ViewerX
Wonderful actors in a horrible show
Two leads whose prior performance I have greatly enjoyed are so badly served by this show that it almost makes me angry.
I watched the first six or so episodes, then went to Ep10 and 15 just to see if any of the awfulness disappeared (it had not).
In terms of positives, it is only the acting -- all of the actors do a reasonable job given the horrible quality of everything else.
So what is so horrible about the show? Oh, let me tell you:
1. The story: The premise is straightforward. The complicating factors the writers throw in move the story strongly into the melodrama territory, which is not in itself a problem -- who does not enjoy a good melodrama, after all? But... it does not work. The individual elements never gel; the choices the characters make are nonsensical (and not just in the kdrama way, which demand just a bit of suspension of disbelief, but in a "this would never, ever happen in the current world -- such as a solution to a woman attempting suicide being marriage as opposed to, say, competent psychiatric care???). Most importantly, despite a lot of dramatic things happening, it is all so boring and many of the conflicts are so clearly telegraphed that they come as absolutely no surprise.
2. The editing (I think) -- the cuts in the show and the ways the scenes flow one into the other are jarring in the extreme. Truly, I have not seen a show in recent memory that is so badly edited. Because of that, some of the scenes that should be action-filled or dramatic just come across as rather ridiculous.
3. Female lead's hair, make-up, and clothes: The female lead is a beautiful actress, and kdramas usually do a spectacular job regarding makeup. At first I did not understand what was going on with the actress, why she looked so different from when I had last seen her, and why she looked so overdone and wrong, somehow -- but then (since the show was so boring) I looked at the individual components of her appearance and it became clear. Seriously. She is supposed to work at a cosmetics company, where presumably appearance is more important than in other workplaces, but does that mean that she has to be presented as so "over done"? The stylists made her up and dressed her as though she were in her late 40s. Maybe this was an attempt to emphasize the age difference with the male lead (you know, the huge one year), but if that was the intent, then maybe the age difference should have been made larger in the script instead. And if that was not the intent, then it was just a weirdly bad choice.
My advice: Do not start watching this. You will bemoan the wasted time.
I watched the first six or so episodes, then went to Ep10 and 15 just to see if any of the awfulness disappeared (it had not).
In terms of positives, it is only the acting -- all of the actors do a reasonable job given the horrible quality of everything else.
So what is so horrible about the show? Oh, let me tell you:
1. The story: The premise is straightforward. The complicating factors the writers throw in move the story strongly into the melodrama territory, which is not in itself a problem -- who does not enjoy a good melodrama, after all? But... it does not work. The individual elements never gel; the choices the characters make are nonsensical (and not just in the kdrama way, which demand just a bit of suspension of disbelief, but in a "this would never, ever happen in the current world -- such as a solution to a woman attempting suicide being marriage as opposed to, say, competent psychiatric care???). Most importantly, despite a lot of dramatic things happening, it is all so boring and many of the conflicts are so clearly telegraphed that they come as absolutely no surprise.
2. The editing (I think) -- the cuts in the show and the ways the scenes flow one into the other are jarring in the extreme. Truly, I have not seen a show in recent memory that is so badly edited. Because of that, some of the scenes that should be action-filled or dramatic just come across as rather ridiculous.
3. Female lead's hair, make-up, and clothes: The female lead is a beautiful actress, and kdramas usually do a spectacular job regarding makeup. At first I did not understand what was going on with the actress, why she looked so different from when I had last seen her, and why she looked so overdone and wrong, somehow -- but then (since the show was so boring) I looked at the individual components of her appearance and it became clear. Seriously. She is supposed to work at a cosmetics company, where presumably appearance is more important than in other workplaces, but does that mean that she has to be presented as so "over done"? The stylists made her up and dressed her as though she were in her late 40s. Maybe this was an attempt to emphasize the age difference with the male lead (you know, the huge one year), but if that was the intent, then maybe the age difference should have been made larger in the script instead. And if that was not the intent, then it was just a weirdly bad choice.
My advice: Do not start watching this. You will bemoan the wasted time.
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