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| Enjoy this very rainy pic from the delayed Ateez concert |
What the hell have I been watching all summer? I cannot think of any other time since I started my K-drama journey that I have floundered for so long looking for a show to catch my attention. Even my Korean teacher was complaining about this so I feel like it's not just me. We're having a dud summer of dramas.
In less of a review and more of an issue of record-keeping, these are the shows I poked around with this summer but (mostly) could not finish.
Missing Crown Prince
This is the one show I managed to finish but I will admit it was a hate watch the entire time. And if you quizzed me on the plot I would fail. I truly liked the primary romance but for some reason the writers of this show thought I would get invested in some evil characters and their romance more. They kept sidelining the characters I wanted to see. They have deeply misjudged me.
In this drama, the Crown Prince (Suho) ends up sort of kidnapped and Choi Myung-yoon (Hong Ye-ji) does not know he's the Crown Prince and tries to get him to safety because it was her dad who kidnapped him. Meanwhile, the Queen Dowager keeps everyone under her strong grasp, punishing and killing when she needs to. Then she decides to poison the king in an effort to become regent and hold her power. Meanwhile, she is shacking up with her first love, Choi Myung-yoon's father, who is the king's doctor and that's who poisoned the king. The Crown Prince, once he is back in the palace, is trying to hold things together as people manipulate his younger brother into becoming his rival. There is some mention of a curse, and fates, and honestly it was not a consistent plot point.
Rather than focus on this interesting lead female who is adept at medicine, independent, and willing to stand up against her father and powerful politicians, the series dwells on this incredibly boring Queen Dowager who is just forever mad she couldn't marry her first love. I'm not sure that is truly justification for all the nonsense she sows. And frankly what a terrible message. She is first shown as this controlling and decisive person and then they make her into this mewling weak woman who just needs to check everything with her bf. I was eyerolling so hard.
I could not stand the Queen Dowager and her evil bf and just hoped they would get their comeuppance. But the show really kept doubling down on justifications and why we should feel their "pain" sort of forgetting they had POISONED THE KING. There is like 2% of this show which is trying to suggest that the Queen Dowager has suffered because of misogyny but babe, haven't we all. And we aren't out there killing people.
There was nothing this evil couple could do that would make me care about them and I definitely spent the whole show waiting for them to die. Meanwhile, they neglected the interesting characters (a Queen with some backbone) and the main couple who just got so marginalized in the plot.
My Lovely Runner
Why the hell was this such a popular show? Usually I understand the general appeal even if it is not "one for me." But this one just did not make any sense. I am looking back on my notes and I spent most of the show confused as to what was happening. Some classic question marks in my notes app:
"So it’s a battle between her former past self and her future self in the past?"
"So he did save her from the car accident. And then calls her at the hospital?"
"But she wasn’t in an accident but kidnapped by a crazy person?"
"But also he’s been in love with her all this time and acting like a jerk?"
"Why am I so confused about which version of her she is and what time period we are in."
"So the original 19 yr old version is happening while also the same thing happened to the 30 yr old?"
"He has such a long neck."
"What is this scenario? So now she was kidnapped in a different way. A year later? Then why is she avoiding him. Was she kidnapped twice?"
While these are actors (Byeon Woo-seok and Kim Hye-yoon) I have enjoyed in other shows, and I was keen to get into a romance drama, I was just baffled the entire time by the structure, story, and time travel overlaps. I was going to try to start over again in the hopes I could follow the plot but then the relationship got gooey and I gave up all together.
The Midnight Romance in Hagwon
200% too much hagwon classes and strategy and too little romance. Again I could not get through this one.
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