Since he is now producer, the director position is open.  He decides that their will be an internal promotion either Kai Lei or Tung.  In the end he chooses Tung his original choice because to puts heart and makes his shows have substance over form vs Kai Lei who is good at doing the shots since she has experience and went to school for it but the substance may not be there. 
• 188 Due an actress unable to show up, Terry gets Kai Lei to play the role as the most beautiful woman.  Unfortunately her expression when the male actor says that is bad.  The boss sees this and says she is not good.  Terry hears this and says to his face that he is a useless boss and that Kai Lei is pretty.  The boss upset demotes him and sends him to the worst location to work.  On his last day all the producers are stuck in the elevator with a famous movie star coming to do the show.  Terry is the only one available so they call him to do the shoot.  He is successful and the boss rewards him by letting him stay and even promoting him to official director.
• 189-190 Koo Hiu-san gets his team a 3 year sponsorship and equipment.  He finally gets the ok call from Taiwan that he can start his environmental program.  Koo Hiu-san quits his job.  Tong Chong-shu becomes the official producer.  Lam Siu Siu and Koo Hiu-san is very lovey dovey in front of everyone since he now values the time they have together whereas in the past he always knew he had time so would put it last.  Suddenly he gets a call from Ah De Lan.  Two countries are going to undergo peace signing.  Koo Hiu-san will record it.  Lam Siu Siu accidentally gets involved when she is to cook the meal they eat.  She cooks a grape leaf fish dish and it is mentioned at the public announcement as the deciding factor.  Lam Siu Siu becomes famous and has little time to see Koo Hiu-san who is leaving to Taiwan for his volunteer environmental shoot in a few days.  Koo Hiu-san realizes how he misses her and with the team he surprises her with a Taiwan ticket to go with him the next day which she agrees.  He basically says there is no rule that a guy can't take his girlfriend with him to pursue his dreams at the same time.
• 191 Everyone is exchanging Christmas gifts.  The team gets gift from Koo Hiu-san that represent his acknowledgement of them with Tong Chong-shu getting a watch.  Terry submits Kai Lei's work to a competition by getting the boss to recommend her and she gives him the scarf she knitted.  Cai gives Elsa chocolates because he can't find the song she wants to know.  Elsa thinking he doesn't really value her gives him ginger cookies.  Later Cai finds the song and goes looking for Elsa playing it on speakers.  Touched by this Elsa gives him the handmade wallet as a gift.  She noticed he was using a tin to hold money so she decided to make him the wallet but gave him the cookies thinking she was no worth anything to him.  Cai holds hands with Elsa as she put her head on his shoulder which acknowledges her acceptance to him.
• 192 Even though TVI is making a lot of money, the Boss's sister decides to not give out bonuses and to cut all resources for the company while the Boss is away. (Getting cheap toliet paper/ no longer providing supplies if they run out)  The sister basically is doing this for budget cut purposes and also the fact that the team found another story involving her company reselling expired meat.
• 193 The team decide not to do the story on the Boss's sister since they think it is because it is causing everyone to lose their bonus and resources.  At the advice of the Boss they do a birthday party for her so she will change her mind.  She doesn't show up and the Boss finds out that she is selling all her shares to someone else due to her debts.  So all her cutbacks was to make the company good to sell. 
• 194 The Boss's sister takes over the company.  She gets rid of the production of the exposure show the team is doing.  In addition she needs every department to fire 1 person.  Tong Chong-Shu goes see her and says if she cuts the show he quits.  All the other department heads also hand in the resignation letter to show support.  The Boss's sister doesn't care but says she will allow them to take back the letter before new year's eve or it will be effective on new year day.
• 195 The TVI employees want to get their letter of resignation back but later find out from Ping who overhears a conversation that the new Boss bought TVI really for its land.  He doesn't care about the people.  The employees decide that they will leave anyway and that TVI is not what it use to be.  Koo Hui-san comes back and appears in front of Mon Mon when she opens the little bag that he gave her 5 years ago to open when there is a situation that is tough.  It reveal it is just a Benjamin Franklin $100 bill.  Wan Fei Fei sees it and says it may work which refers to a person Franklin that wants to meet Koo Hui-san and is someone the new owner wants to meet.
• 196 Wan Fei Fei gets Franklin to buy TVI saving everyone from the crisis.  Basically he wanted Koo Hiu-san to produce a few shows for them.  Since Franklin's company is very big and TVI is insignificant to them he wants to internally elect a CEO for the company.  It seems everyone wants to elect Wan Fei Fei or Koo Hiu-san.  But Koo Hiu-san wants the old Boss to continue the position and convinces Wan Fei Fei too.  Both tells others want they don't see about the Boss.  He is caring for his workers.  Willing to keep their jobs and even resorting to using his own money to support them in the background.  He respects them.  Wan Fei Fei and Koo Hiu-san do not accepted their nominations, and the Boss becomes the CEO since all the employees nominated him.
• 197 Lam Siu Siu's TVI contract is over and after the big success of being the peace initiator in the Ah Dae Line peace talk everyone want her to join them/work for them.  Lam Siu Siu refuses them all.  In the end she rents the Wu tea house at night time to do her private restaurant.  Note the title of this chapter was "Siu Siu's world"
• 198 Ciu Wai's friend is busy doing Dina's shoot.  He is busy he can't do the costume job.  Since Ciu Wai's segment was cancelled for the show he decides to help out considering you can't see who is in the white knight suit.  During the shoot he stops a kidnapping of a kid and later has to expose himself to the cops for the investigation.  His heroic act got him praises and people's acknowledgement.  The Boss decides to make him the spokesperson of the company TVI.
• 199-200 Koo Hiu-san notices that everyone shifts the blame or does not take responsibility for things.  In other words each department only thinks about themselves and doesn't do anything to help the others.  As a consultant he notes all this also we find out that the workers are always wasting money unnecessarily.  The boss indicated that he got approval and extra budget to do a special for one of the popular show's of Dina.  Unfortunately no one wants to do it because they feel they will not get any benefit or Dina will just get credit for their work.  Thinking back how everyone use to work together he approaches the Tong Chong-shu about how the company has to pay $5 million for another third party to do the big production.  Tong Chong-shu and team agree aim for budget of $2 million.  Yan Yan notices ways to save money for example not ordering lunch for actors that don't need it and using one lunch box to also do 2 shoots.  Somehow everyone ends up helping the team for the shoot like lending equipment and props.  At the end the special looks great. In the meeting with the Boss and other producers we find out that it only cost $1 million and basically everyone's cooperation will help the cost.  Koo Hiu-san says everyone can learn from the new upcoming folks.  Later Yan Yan is getting a raise and everyone is waiting for her to celebrate.  Everyone finds out that she got a $5,000 increase which is a lot according to the Boss's standard.  The Boss shows up and said it is true.  The reason is her performance as a assistant help the company saved a lot of money.  Basically the company will compensate its worker's for saving money.  Everyone jokes that with such a great company everyone will use their heart to work for the company.

Final Thoughts:

It was sad to find out that the show came to an end.  I had wish that it would be longer but ending at 200 was not so bad.  I guess when the main cast decide to not continue it is hard to extend the show.  Looking back I feel that in these long series there will always be some actors that always will be there.  It was a nice touch that the older character/actors from Come Home Love was in Dinner at 8.  This series had nothing to do with the old show and I felt they could have just called it Dinner at 8 without referencing to Come Home Love.  I wonder when there will be a next long series that will last much longer with enough popularity and non exiting actor to make it work.  What do you think of the series?

Link to Episode 001-150

Link to Episode 151-175


Link to Episode 176-200