The Bad in 2016 (End of the Year Post, Part II)
2016 was not only filled with good dramas. Oh no. Following the tradition from previous years, we also like to speak about the flops.
Uncontrollably Fond - Please, let me torture you and myself as deeply as I love you, and at the same time waste my few remaining days on something that really doesn't matter in the long run. Kim Woo Bin, I adored you, but you made the wrong choices. I still cried really hard when you died, though. And a lot of other times, too. Great OST, and everyone looked gorgeous, but...I wanted to strangle everyone, even the dying man.
Doctors: I was never really bothered by the relationship between our leads, but if this is how doctors really behave I am never getting sick again. And here's a notice to you, K-Drama: NEVER threaten that adorable puppy with death ever again. EVER.
Cinderella: My PA Lee. A few moments of cute with other people. The remake of that SuJu song. I stuck this out by I have no idea why. What a disappointment.
W-Two Worlds: Things fall apart, the center does not hold. Some great beast is slouching, alright, and I think it writes K-Dramas. This had ALL the elements for greatness but I think the author kind of lost her way and pulled an ending out of her ass. I am not satisfied. Not at all. Still, the faceless villain was absolutely inspired.
I have to think about a 5th.
Ah, but there is one:
Descendants of the Sun. Okay, I'm not quite sure I finished it? But it WAS HORRIBLE. I loath everything about it so, so much. Also the hype, the way this became "KDrama" to a larger part of the world. And especially the lazy, lazy, LAZY writing.
Honorable hate mention: Doctors. I dropped it after not only one episode. Arrogant? Believe me, I KNOW my taste.
Descendants Of The Sun: No soldier would behave that way. No doctor would be like that. People die in warzones. The whole thing was just beautiful shots of BS cliches stitched together like a blind person with Parkinson's. And about as insensitive as my last statement. SoKor SNL had it right.
Shopping King Louie: I so wanted to like this one. Seo In-guk! My favorite tough-as-nails grandma! Turns out he's a whining, food smearing idiot, who used "I'm sorry" as some sort of mantra for doing everything the opposite of what everyone asked him to do. When did having amnesia mean you get to behave like a two-year-old? I couldn't root for him and felt that Bok-sil could have done better with almost anyone else. Except maybe Captain Shi-jin.
Cinderella and Four Knights: I thought this one might be fun to recap, but it began to turn ugly when it was too late to stop. I'm going to grimly do this until my intestines threaten to go on strike. Note to self: next time I think about recapping an incomplete show, whack me over the head with a soju bottle.
Cheese in the Trap: Having read the manga and really believing (as I still do) that Park Hae Jin was perfectly cast as the male lead. I was continually and increasingly disappointed as the series went on. In the manga, we get more information about the male leads character which we did not get on screen and which didn't allow anyone I think to really see why the heroine would pick hero over tragic 2nd lead who is more annoying (and sometimes scary) in manga then the lead. Backstage shenanigans ruined that it appears. I'm not interested in movie version at all.
Cinderella and the Four Knights: I wasn't expecting anything deep, but I do expect character coherence and narrative continuity. We got neither. I kept watching because Shuk was recapping, and I refuse to abandon her. Ever. [jumps in, waves my "I Love Trot!" glitter sign, jumps out] It gave us another wonderful secretary character for which I'll be forever grateful.
Woman with a Suitcase: How can a show that has such a cast make me not care about them all? I so wanted to like a show where Joo Jin Mo wasn't crying in each episode, but there wasn't enough development for me to know why he loved the female lead (besides the fact that I'd marry Choi Ji Woo--she's that charming). And they kept playing with us and even kept them apart after the time jump. Sigh.
Love at 17: I love Lego Lee. He won me over with In A Good Way, which is on my list of top Asian dramas ever. However, he has continued to be in shows that were seriously underwhelming. I had great hopes for this one though because Nikki Hsieh was in it, and I love her, too. He was wonderful. She was wonderful (although her character was written poorly), but the show did nothing but make me not care about anyone, including them, half the time. They were best friends as teenagers, she is betrayed because she decides to keep a secret and changes from the bright, happy person he used to know and love to a cold figure. That would have been enough, but the writers decided to add amnesia and a possibly terminal disease in the mix. Finished with recaps.
The Bad
JoAnne
This is hard because if I don't like something, I drop it, and I don't think it would fair of me to include something I didn't finish. Also because that means I have to include things that I at least in part loved.Uncontrollably Fond - Please, let me torture you and myself as deeply as I love you, and at the same time waste my few remaining days on something that really doesn't matter in the long run. Kim Woo Bin, I adored you, but you made the wrong choices. I still cried really hard when you died, though. And a lot of other times, too. Great OST, and everyone looked gorgeous, but...I wanted to strangle everyone, even the dying man.
