I still remember when this drama was announced and later a picture of Lee Min-ho in a horse was all over twitter driving everyone insane with theories. This drama caught my attention from that moment. The hype around it was really high. It had a famous screenwriter Kim Eun-sook, really known and loved actors ( Lee Min-ho, Kim Go-eun, and Woo-Do Hwan) and a story that was really interesting. I really enjoy dramas/movies with modern monarchies so I was set to like this drama. However, I think the expectations I had for this drama were way too high. So my take-out of this drama was:

It had everything to be an amazing drama and had the potential to be the drama of the year but it wasn't half of what I expected. I have to say that I was and still am disappointed at the outcome of this drama.

The first episode started well but, as it advanced, we were introduced to too many characters really fast to the point that I didn't know who was who. To make things worse, we are presented to "same face/different people" type of characters and with no help to distinguish which universe we were watching (sometimes yes, you could see that it was the monarchy one or the other, but most of the time it was mostly me and my mom wondering where the characters were in certain scenes). This lack of a clear distinction between universes complicated the story so much to the point that it made it so hard to watch because you couldn't understand what was going on which was really sad because the story itself had so much potential. As the drama moved forward, you could start to distinguish the main characters and their respective universes but the doppelgangers (if you could call them that?!) of extra characters (like the restaurant guy, and the veterinarian in the palace) randomly presented in the drama began to annoy me.

A thing that most people talk about is the amount of publicity that was shown throughout the drama. I'll be honest, that was the least aspect that bothered me. If you watch other dramas, you'll see advertising of a lot of things. Sure, with this drama they went all out with publicity but that didn't bother me, not even a little bit. Instead what annoyed me was the lack of connection between the main characters. At the start, it was funny to see the interaction between tae-eul and yi gon. But there was no build-up of interaction that made me get attached to their romance. It was so plain and fast-paced that made it so boring. I acknowledge, there were certain scenes that definitely were worth it. But overall, two words that fit the romance between the characters are plain and non-memorable.

Alright, so I just vented out everything that I thought was bad in this drama. But this drama was not a complete and total disaster. And the one thing that made it worth watching this drama was Woo Do-hwan's acting and bromance with Lee Min-ho. Despite all the confusing scenes and boring romance, his scenes were hilarious, the interaction between his character and Lee Min-ho's character was really cute and his acting amazed me. playing two characters that were the complete opposite but that managed to interact so well. With this drama, he really showed what he could do and in my personal opinion, he was the highlight of this entire drama. I could spend the rest of the time just talking about him but I'll leave that for another time. I just have to say: Personally, if you ask me for one reason to watch this drama, it's Woo Do-hwan.

Overall, I think this drama had everything it needed to be a great one and from the moment that it was announced, everyone had its eyes in it. From a screenwriter that had given us worldwide loved dramas, actors that are widely known and a story concept that was different, new, and interesting.
However, its shortcomings made it hard to watch and made just another drama that didn't reach its full potential.
Don't take me the wrong way, it was not the worst drama and many people actually quite enjoyed it, myself included in some parts.

But what could actually have been a contender for drama of the year, just passed as "another drama of 2020".