EBBTide
This review may contain spoilers
The writers fell asleep and made it my problem
This show was a difficult watch for many reason, including but not limited to the poor writing, cringy acting and uneccesarily evil 'big bad'.
The Writing:
This had a lot of potential to be an excellent show, but the writers' lack of enthusiasm for the piece showed through—they truly seemed to have written for two different shows and forgotten what they were doing halfway through. The courtroom scenes are fully make believe which doesn't aid in your ability to suspend disbelief. Several sub plots are never actually fleshed out, whether in hope for a Season 2 or not, it left me as a viewer wanting. This is further emphasised by the poorly developed characters and dialogue.
Cringey Acting aka Jo Bo-Ah:
This character is the epitome of what not to write. A flawless, omniscient character that is never wrong and is never hurt. From the cringey wig to the bad fight scenes, this character was doomed. The writers try and explain away her inability to get hurt by a short scene showing her training with her dad as a teenager - because everyone knows 10 years of training means no one can every land a hit on you(and I mean ever). Ahn Bo-Hyun in comparison is shown as highly capable but still sustains injuries, as do the other characters. Woo-in goes through 0 development as a character and acts above the law at all times, while guilt tripping Bae-man for having done the same for monetary gain. Woo-in was a very hard character to watch but every action she took seemed purely for drama purposes and not furthering (the badly written) plot. She has all the answers for Bae-mans past but refuses to tell him, claiming he needs to discover it himself. This goes on for 2 episodes too long frankly, just tell the dude. In an effort to make an iconic female character, the writers removed anything to connect you to the character. She also blatantly discards Miltary protocol to show that she is 'different' from the others and a 'rebel'. She would have been written up day one and suspended for her failure to follow hierarchies alone. Bae-man is actually an interesting character who goes through levels of personal development and always seems to have a plan, whereas Woo-in has spent all this time planning and made a noticeable lack of progress.
The Big Bad:
Noh Tae-nam was an excellent villain - rich, spoiled, traumatised, just wants to chill with his dog and committed a normal level of horrendous crimes for a drama and continuously ran from responsibility. Noh Hwa-young however.... the writers really took every single characteristic of the worst person and put them together, and gave no reason or human quality. Noh Hwa-young commits these heinous acts for promotion again and again, but no indication of why she craves promotion is given. She is a caricature of a villain. She is also not a good bad guy? In that she continually leaves heaps of evidence and then sloppily covers up her crimes later, which anyone with access could put together. Noh Hwa-young is however very well played by Oh Yeon-soo, her hate always felt real and visceral. Also @writers, why was she always jogging? What purpose did that serve?
The side characters were funny and actually acted like people rather than the over written Noh Hwa-young and Cha Woo-In .
Overall it was watchable, but not very enjoyable. Bo-ah's acting was average at best and her character didn't help anything. The bad writing condemned what could have been enjoyable characters into a blight on the viewing experience, a character shouldn't make you groan in pain whenever they are on screen from cringe.
The Writing:
This had a lot of potential to be an excellent show, but the writers' lack of enthusiasm for the piece showed through—they truly seemed to have written for two different shows and forgotten what they were doing halfway through. The courtroom scenes are fully make believe which doesn't aid in your ability to suspend disbelief. Several sub plots are never actually fleshed out, whether in hope for a Season 2 or not, it left me as a viewer wanting. This is further emphasised by the poorly developed characters and dialogue.
Cringey Acting aka Jo Bo-Ah:
This character is the epitome of what not to write. A flawless, omniscient character that is never wrong and is never hurt. From the cringey wig to the bad fight scenes, this character was doomed. The writers try and explain away her inability to get hurt by a short scene showing her training with her dad as a teenager - because everyone knows 10 years of training means no one can every land a hit on you(and I mean ever). Ahn Bo-Hyun in comparison is shown as highly capable but still sustains injuries, as do the other characters. Woo-in goes through 0 development as a character and acts above the law at all times, while guilt tripping Bae-man for having done the same for monetary gain. Woo-in was a very hard character to watch but every action she took seemed purely for drama purposes and not furthering (the badly written) plot. She has all the answers for Bae-mans past but refuses to tell him, claiming he needs to discover it himself. This goes on for 2 episodes too long frankly, just tell the dude. In an effort to make an iconic female character, the writers removed anything to connect you to the character. She also blatantly discards Miltary protocol to show that she is 'different' from the others and a 'rebel'. She would have been written up day one and suspended for her failure to follow hierarchies alone. Bae-man is actually an interesting character who goes through levels of personal development and always seems to have a plan, whereas Woo-in has spent all this time planning and made a noticeable lack of progress.
The Big Bad:
Noh Tae-nam was an excellent villain - rich, spoiled, traumatised, just wants to chill with his dog and committed a normal level of horrendous crimes for a drama and continuously ran from responsibility. Noh Hwa-young however.... the writers really took every single characteristic of the worst person and put them together, and gave no reason or human quality. Noh Hwa-young commits these heinous acts for promotion again and again, but no indication of why she craves promotion is given. She is a caricature of a villain. She is also not a good bad guy? In that she continually leaves heaps of evidence and then sloppily covers up her crimes later, which anyone with access could put together. Noh Hwa-young is however very well played by Oh Yeon-soo, her hate always felt real and visceral. Also @writers, why was she always jogging? What purpose did that serve?
The side characters were funny and actually acted like people rather than the over written Noh Hwa-young and Cha Woo-In .
Overall it was watchable, but not very enjoyable. Bo-ah's acting was average at best and her character didn't help anything. The bad writing condemned what could have been enjoyable characters into a blight on the viewing experience, a character shouldn't make you groan in pain whenever they are on screen from cringe.
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