This review may contain spoilers
What the F*** did I watch?
***WORD OF WARNING: ALL THE SPOILERS, BEWARE!!***
As a Sci-fi Lover, I was excited for an awesome time-travel/dimension-travel drama. Initially, it looked like it had all the makings of an exciting drama. The added element of a main character was someone with Alexithymia and how he developed that and his powers due to his mother's time-travel while he was in the womb was also an interesting concept. I was expecting a Fringe-like vibe, which was there in the beginning.
Then the whole thing went off the rails. At first, I thought it was time travel with paradoxes having to be prevented, which then became time travel with no paradox as a new reality was created. At least that was what I thought happened. At one point it fell like parallel dimensions where ppl came to experience what they lost in their universe, with time travel. It was like the writer could not keep track of the rules for how time travel worked and kept changing it as more characters and elements were added to the story. Sometimes, it felt like they retconned something, that that was stated as fact in the previous episode, in the very next one. The whole thing made me want to throw my laptop at a wall!!
Don't even get me started on the Old Jin Gyeom being the villain and killing him before he killed the mother was the solution to all their problems and erasure of time-travel agency. I am so turned around by what the hell happened, especially from episode 12 onwards. Did they travel back in time to different dimensions or their own? Did they change their own past? Also if the time travel agency disappeared which world did it disappear in? Did it just exist in one world? Also if it was erased, then how do Yoon Tae Yi and Park Jin Gyum exist, are both they were both born when they did because their mom's time travelled? Also even if we ignore Tae Yi's situation and assume she was made with a different mom in place of her time-traveling mom, if there is no time travel she wouldn't go back in time to have Jin Gyum in the past. So how is he there?? It would make more sense for her to meet Min Hyuk and maybe have a Jin Gyum in the future.
Also, how did Old Jun Gyeom go evil/crazy? His mother's death made him become a cop, was it the realization that he was the killer that made him lose his mind? Did he encourage the start of the agency to save his mom? Should he have unalived himself to prevent her death? Also wtf she killed herself?? Is that what happened originally or was it just what happened in whatever universe they are currently in?
Also confused about how both of them are the same, if she was the result of a time traveller becoming her mom, was it the same for the original? Also if Tae Yi invented time travel and her partner went on to become the pseudo-head of it, why was the mom version of her just an agent? Why was she not in charge? Or was it yet another Tae Yi who invented it?
Also, how was the tattoo appearing on her?? what is the explanation behind that? This is supposed to be Sci-fi, not fantasy and she is not the chosen one. And how in the world is she having memories of the mom?? Or did I just understand that wrong? This is not like Olivia from Fringe having Alt-Olivia's memories, there she is drugged w/ Cortexiphan as a child and then again as an adult causing the bleed-through of memories. Where is Alice's version of Cortexiphan for Tae Yi or some other phenomenon to explain the bleed-through? Especially because they are not near each other or anything when the memories come to Tae Yi.
Too many plot holes and no proper answers. This is not even like the open endings where you can just picture your version of how it ended or where it makes you consider different possibilities. This is more of the brain aneurysm-inducing confusion trying to figure out what the f*** just happened.
Also, what's with the serious incest that was happening? I mean his fascination with a woman who looked like his mother is one thing, but the weird sexual/ motherly vibes their relationship gave at different points was just plain creepy. I don't care that she was an alternate-universe version of his mom. It's still a person, who has the same freaking DNA as her. It would be just as creepy if he was into his mother's identical twin sister who was raised separately. I'm not sure why they needed romance, they could have learned about the mother-son thing, and it would have been emotional and beautiful. This came off weird and creepy and trying too hard. Also, what was the point of Kim Do Yeon?? Was she just there to highlight that the only person Jin Gyum would fall in love with would be his mother look alike, who at times treated him like her son? Too much Oedipus complex for my taste, while trying to justify that it is not Oedipus cause she is not actually, his mother.
Despite all my hate for the plot, the acting was great, so was the OST. Kim Hee Sun and Joo Won both showed such emotional range and they portrayed them well. Overall, despite this the confusion I had to endure almost made me drop this, but I stayed true hoping I could understand something, anything.
When I first started Alice, I thought it would be unique, a trip to Wonderland. In a way it delivers. Alice drops you down the rabbit hole to Confuseland making you wish you could erase the part of your brain where it will now forever take up space as the most convoluted, nonsensical plot you had the misfortune of seeing. I don't think I have even read fanfiction that was the level of hell this plot was made on.
But despite this, if you still want a drama that is a Brain F*** that leaves you so turned around you don't know up from down and down and Wonderland from Outland, then this is the drama for you.
