Rants and Weekly Raves #165 (RAWR)

kakashi: Looks like this week is the last crazy-busy week for me before Christmas! Touch wood! touch Trotwood!
JoAnne: I swear something is wibbly-wobbly with time these past few weeks. Is anyone else feeling like you aren't getting much done and can't account for how long it takes to do things? Like you look up and hours have passed but you have 30 minutes of work to show for it? What was I doing the rest of the time?
Trotwood: Since this is the week of Thanksgiving where JoAnne and I live, I would like to thank everyone here and involved in this blog for putting up with me and my cranky, emergency planning self.
SakiVI: It's Thanksgiving where I live too, not that I planned for it. 
Happy Thanksgiving Saki and Trot and all y'all out there on the other side of the screen!



KOREA

Temperature of Love 

I didn't watch it last week. I'm feeling out of sorts with this show. I'll definitely finish it but I don't like it right now.
I don't like it at all now. You know how sometimes I want to slap characters? Last week I wanted to slap this show. I feel as though the writer is purposefully toying with us as if bored by the characters. It would make sense more to me if I didn't know that it was based on a book because then I could assume that the writer(s) lost focus or didn't know where to go. Does anyone know about the book and whether it has this really odd character development? Hyun Soo makes no sense. I'm dropping it, but will probably just skim recaps in the hopes that someone does slap Hong Ah.

20th Century Boy and Girl 

This show, I like. What nice, normal people, all of them. I feel bad for Moo Chul/Anthony. He could have latched onto Jin Jin's coat tails and made We Got Married his stepping stone to popularity again, but he doesn't want to use her that way. I understand to a certain extent only, because I feel like this is exactly WHY you do these kinds of shows, to boost popularity/exposure, and it's not like it COSTS her anything. He wants to be recognized for his own efforts, but as an actor, nothing is EVER solely due to one person, right? Anyway, even if I think his scruples are excessive, I admire his character. Plus, I feel sorry for him because I think he likes her a bit. It's hard to tell because the actor is just always morose-looking. We've discussed him before, in Goddess of Marriage. He's handsome, but duller than dirt.
 

Witch's Courtroom 

So Cutie Soo is not seeing his mother because of her lies and her questionable association with the bad guys - I didn't expect that but I like it. And I like especially that it clearly is painful for him - meaning, he loves his mother still. Love the sinner, hate the sin.  Ma Yi Deum is back to acting in a way that I don't particularly care for, personality-wise, but she has definitely grown as a person.  They slapped us in the face with that so we wouldn't miss it, I guess.
I like Ma Yi Deum's unapologetic dodginess.  On TV, it's funny.  In real life, she would be a pest that I would crush.
I agree. She is definitely not a character I'd be friends with or even abide in real life. It is making it difficult for me to see how Cutie Soo falls for her. She seems way too mercurial for a person who could drop his own mother for a major transgression to put up with her bad behavior even for a good cause. 

This Life is Our First 

Kiss ME. KISS ME.
No me first. Kiss me first. I love the look on his face when she showed up at the Kimchi making. He was so naturally happy to see her. I love how he stood up to her dad and insisted on making Kimchi. Okay, now that I've peeled myself away grom the Lee Min Ki goodness, I do want to mention the long conversations we had on twitter about the other couples in this show. We had some great debate about the Great bra Scandal and why Soo Ji often doesn't wear one or forgets to put one on and how torn that made many because they don't think she should go braless to work but also don't think it's okay for her gross colleagues to obsess over it (what are they? Middle schoolers?). This caused communal outrage over how much special sized bras cost. We also had great discussions about Ho-Rang and Won-Soek. I'm kind of done with Ho-Rang. She seems to not see him as a person but only as her boyfriend/future husband. She believes being patient and grooming him for husband land makes her deserving, but he's miserable and she's miserable because they both deserve something better. I hope this break up sticks--at least for enough episodes that they can define themselves (and their likes and dislikes) as individuals first.

Mad Dog 

I really, really like the way our Mad Dogs take care of each other, and I especially like that Min Joon is part of that group now. What the hell is wrong with Cha Hong Joo? She did the right thing, but only briefly. I guess she's mad because she thought Kang Woo would take down everyone BUT her father. Why can't she just let her father pay for his crimes?
 
I did not have the energy to cope with the anxiety this show causes while I watch it.

While You Were Sleeping (Finale)

I'm upset that Choi died. Everything else was satisfactory. I'll barely remember any of it in a week. I barely remember any of it now, except that Choi died.

