You know, the premise for this drama would make for an absolutely riveting, nerve-wracking, and captivating horror story. The potential is immense!

What would you do if you found out that you were a useless side character in a comic book, and that you're basically destined to die soon and that your actions are determined by the writer? Moreover, whatever you do and tell people when you're in control, they won't remember it in the next scene. Unless they're special like you... which is rare

The grim implications of being forced to play out scenes against your will, while still fully and actually living through those scenes, are kept to mainly surface-level quirks and drama in this story. But in the hands of someone else this could have easily gone… uh, sideways.

Like a character who has to walk toward her own drowning scene, and drown right there, knowing full well what's happening, despite not wanting to. It would be a real horror show!

But since this is a kdrama obviously the romance drama aspects are dialed up to eleven while the rest rests on the sidelines. But I had a good time because of the quality of the premise. The story-within-a-story opens up all kinds of potential plot points although sadly, a lot of genuinely intriguing ones are left unexplored. I also enjoyed the style of the cuts (imitating a story jumping all over the place while you read). They were often unpredictable as sometimes characters are suddenly and abruptly transported to new scenes, even mid-sentence!

As much as they poke fun at kdrama clichés, they also equally indulge in them which I found comical. Pacing was also meh as there are some redundant scenes clearly there just to pad the runtime.

The ending was also lacking a bit, we definitely needed more closure.

All in all, had huge potential, but has to settle for "pretty good".

You can add it to the pile of "kdrama with awesome early episodes that can't sustain that level of quality".