Justice Not Served!

The bad prosecutor didn't live up to his name, at least not for the entirety of the drama. The first 4 episodes were decent but the rest were an imitation of its previous spark. Everything up to the final confrontation of the first guy was enjoyable but everything turned into a generic prosecutor/team drama afterwards. No more of the bad prosecutor attitude and his appeal almost diminished, there was a small recovery around the end but it was already too late. Speaking of teams, the sidekicks were pretty bad at being a sidekick especially Baek Eun Ji, just horrible! The team in general lacked a good dynamic, the ML was pulling all the weight by himself. It could've been something decent if more care was put into it.

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Witching!

This turned out to be a lot of fun. Don't be so hung up on the details and the ridiculousness, after all it's a mix of black comedy and satire, and it did a good job in that regard. It showed a lot of interesting ideas but one thing irked me was its lack of commitment to some themes, sometimes it kept it tame and didn't go all the way through. Although the trio had a great dynamic but Chae Hee Soo always ended up being the third wheel in the relationship and in the allocated screen time which is unfortunate because there was a lot of room to get her more involved. Right at the very beginning the drama tell us that one of them will die but it was a bit obvious who. That small section involving the departure and grief at the end was a bit too brief, I wish the drama gave it more focus because it fit the theme just right. One more thing, it was a bit long and some elements got stale.

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It's safe to assume it's the worst drama themed around Webtoon

The whole drama felt like a short web series that was pushed too hard and stretched too thin to be molded into a 16-long-episodes chunk. There was a big tremendous missed opportunity to genuinely create something unique and special about exploring the Webtoon industry with all its intricacies and nuances but what we got was a bloated melodramatic superficial cheap one-dimensional cookie-cutter cut of a mix of poorly structured sappy stories themed around Webtoons. I though we might get something similar to Shirobako but it wasn't remotely close. The drama was grasping at straws to keep itself rolling. A few cases made some good valid points but the majority were bad and embarrassing to include. The drama gave the impression that every Webtoon creator in the industry is a problematic individual that needs constant tinder love and care to function as a human. This drama might be themed around Webtoons but I wouldn't label it as a drama about Webtoons. One thing in particular that became more problematic and annoying as the drama went on was the female lead, her revolting attitude and extreme overreaction with every single breath made her unbearable to even hear her voice. There was an attempt to give her backstory but that was handled with 2 poor scenes. On the other hand, the other main character Goo Joon Young had one singular facial expression that is a wide static smile. Even as a character his role was negligible. One question remained to be answered, why did they end the drama was a love confession?! Huh?

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Thomas the Time Engine

First impressions are important and this one didn't have a good one. The drama really needed a better introduction for what they had, the first episode was just plain bad and it didn't serve its purpose. While I appreciate the shorter runtime of 12 episodes that OCN usually offers with their thrillers but even in this case some scenes and episodes were redundant. It didn't help its case repeating that one specific flashback of the night when male lead met Seo Kyung and lost his father about 20-30 times throughout the drama. The story had its usual plot holes just like most thriller/mystery of its kind but at least there wasn't anything outrageous. One more thing, it felt like it was the type of show that would benefit greatly from a custom made good OST.

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Not About Eve

It didn't take more than half an episode to set your expectations for what about to come. The set up was very poorly done, it was extremely detached from reality and the characters molded themselves around that for the remainder of the drama which became seriously problematic later on and an impossible hurdle to overcome. The characters kept displaying bizarre behaviors at every corner that it made it difficult to connect with the narrative. They should've embraced the cliches and amplified them instead of tiptoeing around them awkwardly. The characters couldn't hold a single decent and coherent conversation or a piece of dialogue, it's just bad writing and an insult to the viewers! Yun Hyong Chul character felt extremely robotic and lacked real emotions beyond setting sadly while drinking & smoking. The drama treated him like a clown anyway. The pacing was dreadful as well, these 20 episodes felt much longer than a regular 20 episodes drama. Chae Rim did a lot of melos in the 2000s but I think this drama turned out to be the worst one of them.

