Mystal
Ashland, OR
Lost it's momentum
The show started incredibly well. The plot revolves around Ha-Won accepting a job from a rich old man to help his four grandsons come together as a family. She receives "missions" from him, and after completing each mission she would receive a bonus to help her get closer to her dream of attending to college and becoming a teacher.
The grandsons are the usual, generic kdrama fare. You have the ladies man, the quiet sullen one, the forgettable one and the music one. I wish Seo-Woo (the music one) had more screentime, since as the episodes dragged on he was the only character not tied up in a generic, show-stalling kdrama plotline.
7 or 8 episodes in, I expected the story would continue to be a series of story arcs revolving around each "mission," where the characters learn lessons and improve as people, as well as deepen their bonds and relationships. This, I thought, would be a great format for the series. I was strapped in.
Then, after the (not really a spoiler since every kdrama seems to have this for some reason) vacation arc, the story just stops. There's an entire episode - 1/16th of the damn show - where no one leaves the mansion and everyone keeps going into each other's rooms and enacting the same scene over and over.
Person A walks into person B's room; person A says some dramatic line and leaves the room dramatically; Person B is left in his room looking constipated for five minutes while sad music plays. Then Person B enters Person C's room and the same scene happens. Repeat for about an hour.
Everything I enjoyed about the show just stops. I'm at episode 12 now (and subsequently dropping the show) and for the last 3-4 episodes no-one mentions a "mission." The format of the show changes, like whiplash, into every cruddy Kdrama I've ever dropped.
Everyone spends hours dilly-dallying about who loves who; the main character's IQ drops about 70 points as her laser-sharp wit is dulled; the show just loses its momentum and its focus.
Part of the reason this happens is because the vacation arc changes the focus of the story from Ha-Won to the secondary female lead, Hye-Ji.
Hye-Ji is a great example of how k-drama writers like to add in an emotionless tertiary female character whose only existence is to slow an otherwise good show to a screeching halt. Almost every scene with her ends with her mumbling something, then leaving the scene so one of the two angsty manchildren in the love hexagon can look slightly sad while time slows down, the camera goes crazy, and a loud power ballad plays with the singer screaming "Without you!" 26 times.
The showrunners could have replaced Hye-Ji with a cardboard cutout of a girl with a speakerphone attached and her actress' robotic performance might have actually been better.
Now the show is adding a bunch of side-storylines to muddy the already-slowed-down show into an icicle's pace. The show started amazingly, built up a great format for its story, then hit a wall and never recovered. Out of the 12 episodes I watched, 4 of them should have been cut. I'm not going to dare wasting my time on the other four.
The grandsons are the usual, generic kdrama fare. You have the ladies man, the quiet sullen one, the forgettable one and the music one. I wish Seo-Woo (the music one) had more screentime, since as the episodes dragged on he was the only character not tied up in a generic, show-stalling kdrama plotline.
7 or 8 episodes in, I expected the story would continue to be a series of story arcs revolving around each "mission," where the characters learn lessons and improve as people, as well as deepen their bonds and relationships. This, I thought, would be a great format for the series. I was strapped in.
Then, after the (not really a spoiler since every kdrama seems to have this for some reason) vacation arc, the story just stops. There's an entire episode - 1/16th of the damn show - where no one leaves the mansion and everyone keeps going into each other's rooms and enacting the same scene over and over.
Person A walks into person B's room; person A says some dramatic line and leaves the room dramatically; Person B is left in his room looking constipated for five minutes while sad music plays. Then Person B enters Person C's room and the same scene happens. Repeat for about an hour.
Everything I enjoyed about the show just stops. I'm at episode 12 now (and subsequently dropping the show) and for the last 3-4 episodes no-one mentions a "mission." The format of the show changes, like whiplash, into every cruddy Kdrama I've ever dropped.
Everyone spends hours dilly-dallying about who loves who; the main character's IQ drops about 70 points as her laser-sharp wit is dulled; the show just loses its momentum and its focus.
Part of the reason this happens is because the vacation arc changes the focus of the story from Ha-Won to the secondary female lead, Hye-Ji.
Hye-Ji is a great example of how k-drama writers like to add in an emotionless tertiary female character whose only existence is to slow an otherwise good show to a screeching halt. Almost every scene with her ends with her mumbling something, then leaving the scene so one of the two angsty manchildren in the love hexagon can look slightly sad while time slows down, the camera goes crazy, and a loud power ballad plays with the singer screaming "Without you!" 26 times.
The showrunners could have replaced Hye-Ji with a cardboard cutout of a girl with a speakerphone attached and her actress' robotic performance might have actually been better.
Now the show is adding a bunch of side-storylines to muddy the already-slowed-down show into an icicle's pace. The show started amazingly, built up a great format for its story, then hit a wall and never recovered. Out of the 12 episodes I watched, 4 of them should have been cut. I'm not going to dare wasting my time on the other four.
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