Given that God's Quiz is an OCN crime drama, it's inevitable for me to compare it to Vampire Prosecutor and TEN. It was a thoroughly enjoyable drama to watch, but there were a few places where I felt it was lacking. Still, it was plenty good enough to make me watch the second and third seasons.
STORY: 8/10
The plot follows a similar set up as VP and TEN: the mystery of the day taking up the bulk of each episode, and then a mystery of the season that develops little by little. The seasonal mystery I found quite compelling, so I have no complaints there.
The mini mysteries I found to be much more straightforward than both VP and TEN, which I found to be both a good and a bad thing. As much as I liked the other two dramas, they often left me utterly confused trying to figure out what was going on. God's Quiz I was able to understand without the headaches though, which was a nice change.
At the same time, I felt like I wasn't really drawn into each episode as much as I was with VP and TEN. There were fewer twists and turns to keep me glued to my screen, and the guy that you thought was the bad guy in the first 15 minutes often turned out to be just that. There were still a few twists (usually in the form of diagnosing a disease), but overall I felt the drama was a bit lacking in this area.
ACTING + CHARACTERS: 7/10
Han Jin Woo was wonderful in my opinion: an interesting character and well acted. VP and TEN both have your typical serious and totally badass main characters with tortured pasts. Han is their polar opposite. He's lighthearted, bumbling at times, childish, and tends to speak first and think second, but at the same time he's clearly a medical genius and rather adept at doing detective work as well. He still has his own dark secrets, which makes him all the more compelling as a character given how different he is on the outside.
Kang is the only other character that gets significant screen time, and I wish I could say as nice things about her character. I never really connected with her character, and I felt she was lacking in personality and depth. She seemed like some generic detective character: rather serious, a little cold, and that's about it. It seemed like she was just there out of necessity--there needed to be someone investigating the crimes, and there needed to be someone for Han to interact with. I wish they had developed her character more considering she played such an important role.
Despite its shortcomings, I highly recommend watching this drama. It has its strengths to make up for its weaknesses. It was definitely good enough to convince me to watch the next two seasons, which I'll be doing promptly.
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