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Greedy Youth

My first impression is that these 2 male leads weren't suitable to play this type of scenario in this "youthful" setting. It's hard to see them attempting romance even when they were in their 30s. Something doesn't click no matter what! Although the drama was long but it kept you entertained watching the car crash. The revenge was tame, it never went too far but that was the drama's intent to begin with. You can get the gist of that just from reading the synopsis. However, there were some cruel parts in the process which helped selling the injustice, better than a lot of modern ones who attempted similar approach. The dialogue was fairly good, usually we don't get extended dialogues that let the characters to actually talk even if it got a bit melo along the way. The opening theme was good but when I listened to the full version I wasn't a fan of the rest. The characters went through a reasonable development without neglecting the secondary ones which typically get neglected because of their wrong doings. It did such a good job showing the wrongful side being genuine in repenting. The drama wrapped things up better than I expected, it gave an actual proper conclusion to its leads. While the drama isn't perfect but it offered an appealing package.

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Not That Cold of a Winter

It wouldn't have been an old drama if they didn't give us the ending as an introduction at the very beginning. The even took it a step further to narrate to us that this is how it ended exactly. It kinda took away from the show when the ending is spelled out to you this blatantly. Anyway, this is a less than average love story between the trio leads without anything interesting going on. I had a few ideas at different points were the story could've taken a better direction but none of that happened. The male lead Son Chang Min didn't do a good job playing this shy and innocent kid at the beginning. It was too weird and awkward. They wanted to show a big contrast to his transition later on but they could've done it in better ways. On the other hand, Jung Sung Mo did pretty well for his character, I even think it's better than most of his modern roles. Anyway, the drama as a whole felt super limited and they didn't do much with what they had.

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A bad spinoff

I really liked their gradual introduction to the theme and the zombies but this kind of introduction felt too long and lasted for several episodes without any pieces moving in the story. It was a bit obvious this was done on purpose to delay progress for Season 2. Meanwhile, Season 2 took a step back and tried to develop its characters even though there was no room for that. Although Kingdom as a whole is relatively short but it needed a more precise cut to suit what we've been presented. Maybe cutting it down to 8 episodes in total would be ideal. The slow atmospheric shots with eerie background music were pleasant at first, but they quickly became overused to death and an abrupt change was needed but never happened.

The movie Ashin of the North was an unnecessary addition that felt empty, out of place and was missing something to make us care. In traditional Netflix fashion, always make sure to lay the groundwork for endless possible future seasons/iterations at the end of every turn. Despicable greed!

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Joseon of The Dead

I really liked their gradual introduction to the theme and the zombies but this kind of introduction felt too long and lasted for several episodes without any pieces moving in the story. It was a bit obvious this was done on purpose to delay progress for Season 2. Meanwhile, Season 2 took a step back and tried to develop its characters even though there was no room for that. Although Kingdom as a whole is relatively short but it needed a more precise cut to suit what we've been presented. Maybe cutting it down to 8 episodes in total would be ideal. The slow atmospheric shots with eerie background music were pleasant at first, but they quickly became overused to death and an abrupt change was needed but never happened. The movie Ashin of the North was an unnecessary addition that felt empty, out of place and was missing something to make us care. In traditional Netflix fashion, always make sure to lay the groundwork for endless possible future seasons/iterations at the end of every turn. Despicable greed!

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Joseon of The Dead

I really liked their gradual introduction to the theme and the zombies but this kind of introduction felt too long and lasted for several episodes without any pieces moving in the story. It was a bit obvious this was done on purpose to delay progress for Season 2. Meanwhile, Season 2 took a step back and tried to develop its characters even though there was no room for that. Although Kingdom as a whole is relatively short but it needed a more precise cut to suit what we've been presented. Maybe cutting it down to 8 episodes in total would be ideal. The slow atmospheric shots with eerie background music were pleasant at first, but they quickly became overused to death and an abrupt change was needed but never happened. The movie Ashin of the North was an unnecessary addition that felt empty, out of place and was missing something to make us care. In traditional Netflix fashion, always make sure to lay the groundwork for endless possible future seasons/iterations at the end of every turn. Despicable greed!

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Live Up to Your Shame

Things can get really muddy when talking about the science of acupuncture, although this is a fantasy but to try and push one narrative over the other this desperately is a tough sell in this scenario. I don't think the drama managed to navigate mixed medicine practices from a modern medicine point of view successfully. In fact, the entire thing was dropped very quickly a few episodes later without being brought up again. So why did they ever bother? The first 5 episodes were enjoyable without overbearing time-travel cliches. However, everything turned to worse with episode 6, that's where they introduced your typical mundane cheese of someone who traveled in time. At this exact point, there was a harsh shift in the story, everything slowed down, and a plethora of extreme suspension of disbelief elements in contrast to the world building they had established were thrown in. Although we got brief hints of the story at the beginning from her grandpa and that one prisoner but it felt like it won't address these points until the last few episodes and that turned out to be true. Although I enjoyed the first 5 episodes but the rest were just disappointing.

