Fantaserye or telefantasya is a genre of Philippine television programming which mixes soap opera, telenovela, fantasy, myth, magic and enchantment.
is a story about Taga-Lupa ("Earthling" in English) Vic Sotto who married Engkantada (a fairy) Alice Dixson.
Other notable series with similar nature are Wansapanataym of ABS CBN and Beh Bote Nga of GMA Network on Pinoy Teleserye.
Fantaseryes weren't given as much as attention earlier and thus were usually shown on a once-a-week basis with each episode running for one to one hour and a half.
In 2003, ABS-CBN introduced a new genre of teleserye which mixes soap opera, fantasy, myth, magic and enchantment on a nightly basis.
Unlike its predecessor, Marina set a benchmark for fantaseryes on television when it garnered consistent high ratings during its entire run.
Recent surveys by media research firms AC Nielsen and AGB state that fantaseryes have the highest ratings in the evening primetime block.
After Marina, ABS-CBN produced fantasy-based series under a different name but with a similar nature in the hope of saturating the ratings game such as superserye Krystala, sineserye Ang Panday and Super Inggo.
Because of this, GMA network has decided to focus on producing telefantasya shows while ABS-CBN's productions are a mix of at least one fantaserye and several other soap operas (drama).
episode on November 5, 2005, pointed out that fantaseryes have a negative effect on the young children because they cannot clearly mark the borderline between reality and fantasy.