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i watch too many dramas

in my Pillowfort

i watch too many dramas

in my Pillowfort
Hot Stove League korean drama review
Completed
Hot Stove League
1 people found this review helpful
by i watch too many dramas
Mar 2, 2024
16 of 16 episodes seen
Completed 2
Overall 10
Story 10.0
Acting/Cast 10.0
Music 5.0
Rewatch Value 8.0

This show is NOT: A romance drama. And NOT: A baseball drama.

Why not a baseball drama? Well... It's about the time between seasons, so there can't be any games played. We actually see only bits of a game at the start and pieces of two practice games. That's all.
This drama is more about the politics and management side of professional baseball in South Korea. If you are not a fan of strategic machinations and emotional development of characters, you might want to give this show a miss.

I liked that the drama does not insult its audience's intelligence. It does not spell out every little thing, it does not repeat the same information endlessly, and there are several times when little throwaway comments or actions make an impact in later episodes. This is not a drama to watch while doing other things.

I especially liked how realistic the actions of (almost) every character was. In systemic coaching (which I'm starting to learn for professional reasons), two of the main theses are: "Every person's actions make sense for that one person within the current situation, always." and "Every decision has a prize and a price."
Even if some things are only hinted at, or not fully explained, there's this feeling that every character has their own motivation for their decisions. There is no pure good or evil, just people.
The actors did a terrific job in bringing their characters to life.

I'm also glad that the writer did not try to force a romance into the plot. The dynamics between the two main characters were of the profesional sort, maybe with a hint of a possible friendship, but nothing more.

And one last thing I loved is the ending. This is not a 100% happy, team-spirit-has-overcome-everything ending, but an ending which rather shows that even though you might have grown, things will probably not work out like you would have wanted them to. For me, that was absolutely satisfying.

[this is an updated version of the review I posted on Viki]
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