A sloppy mess for an interesting setting

It became quite apparent right off from episode 2 that this was a massive flop. The drama would have worked wonderfully and masterfully as a movie or at least as a 3-4 episodes short drama, otherwise, it's absolutely riddled with problems in its current condition and format. The unique setting and scenery weren't enough to help its case. It ingeniously transformed the art of storytelling into a chaotic, avant-garde mishmash of disjointed scenes that left me pondering the deep mysteries of life, such as whether the writers had ever heard of structured narrative or if they were just operating under the belief that plotlines are mere suggestions for lesser beings. Each plot twist, if one could even call them that, was a tantalizing leap into the abyss of narrative incoherence, leaving me on the edge of my seat not in anticipation, but in a desperate attempt to maintain my balance amidst the swirling vortex of plot holes and character motivations more elusive than a unicorn at a camouflage convention. I can't thank the creators enough for their valiant efforts to reduce character development to a cryptic crossword puzzle that nobody asked for, but we apparently all deserved, according to them. I wish to see better attempts going for a similar setting and theme from more competent creators. It's hard to recommend this drama unless you're a diehard fan of some of the cast members. Jun Ji Hyun disappearing for ~5 years then coming back with this project was nothing but a disappointment. It made it harder to be excited for her next project "Polaris (2023)".

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Had potential

To sell the slow burn story atmosphere, a drama needs to be accompanied with a memorable and fitting soundtrack. There was a desperate need for an actual original soundtrack in this one instead of filling it with random and generic sorrowful OST which ruined almost any big moment. Despite having an abundance of free time, the drama failed to give the side characters a "character", they never felt that they mattered. The drama behaved like a movie but failed to fit it in a drama (long) format. More often than not, it stuck out a bit too much and ended up being annoying.

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Lazy

Soulless and dry. Not a good office romance. All men were creepy and cringe while women were selfish and entitled. Not to mention the dead chemistry with all of the three couples. The story was practically dead on arrival. Painful progression and dreadful execution.

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Yikes!

The story was outright bad in the first place but its execution was even worse. Incoherent disjointed narrative, more often than note there was no clear direction or goal. It's impressive how it managed to continue for 16 episodes. The first 4 episodes were completely empty and could have been cut down to 30 minutes at most. Other slice of life dramas are more eventful than this one. As per usual the trend seems to be to over-saturate everything and turn a blind eye to anything else. This is Go Ah Ra's weakest project and the shallow character itself was tiring to watch.

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It works as an office comedy just fine, it didn't need to have any romance. However, the romance was the worst. Other than that, the concept got stale after a while, it felt they were running out of ideas.

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Catastrophy

Watching this felt like a bag of chips, 99% air and 1% something. You do get some cat action in the first 2 episodes then turns into a whatever triangle.

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There was an attempt

The beginning was unbelievable boring, it took about halfway through the drama before it started to be "decent" enough. I miss the days when thriller/mystery didn't feel the need to pad itself with side cases to keep viewers attention. I always find this structure to be flawed even when these side cases are slightly related to the main one. In the case of this drama, I would prefer if it was a constant confrontation with the main villain instead of sprinkled hints and tons of flashbacks. Speaking of villains, none of them interested me, was kinda disappointed after 16 episodes of teasing of the masked villain. Low-key kinda like an anime villain. The villain identity felt like a last minute decision instead of a calculated one. The young leads were fine but a bit bland, I would prefer more rigid actors which would suit the drama better.

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If only the first 2/3 were better....

The whole husband death and force adoption was moronic to the nth degree. Not encouraging to keep watching at all. You know what else isn't encouraging? The chemistry between the leads. The man looks older than his real age and this only made the gap even bigger. You also get the following: unsatisfactory cringy payoff, child-like screechy mother-in-law, masochist doormat female lead, and a spoiled unlikable scumbag 2nd lead. This made the road to redemption unconvincing and remained so till the end. Although it got a teeny tiny bit better but the first 65 episodes remained utterly garbage. I know the writer wanted us to hate the mother-in-law but the least they could do at the end is to give her a terminal illness or just kill her. Judging by the writer's other projects, no wonder this was bad. She stopped writing since 2015 and I hope she never come back.

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Solid

Great drama from Noh Hee Kyung pre 2010. The drama is definitely unique for its genre. These relationships and bonds were unlike any other. I didn't get such a strong familial bond from other family focused dramas unlike this one. The same can be said about Mi Su love relationship, they fell so hard for each other it's heartbreaking. It's one of the hardest aspects of writing to nail complex characters. It's not perfect but a solid package for sure. It's been a while since a drama left me empty.

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Classic Korean society always blaming the woman. Anyway, there are two major problems that completely ruined the drama. The first being the writing. The writer was creating new plot threads and doing nothing with them while having other plot threads left loose. Some major events and actions left without a follow up. No consequences were applied. The other major issue is the pacing. I can say with confidence that no one working on the project had any idea how many episodes they were making. This is why the major incident mentioned in the synopsis took 14 episodes in the past before moving to present day. It didn't leave a lot of room for the characters to develop in the present. What's even worse, none of the development from the past characters carries to the present. The only thing that was carried over is the fact that the incident happen. This created an irreversible disconnect. What's even worse than that is how every story doesn't progress or resume from the past until episode 25. The way they concluded every story is actually moronic. This drama didn't need more than 8 episodes to tell its story from start to finish.

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Goddamn!!

Awful writing! One of the most disorganized incoherent unstructured writing I ever came across.

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The eldest daughter Ma Ji Sung with her husband and that musician were the most boring part of the drama. Utterly dull and bland, might as well just replace them with anything random and that would be infinitely better. Ji Sung's story line ruined the drama for me. It's a family drama without much melo, the characters were fine but I wanted to see more of the mother-daughters dynamic since that's how the drama was advertised. Both families had a good dynamic especially with Jeong Geun & In Sung and both fathers. Other than the silliness and the characters there's not much else to like about it. Anyway, It's a passable watch for a daily drama.

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If only the writer put in a little bit more effort...

At first glance it seemed interesting with the impulse control disorder which quickly turned out to be a very poorly written plot device. Around mid way the disorder became whatever the writer wish it to be then it completely disappeared without any mention or cure as if it never happened despite being a major plot point at the beginning and part of the drama's dvertisement. Apparently it's easier to write a generic story-line instead of attempting something slightly different. Anyway, the drama had also an awful love story-line, both were mostly awkward and had no chemistry or whatsoever. The romance was only included out of obligation, might as well remove it.

The drama also had pacing issues whether it's regarding the main story or any of the side ones. The main story felt limited in the number of characters it involved, there were mainly 6 characters it was cycling through. There was a desperate need to include more characters to contribute to the main story. The support characters weren't given enough attention and most of their stories were cut short anyway. I low-key wanted to see more of the erratic behavior of Se Yeon's sister. Aside from the earlier parts, the drama didn't have anything interesting.

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