Doctors: I was never really bothered by the relationship between our leads, but if this is how doctors really behave I am never getting sick again. And here's a notice to you, K-Drama: NEVER threaten that adorable puppy with death ever again. EVER.
Cinderella: My PA Lee. A few moments of cute with other people. The remake of that SuJu song. I stuck this out by I have no idea why. What a disappointment.
I have to think about a 5th.
Kakashi
Haha, I drop ALL the dramas I come to resent, even if it's two episodes before the end, so yeah, there's not many I can put on this list. I remember One More Happy Ending as disappointing, but I don't remember when I dropped it. Madame Antoine - started to hate it after about 6 episodes. Oh-Hae Young Again ... I didn't finish it, but I did enjoy it for quite a bit (though despised the way Eric's visions were used as "gadget" and nothing else), so it can't go on here.Ah, but there is one:
Descendants of the Sun. Okay, I'm not quite sure I finished it? But it WAS HORRIBLE. I loath everything about it so, so much. Also the hype, the way this became "KDrama" to a larger part of the world. And especially the lazy, lazy, LAZY writing.
Honorable hate mention: Doctors. I dropped it after not only one episode. Arrogant? Believe me, I KNOW my taste.
Saki
For all of mine, I just couldn't care less about any of the characters and found the storylines boring. It's hard to remember them as a result. So, after seeing others bring up a few, I can say I disliked and dropped: Cinderella, W-Two Worlds, Descendants of the Sun, Woman with a Suitcase, and Cheese in the Trap. Out of all of them, I watched the most of Cinderella and CITT. I had zero hopes for Cinderella, but it seemed a light enough show until I decided my life was being wasted watching these ninnies. CITT was my drama crack until the storyline just seemed to fall apart and I began to totally hate the main couple. I didn't bother finishing it. Finally, with regard to the rest of the terrible shows listed, I tried them and dropped after one or two episodes because they were just that bad: the characters were tedious and the storylines were dull.Shuk
I'm going to stick with SoKor dramas because they are most familiar with our Squeeglets. Most of the other countrys' offerings didn't cause active hatred.Descendants Of The Sun: No soldier would behave that way. No doctor would be like that. People die in warzones. The whole thing was just beautiful shots of BS cliches stitched together like a blind person with Parkinson's. And about as insensitive as my last statement. SoKor SNL had it right.
Cinderella and Four Knights: I thought this one might be fun to recap, but it began to turn ugly when it was too late to stop. I'm going to grimly do this until my intestines threaten to go on strike. Note to self: next time I think about recapping an incomplete show, whack me over the head with a soju bottle.
Trotwood
This was difficult for me as well because like Jo, I don't keep watching a show that I do not like. I don't have a lot of extra time, and I'd rather rewatch favorite episodes than keep watching something i don't like, but I will give it a go and I will admit when I stopped watching and finished merely with recaps.Cheese in the Trap: Having read the manga and really believing (as I still do) that Park Hae Jin was perfectly cast as the male lead. I was continually and increasingly disappointed as the series went on. In the manga, we get more information about the male leads character which we did not get on screen and which didn't allow anyone I think to really see why the heroine would pick hero over tragic 2nd lead who is more annoying (and sometimes scary) in manga then the lead. Backstage shenanigans ruined that it appears. I'm not interested in movie version at all.
Cinderella and the Four Knights: I wasn't expecting anything deep, but I do expect character coherence and narrative continuity. We got neither. I kept watching because Shuk was recapping, and I refuse to abandon her. Ever. [jumps in, waves my "I Love Trot!" glitter sign, jumps out] It gave us another wonderful secretary character for which I'll be forever grateful.
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| It's been a rainy, miserable time. |
Love at 17: I love Lego Lee. He won me over with In A Good Way, which is on my list of top Asian dramas ever. However, he has continued to be in shows that were seriously underwhelming. I had great hopes for this one though because Nikki Hsieh was in it, and I love her, too. He was wonderful. She was wonderful (although her character was written poorly), but the show did nothing but make me not care about anyone, including them, half the time. They were best friends as teenagers, she is betrayed because she decides to keep a secret and changes from the bright, happy person he used to know and love to a cold figure. That would have been enough, but the writers decided to add amnesia and a possibly terminal disease in the mix. Finished with recaps.