Baumdong Revenge Club (Finale) 

Were they deliberately trying to tease us about the possibility of Season 2? Because I TOTALLY would watch a second season. I want to see them in their new lives, doing their new things, but running something like a detective agency on the side, only instead of catching your cheating husband for you, they humiliate him.
I just want to see my fav and her carpenter boyfriend for one more episode. Just them. Did you hear that in the original the carpenter character ends up with Jung-Hye? yeah. because I can't unsee that, I didn't want anyone else to be able to unsee it either. It seems unfair somehow. I would want her to be able to be free for more time. Love them. want to cook for them, too.
I am so down for a S2.  I hope Jung Hye finds herself an adorable boyfriend.  She could do with real love after that toxic marriage.  Not surprised Soo Gyeom reconciled with his parents, though in real life, I'm not sure that would happen.
 

Go Back Spouses 

Well, they really turned this one around for me. I'm very happy with the ending, and I want Son Ho Jun to be the lead in something else starting tomorrow.  My favorite thing about the drama, though, was Go Dok Jae. How much fun do you think Lee Yi Kyung had coming to work every day?  He completely threw himself into that role, and it was blast.  I'm always happy to see him and I'm very glad that his parts are getting bigger every time.

The Package (Finale)

Not the finale for me. I did start watching again because everyone kept saying how awesome it was, but I'm only episode 8.
It was awesome. Even re-watchable.
 

Black 

Sigh. I haven't seen it yet.

Money Flower

Double sigh. Nor this.
I can't believe that we are only on episode 4 because there have been so many twists and turns already. The show has a very leisurely (or slow depending on whether you like it or not) pace, but then it's striking at how much actually happens. I thought they would have the identity switch go on for at least a full week. Jang Hyuk is so deliciously sexy here and pained that you just want to . . . I mean you know he's doing evil things, but I want to beg him to use me as part of his vengeance plot. I
I haven't seen 3 or 4 yet.

Sweet Enemy

We are in for the home stretch. Five more episodes for a total of 120 and I can't believe this is my second daily that I'll be (sorta) completing. I say sorta because I don't watch from the beginning. I join around episode 30 or so because I don't have the patience for the long exposition in such shows--usually how the heroine becomes downtrodden by the villains--I'm just interested in the journey back.  this has been a very good ride with wonderful cliffhangers. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the writers with do the right thing and let the second lead actually get the girl because they clearly lost interest in the the lead and made him so bland that I sometimes don't actually see him on screen unless he's talking even if he is in the middle of the shot. Go Chef dimples! I mean they can't give us a romantic moonlit piggyback ride and have them both in love with each other and keep them apart? Right?

NOT-KOREA

Marked for Life 


Hunting Ground 

It should be illegal to spring 10 episodes a week on us. That's just too much, what about people who have jobs? (Still at episode 5)
Don't feel bad. I'm only 5 minutes into episode 3.
It got good in episode 7.  I'm now enjoying it, though episode 11 - I got stuck.  I think I will skip ahead to episode 12.  Someone tell me when Hu Bing shows up.


Lucifer 

The episode was very enjoyable, again, I forgot pretty much all about it though. Ah, that ex-husband ... yes, yes. I find the slightly less rigid "case-solving" structure of the recent episodes refreshing though, I hope they continue that way. 
I didn't see it!  Can you believe that?

Mindhunter

I know where SOME of my time went...I watched all 10 episodes of THIS.  I regret nothing!  It was fun to go back to the 70s, of course, and the music is fabulous, but it was really fascinating to watch them interview these horrible men and see how they viewed themselves and their crimes.  I thought they were a bit heavy-handed with 'it's always the mother' but, well...it kind of was always the mother, in these cases.  In the end I think our young Holden had become a fairly unlikeable person, which he wasn't to begin with, so it will be interesting next year to see how that plays out.  All along, Bill Tench, the older guy, the tougher looking guy - he was the one really struggling with how constant contact with this horrible world was affecting him, and for a long time it didn't seem like Holden was having any trouble at all - but then you realize that gradually he'd become a different person, and you see how much it did affect him.  Well done, show.

Alias Grace

I've watched 1 episode and love it. Love it. I can't believe I never read the book. Also, my brother in law looks like the doctor's twin (but with short hair) and it's very weird.
This might be my best show for the year.  I could not stop watching it, and I get creeped out very easily.

The Exorcist 

Gasp! I didn't see it! I'm sorry, John Cho!

The Walking Dead

Okay now you KNOW something is wrong. I missed this, too?

Ashi Girl

This is a Japanese drama based on a manga of the same name about a girl who's only talent is running and who accidentally goes back in time via her younger brother's time machine. She meets a young Samurai who, according to the history books and the ruins in her town, is destined to die along with the rest of his clan. Hijinks and romance ensue. I guzzled the first six episodes down like a refreshing glass of lemonade on a hot summer day. I realized that I was missing fun in my dramas. Some are funny, many are heartwarming, and many more of fun parts or aspects. Nothing I'm watching is just pure fun, so this hit the spot. It's just fun.

One more day to...

And finally......  Happy Birthday!!

Baby BOY, come get some sugar
OMG, Love!