I don't think I picked my jaw up off the ground, or stopped smiling, through maybe the first five hours of this show. That's how brassy and sexy it is. To describe it to friends who don't watch k-drama, I said: Imagine two rival tech giants, with two rival key players who hate each others' guts. They're connected in two important ways: first by a scheming boss, who's also a pawn in a larger conspiracy; and second by their own moral principles, which force them to put aside their differences and work together in the wake of a political conflict. Good story? Good story. Now imagine every single character I've just talked about is a single woman in her late thirties or forties.
This would be audacious, if not unthinkable, from any major entertainment industry in the world. And Search WWW knows it, takes pleasure in it, and forces you to think about these role reversals -- all while running a very successful romantic comedy slash workplace drama plot to keep the show moving. Meanwhile, music, clothes, side-plots, supporting characters: everything and everyone comes together to create an array of delightful things to enjoy and relish. The romantic plots never feel relegated to a sideshow, but that's another of the show's successes: you care deeply about each of the (adorable!) men the women become entangled with, yet these relationships never take precedence over the women's own doubts and desires.
I don't think Search WWW is perfect; its pacing is a problem and in spite of its strong writing, I do think it relied too much on great set-pieces, rather than overall dramatic integrity. But in total fairness, it established from the very beginning that it wanted to draw your attention to how its three women protagonists pull off completely breathtaking feats of professional excellence even while they're struggling to achieve some kind of balance in their personal lives and their relationships with each other: and we got that, all the way to the triumphant end.
I've never seen a show that makes me want to smile in delight just thinking about its premise before, but Search WWW was that. I'd recommend it to any single human being with a heart in this world. Big kudos to the actors who made us want to root for them even at their lowest and most conflicted; and all props to the writers who decided to pull off this totally improbable show, and then did it.
This would be audacious, if not unthinkable, from any major entertainment industry in the world. And Search WWW knows it, takes pleasure in it, and forces you to think about these role reversals -- all while running a very successful romantic comedy slash workplace drama plot to keep the show moving. Meanwhile, music, clothes, side-plots, supporting characters: everything and everyone comes together to create an array of delightful things to enjoy and relish. The romantic plots never feel relegated to a sideshow, but that's another of the show's successes: you care deeply about each of the (adorable!) men the women become entangled with, yet these relationships never take precedence over the women's own doubts and desires.
I don't think Search WWW is perfect; its pacing is a problem and in spite of its strong writing, I do think it relied too much on great set-pieces, rather than overall dramatic integrity. But in total fairness, it established from the very beginning that it wanted to draw your attention to how its three women protagonists pull off completely breathtaking feats of professional excellence even while they're struggling to achieve some kind of balance in their personal lives and their relationships with each other: and we got that, all the way to the triumphant end.
I've never seen a show that makes me want to smile in delight just thinking about its premise before, but Search WWW was that. I'd recommend it to any single human being with a heart in this world. Big kudos to the actors who made us want to root for them even at their lowest and most conflicted; and all props to the writers who decided to pull off this totally improbable show, and then did it.
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