Scam High

The drama started off mostly alright for the first 3 episodes or so, but once they confined everything into the school settings, problems started to seep from every corner. Imagine all of the school related tired tropes and cliches amplified by cringe to create the cheesiest abomination. Jason as a character, actor, story and writing was easily the worst aspect of this drama. Which created one of the worst memorable dynamics with his love interest. From the outset, the plot followed a predictable trajectory but things got a lot worse around the last 1/3 of its run. During which the story became static, the characters fell apart and the drama started to shove empty scenes of side characters. They reduced Sam Dong screen time significantly as well. They also isolated Pil Sook and Jason despite being main characters and had little to no interactions with others later on. All of this led to a below average last episode and a lukewarm ending. Despite its flaws and problems, somehow it worked, to a certain degree.

In comparison, season 2 was an obvious downgrade in all regards, it's just plain worse. The empty scenes I mentioned earlier turned into amateurish random musical performances here. I noticed they were mostly using Korean songs in this season, compared to season 1 which had more western/global songs. In season 2, no one had any chemistry with anyone, all pairings were as incompatible and dry as they could get. It also had the same ending as season 1. I think the cast also had more idols than actors? Anyway, changing the directors and writers made its sequel DOA.

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Babyless Woman

While the drama had its moments of charm and humor, it struggled to deliver a truly expansive storyline that kept you engaged. The drama relied on the key characters interactions to drive its story, however, the long wait between these scenes was off putting despite barely having any additional side plotlines. Speaking of which, there were a few small side plotlines but none of them were remotely good or had any considerable weight. The third guy (Choi Kang Eu Tteum) always felt out of place and the attempt to give him something later on for his character was pathetic. The theme is good and some ideas were entertaining but the characters needed a deeper exploration. The OST was below average and the track "Only You" in particular was plain awful. The drama was alright but it felt incomplete in many aspects.

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Soul Searching

You need to keep in mind that this is a sitcom before going into it. Don't expect its story and themes to be grounded into reality. For a sitcom, it doesn't stand out when compared to other sitcoms from 2000s. It took a while before the humor started to click, the first few episodes were a bit try hard. Even after it got better later on, some scenes and jokes were a hit or miss. While the characters were okay but it needed a better variation in the characters. The brief main story was delayed for too long, they shoved most of it into the last 3 episodes. It would have been much better to lay it out throughout the drama and build the jokes around it. Anyway, the OST was quite good and it had no right to be this good for a drama like this.

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A New Dawn

Due to the striking and unmatched popularity and brilliance of the original series, this spinoff was birthed, challenging its creators on a hasty race to attempt to top and dethrone its predecessor. An impossible challenge in hindsight, but through sheer perseverance, talent and hard-work, they managed to create this unrivaled anomaly, breaking all kinds of traditional convictions in its way and setting the bar on an unprecedented level, a new standard to be inspired by. This drama is a worthy celebration of true human ingenuity and artistry. It makes me wonder what humans will achieve next?

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Single and Too Sick to Mingle

The story was unbelievably dry and dull. It was a bad setup from the get go. His son was diagnosed with a tumor in the brain and got a surgery, then a few episodes later the father got diagnosed with a tumor in the brain too. I don't understand what kind of writing is this. What were they trying to achieve with that. It didn't fit the narrative doing it this way. Probably because they had nothing prepared for the climax. The characters just didn't work together but the drama kept forcing them to interact. Which resulted in its own set of problems. The drama was a big mess with different problems, sure it had its moments with the ML's son but that wasn't remotely enough.

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Truth vs Secret

The casting choice for the sisters couldn't be any more perfect than this. I've always thought Ha Ji Won and Kim Ha Neul looked strikingly similar, you can even add Nam Sang Mi to the mix. The drama itself was a mixed bag. They did a poor job in establishing the sisters' relationship and even a worse job in shaping Ji Eun and her motives to play the antagonist. The problem further continued with the character Jun Ho and his initial relationship with the sisters. There were clearly glaring issues with writing the characters in this drama. The story was revolving around the secret but when it came time to address the secret it was a bit too late to do anything substantial with it.

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The Usual

I still haven't found a real answer to why most daily dramas convert their setting into a cyclical run inside a corporation despite their initial premise. Possible theory, it's easier to write while rehashing from its predecessors and to re-use the same materials and assets while building a set. Out of all the possible ridiculous tropes to ensue insanity, the psychiatric hospital trope is the only one I will never tolerate. It's the cheapest and lowliest insult to the medium and to any viewer. Therefore, this drama gets the stamp of shame for incorporating that once and attempting to do it another time later. The final resolution for these characters ended up being disappointing, they forced it to remain relatively soft and tame. Which took away from all of the angst and revenge. Park Ha Na picked up this project after her previous one Apgujeong Midnight Sun (2014) which was pretty good even for her first main role, in comparison, this drama was a significant downgrade.

