A rant by any other name will still sound like a rant. I wish I liked this show more. I had hoped that after the initial setup that the show would eventually grow on me and I would finally embrace the hype. That regrettably never happened. Earlier on I was curious to know if I would ever understand the love this was getting but this experiment failed to yield any results. The combination of fluff, cheese and (supposed) hilarity never hit the spot for me in any consistent fashion. Regardless of my misgivings, I persevered right to the end and then during the finale it occurred to me what the problem was the entire time. The show was so absurdly derivative that it had no identity of its own. It was a hodgepodge of many things and a series of gags that could be relied upon. Once they ran out of gags and tropes to parody the series ran out of steam. A series of questions went through my mind as I was wondering how the various threads were going to be resolved in the finale. What was the point of having Ha-ri’s parents in the story? Her brother was barely a character. The family story barely registered a blip on the radar and it had even less relevance than the presence of Team One which was part scenery and part comic relief. And then there was the de facto love triangle or whatever it was trying to be. Why did Yoo-ri suddenly fade from view when she was single handedly responsible for some last minute mayhem? Why did Grandpa turn obstructionist when in previous episodes he couldn’t wait for his grandson to do his duty and maintain the family bloodline. He, the avid makjang watcher, became the caricature of a chaebol patriarch when he seemed to defy the stereotype at first. It gradually dawned on me that everybody in this show who wasn’t Kang Tae-moo or Shin Ha-ri was there in service of the romance of Kang Tae-moo and Shin Ha-ri. The support act was there to get it started, push it forward, get in the way or help it along. It was crowded for a 12-episode drama. Moreover there was barely a plot to speak of — just a lot of people heaving and hoeing, in the galley rowing a very large ship that had set sail with a rudder that was steering it in the direction of all kinds of detours.
Yes, this was light fluff along the lines of Crazy Love. I'm getting seriously over the 'wealthy, entitled chaebol CEO who stoops to fall for the vulnerable employee' trope. More often than not he's an abusive jerk with childhood trauma, who not only initially tramples all over this willing, obedient, often talented woman, who eventually ends up "healing" him with her tolerance, devotion, love etc. The humour at best is predictable and average. There is a lot of FF ing due to a thin story line that can't really fill 12 or 16 eps. There seems to be a huge market still in SK for this dreary cookie cutter plot. Thank goodness there are other Kdramas out there atm like My Liberation Notes, Our Blues, Military Prosecutor Doberman, King of Pigs, Juvenile Justice, DP, where the content, writing and even cinematography is inspiring and fresh with a thought provoking message.
Yes, this was light fluff along the lines of Crazy Love. I'm getting seriously over the 'wealthy, entitled chaebol CEO who stoops to fall for the vulnerable employee' trope. More often than not he's an abusive jerk with childhood trauma, who not only initially tramples all over this willing, obedient, often talented woman, who eventually ends up "healing" him with her tolerance, devotion, love etc. The humour at best is predictable and average. There is a lot of FF ing due to a thin story line that can't really fill 12 or 16 eps. There seems to be a huge market still in SK for this dreary cookie cutter plot. Thank goodness there are other Kdramas out there atm like My Liberation Notes, Our Blues, Military Prosecutor Doberman, King of Pigs, Juvenile Justice, DP, where the content, writing and even cinematography is inspiring and fresh with a thought provoking message.