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The Lame Queen Seondeok

It would have been such a good show if they packaged it into 30 episodes. They had two subplots about Hwarang side quests that were a total waste of time, they paused the main story for them. While they might have served a small tiny purpose but the drama could've accomplished that without these easily. I read somewhere that the drama was extended from 50 to 62 episodes and I can't help but wonder if there was a direct correlation between extending the drama and introducing the character Kim Chun Chu at episode 36. Because both decisions were worse than one another. What made me more suspicious that this was the case was because it felt like someone has pushed the soft reset button on the story as a whole around episode 36 and everything took a big step backward. At this exact point I was about to mentally check out. Prior to episode 36, they had this Hwarang competition which was already the weakest checkpoint at this point so what came after only made things worse. Fast forward to the last chunk of episodes, all events post Lady Mi Shil involvement were clearly an unplanned afterthought which led to an underwhelming final climax. The is exactly at the extension gap between 50-62. Away from the poor pacing, the characters showed promise until they stopped. Guess what? It happened also after episode 36, the female lead who used to be a character full of characterization became a soulless blank of wood, boring, bland and dumb. There were many other examples of characters who went through the same downgraded transformation around the cursed episode 36.

The story had one major point of disconnect that the writer blatantly swept under the rug, it single-handedly broke the story apart. The female lead came from a hermit living in the woods into her position of power immediately without any regard to any other factors concerning anything. The only justification we were given is that she read books while growing up and was raised in the streets. Her parents had no role in the process despite being the king and queen, not even for emotional support. All I see is just poor storytelling. The background music mixing was trash. Every scene started with low-ish background music, got progressively louder and became unbearably loud and intense until the scene is cut. Repeat this 20 times every episode and endure the nausea. Around midway through I was thinking this is a good 7/10 drama despite the Hwarang nonsense but it turns out that this drama was the perfect example of a drama having a good 1st half and fumbling the 2nd half so hard. I wouldn't give it more than a pitiful 5.5/10.

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Ja Must Go

Well, I had a little higher than usual expectations from looking at the cast members but at least it didn't take too long to realize what it had in store for us. The drama kicked off to a bad start leaving an ominous bad impression. The first 1/3 of the drama was set in the past giving us a ridiculously boring and generic backstory of the leads, starting with their parents and moving on to their birth, early childhood, and teenage years. These kids turned out to be the worst part of the drama, totally unlikable – both the characters and the actors playing them. And it didn't get any better when we were introduced to their adult versions. The romance and love triangle were downright despicable, filled with self-pity, sappy motivations, and a bunch of whiny kids. A wild suggestion, why not take the drama from the beginning of episode 39 into a different direction? Extend it with another 20 episodes, remove the romance, have the FL be the empress of her nation, and conquer neighboring nations.

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The Crowned Clown Clone

I usually dislike Yeo Jin Goo in historical roles but this was one of his better ones so that's nice for a change. While the story may have been interesting at first but it didn't quite live up to its premise. The clone needed to have a better introduction and build up. The king was useless and had no role other than to kick-start the narrative. We only had brief interactions between the clone and the king. The drama would have been infinitely more interesting and enjoyable if it wrote the king as a prominent character and had a consistent dynamic with the clone. The last episode was awful in all regards, a significant downgrade compared to any of the previous episodes. No thought or care put into it at all. An outsider must have wrote the last episode alone, there's no other way! With all that being said, I found the drama to be a decent watch with a handful of interesting elements, if you were to temper your expectations you'd find something to like about it too.

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Salamander-Man

The idea of a gang pretending to be fortune-tellers to scam people sounded promising, but the show had a hard time keeping up a consistent comedic rhythm throughout. It tried to mix in this absurd humor and wacky scenarios, but most of the jokes felt like they were pushed and stretched too thin. They turned more stale the longer they kept going. While the characters may have been acceptable but they lacked in verity, more archetypes were needed to bring the comedy to life and create a more interesting dynamic. It could've been a bigger problem if the runtime was to be longer. Anyway, even though there were some moments that showed off creative thinking and quirky charm, it just couldn't keep that interesting premise going.

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