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The Real Sassy Girl

The silliness and the chaotic descension of old rom-coms remains unmatched. The improbable setup of their story was stretched too thin but it worked with their abrasive behavior. I found the highschool arc to be tolerable despite having the infamous "theater" episode trope just like most school themed media. The leads were a bit old to be passed as highschoolers but at least they switched the setting shortly after. The main conflict lasted for too long and the drama tried to take more serious tone during it which wasn't fitting for the story or the characters. This also forced the ending to be really short and quick. The main soundtrack with vocals was quite good. On the other hand, there's a certain type of soundtrack that always accompany Uhm Tae Woong across different dramas and I can't figure out how or why?

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An Office Flop

The drama failed to establish a good hook with its premise or with its first episode in general. Most of the drama was spent with an awful repetitive cycle of whining from the hardships in their workplace.The writer realized this problem and started to bring the characters' personal stories and relationships more into focus with the workplace aspect becoming less prominent as the drama went on. The workplace challenges couldn't hold their own weight to service the drama. The weak and uninteresting tension it tried to create made the matter worse. Coming from the same writer who wrote Hyena (2020), this drama wasn't good in comparison.

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Big Sadge

Cancer sucks. Kim Ji Soo did great. All episodes that focused on the main character were great but the other episodes that shifted the focus to other characters took away from the main character instead of building these memory blocks around him. It was a short 9 episodes, the last 1 didn't count, there was no room to explore around. It felt they wanted to build a much bigger story but there was no time, again, should've kept the focus on the main character and maybe give him more screen time. The addition of the store clerk not only was cringe but also redundant and could've been better spent somewhere else. Although the animated parts of each episode were alright but the voice over quality was less than subpar, sometime it came off as if the speakers were reading from a script. The last episode for some reason was just a collection of these animated parts stitched together.

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Saint Chapo

The plot unfolded with a good mix of suspense and intrigue, throwing in enough attractive elements to grip you in, however, it's not exactly breaking new ground thematically, it did a decent job for laying down a serviceable short story despite its rough start. I appreciate having the entire plot based outside of Korea, it was nice breaking out of some tired cliches in the Korean drug world. Although the drama didn't mess up the ending but they went for the generic and safe route. The drama had a decent selection of cast but Hwang Jung Min stole the spotlight as usual. Always makes me wish to see him taking more drama roles.

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Love of Eve

The drama was visually appealing with sleek fashion yet shallow, drawing viewers in with its polished aesthetics and grand production, but failing to deliver on beyond its initial entertaining value. Speaking of production, whoever handled the post production processing and edit did a poor job with Seo Yea Ji scenes. They over softened her skin too much to an artificial level of smoothness. Despite knowing what's coming, the plot was initially as enjoyable as having a fast food meal after a late night. The entire plot was structured around heavily dramatized drawn out scenarios. This is the type of plot that other shows usually make a parody of it when mocking makjangs. The constant bombardment of flashy visuals and exaggerated emotions overshadowed everything. I admit I enjoyed that aspect of it but only for the first 5-6 episodes before it lost its appeal. Waiting for the revenge to finalize is what kept me going, however, I can't say I'm satisfied with the resolution of the revenge. I was hoping for something different and maybe a bit harsher. Moreover, If I'm not mistaken, we didn't know what happened to any of the children at the end. On another note, the drama came out around the same time as Seo Yea Ji was going through a controversy. I'm not well versed on the subject, but I couldn't help myself to draw some parallels with her character in the drama.

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Green Mothers

At first sight, you might think this drama was about the mothers and children in this community, but the mystery tag was there for a reason. This drama was kind of a mess; it tried to pack in a lot of themes and tropes you often find in female centered plots but failed to do any of them right and brushed off each one shortly after. The plot was equally disorganized and messy; it started with the ghosts from the past, the community of mothers and the tension with Jin Ha, then shifted to the female lead's prodigy kid, then turned into a murder mystery "whodunit," then moved on to some side stories, and then returned to the murder mystery with crimes and drugs. What even was that? I'm not sure what is the correlation between female centered plots and displaying all men in a negative light; this drama was no exception. If their intent was to give a highlight with social commentary, then it's obviously not a good way to do it.

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Delusional Love

An interesting mixed bag of ideas with varying degrees of execution. Although the first story #23 was the worst one out of the four stories, the first episode in itself was a really bad introduction for the expected quality of this show. I don't fully agree with the resolution of each story. Although each story presented a plausible real situation, but the drama went for the easy way out and ended each one safely. There was one thing the drama kinda brushed off, the mysterious woman across the fours stories. It seems her purpose was to give the leads a little nudge, but beyond that, we don't know much.

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Wannabe Delinquents

It started strong with a gripping premise but kind of lost its footing pretty quickly. I was expecting it to go deeper with its theme, given the +18 rating, but it remained super surface-level throughout, and the rating seemed to be there just because the plot included cannabis. It feels like a big wasted plot to something that could've been actually good. There were all these random side stories thrown in that were just bland and irrelevant. The attempts at emotional depth felt forced and artificial, as if the writer was more concerned with eliciting sympathy than giving a better portrayal of its theme. In the end, the drama will likely end up being a forgettable one.

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