The Quiz Show (2008)

The first season of The Quiz Show is often underestimated. Maybe it is connected to the relativly nameless star Katagiri Jin?

The story is really exciting and highly psychological. The chasing for dreams forces the candidates to open their mind reflecting about all their mistakes in life. This is often highly thrilling.
Meanwhile the main story develops and is solved in a fantastic final with a not forseeable conclusion.
Katagiri Jin does a great job because you allways feel that there is something hidden deep inside his character which will hurt everybody.
I am a rock fan so I was really surprised by the opening song which can be categorized as metal which is not typical for dorama is think!

The episodes are round about 20-25 minutes long so you can finish the whole dorama in a short time. This is also an argument for my high rewatching score!

Finally I can only say that it is not fair if you skip this season just watching the second with Sakurai Sho, because it is really good and it creates the base for the continuation.

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This show fascinated me. I have something of a love for psychological stories and movies/dramas that involve diving into the psyche. Thus this show is to date one of my favorite dramas I've ever seen.
The acting is amazing. There's nothing else to say. Katagiri Jin does a wonderful job as the main lead Tazaki Toru. It honestly feels like he is becoming the character right before your eyes at certain points in the drama. The other characters are also done exceptionally well. The "evil" mastermind behind the whole thing is played wonderfully, and when it's revealed at the end what and who he really is, Totsugi Shigeyuki does a fantastic job of conveying the overwhelming emotions that the character is going through. The contestants are all quite well-cast as well. The character arcs they go through in such a short amount of time are often quite complex.
As to the actual story, everything was so well-written I almost wonder if whoever wrote this had some psychological issues to work out at the time this was being written. The way the drama uses flashbacks to reveal pieces of the mystery is spot on. The way all of the characters figure into the story is quite intriguing as well. There were a couple of points where it did feel just the slightest bit contrived, but I suppose that's bound to happen.
The concept for this drama is also quite unique. The idea of using a gameshow setting to force people to reveal their deepest darkest secrets is almost...creepy. It can get quite intense as well.
Overall, I just have to say this: this is one of the most fascinating psychological thriller/mysteries I've ever seen. Go watch this drama.

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