As a Sci-fi Lover, I was excited for an awesome time-travel/dimension-travel drama. Initially, it looked like it had all the makings of an exciting drama. The added element of a main character was someone with Alexithymia and how he developed that and his powers due to his mother's time-travel while he was in the womb was also an interesting concept. I was expecting a Fringe-like vibe, which was there in the beginning.
Then the whole thing went off the rails. At first, I thought it was time travel with paradoxes having to be prevented, which then became time travel with no paradox as a new reality was created. At least that was what I thought happened. At one point it fell like parallel dimensions where ppl came to experience what they lost in their universe, with time travel. It was like the writer could not keep track of the rules for how time travel worked and kept changing it as more characters and elements were added to the story. Sometimes, it felt like they retconned something, that that was stated as fact in the previous episode, in the very next one. The whole thing made me want to throw my laptop at a wall!!
Don't even get me started on the Old Jin Gyeom being the villain and killing him before he killed the mother was the solution to all their problems and erasure of time-travel agency. I am so turned around by what the hell happened, especially from episode 12 onwards. Did they travel back in time to different dimensions or their own? Did they change their own past? Also if the time travel agency disappeared which world did it disappear in? Did it just exist in one world? Also if it was erased, then how do Yoon Tae Yi and Park Jin Gyum exist, are both they were both born when they did because their mom's time travelled? Also even if we ignore Tae Yi's situation and assume she was made with a different mom in place of her time-traveling mom, if there is no time travel she wouldn't go back in time to have Jin Gyum in the past. So how is he there?? It would make more sense for her to meet Min Hyuk and maybe have a Jin Gyum in the future.
Also, how did Old Jun Gyeom go evil/crazy? His mother's death made him become a cop, was it the realization that he was the killer that made him lose his mind? Did he encourage the start of the agency to save his mom? Should he have unalived himself to prevent her death? Also wtf she killed herself?? Is that what happened originally or was it just what happened in whatever universe they are currently in?
Also confused about how both of them are the same, if she was the result of a time traveller becoming her mom, was it the same for the original? Also if Tae Yi invented time travel and her partner went on to become the pseudo-head of it, why was the mom version of her just an agent? Why was she not in charge? Or was it yet another Tae Yi who invented it?
Also, how was the tattoo appearing on her?? what is the explanation behind that? This is supposed to be Sci-fi, not fantasy and she is not the chosen one. And how in the world is she having memories of the mom?? Or did I just understand that wrong? This is not like Olivia from Fringe having Alt-Olivia's memories, there she is drugged w/ Cortexiphan as a child and then again as an adult causing the bleed-through of memories. Where is Alice's version of Cortexiphan for Tae Yi or some other phenomenon to explain the bleed-through? Especially because they are not near each other or anything when the memories come to Tae Yi.
Too many plot holes and no proper answers. This is not even like the open endings where you can just picture your version of how it ended or where it makes you consider different possibilities. This is more of the brain aneurysm-inducing confusion trying to figure out what the f*** just happened.
Also, what's with the serious incest that was happening? I mean his fascination with a woman who looked like his mother is one thing, but the weird sexual/ motherly vibes their relationship gave at different points was just plain creepy. I don't care that she was an alternate-universe version of his mom. It's still a person, who has the same freaking DNA as her. It would be just as creepy if he was into his mother's identical twin sister who was raised separately. I'm not sure why they needed romance, they could have learned about the mother-son thing, and it would have been emotional and beautiful. This came off weird and creepy and trying too hard. Also, what was the point of Kim Do Yeon?? Was she just there to highlight that the only person Jin Gyum would fall in love with would be his mother look alike, who at times treated him like her son? Too much Oedipus complex for my taste, while trying to justify that it is not Oedipus cause she is not actually, his mother.
Despite all my hate for the plot, the acting was great, so was the OST. Kim Hee Sun and Joo Won both showed such emotional range and they portrayed them well. Overall, despite this the confusion I had to endure almost made me drop this, but I stayed true hoping I could understand something, anything.
When I first started Alice, I thought it would be unique, a trip to Wonderland. In a way it delivers. Alice drops you down the rabbit hole to Confuseland making you wish you could erase the part of your brain where it will now forever take up space as the most convoluted, nonsensical plot you had the misfortune of seeing. I don't think I have even read fanfiction that was the level of hell this plot was made on.
But despite this, if you still want a drama that is a Brain F*** that leaves you so turned around you don't know up from down and down and Wonderland from Outland, then this is the drama for you.
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