A drama not bad, but not good either.
This is the kind of drama you watch when you’re bored and undecided of what your next watch should be. The premise of the drama is quite interesting, but the lack of plot really doesn’t help. The characters are cute enough, the romance is adorable, there are a couple of annoying characters as well (I disliked ML’s cousin and the romance with the coach) but other than that there’s really isn’t anything to it. It’s mundane without any depth. The only good take away is the focus on their friendships.Was this review helpful to you?
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Both of the leads are great hard to miss when they star
This is a 2018 South Korean romantic comedy that has 32, 30 minute, episodes.Yoo Jung-eum (Hwang Jung-eum) was a diving athlete until events in her life caused her to give up the sport. Her friend hires her into her match making agency because Jung-eum was a much better athlete than she is a matchmaker. Kang Hoon-nam (Namkoong Min) seems to be everywhere Jung-dum is and they have a series of encounters. Hoon-nam ghost writes a relationship column and is so successful at helping people groom themselves to be a love interest that he turns his cousin into a player who causes havoc in Jung-eum’s company to the point that she is blamed for her client’s bad behavior and given one last chance to redeem herself by getting dates for a cadre of clients who are deemed undateable. Not having the skill to turn the folks around herself she seeks out the person ghost writing the advice articles that have proven successful. Jung-eum is surprised to siscover the relationship guru is none other than Hoon-nam a man who, based on their earlier not so positive encounters made her agree to never appear in front of him again. Can she convince him to help her? If he helps can they get dates for the Undateables and even find love themselves?
Spoiler 🚨 Jung-eum’s job as a dating consultant or matchmaker is very interesting. I like how sweet yet feisty she is. This is another one where I wish I could split the female lead in two because I liked the second guy a lot. I like all of their friends and the side stories are really cute too. It is funny that the lead guy is supposedly a dating expert yet he has such a hard time figuring out his own relationships.The leads acted this very well as you can see them as a couple and their personalities, in terms of their characters, were very complementary. There was just enough intrigue with a mysterious past that it made you want to discover the whole story. I was surprised I liked this as much as I did. It is very predictable and not very complex but so well acted and overall still entertaining that it is one I would highly recommend.
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Sweet
This is a sweet drama.I enjoyed it a lot until ... well, a little bit after the middle, after that it got very boring.
I wish they just dropped it after the main characters got together, because then I would have given it a 10 stars, but they dragged it out for to long after that.
However, I did enjoy the way how the ML was chasing the FL. It was satisfying and fun to watch.
I would recommend this drama, but only until the half way through.
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A drama where people deal with their relationship issues with maturity
I'm going to go out and say this right now, I like this drama more than the far more popular "What's Wrong With Secretary Kim" and "Her Private Life", for several reasons.1. Jung Eum as the female protagonist is pretty relatable. She's someone who's just trying to get by at her job; she's not super talented and not super smart. She's been burned by love before, but is willing to open herself up to it again.
2. Every time the main couple ran into an issue with their relationship, they didn't waste time with misunderstandings or lying to each other. Every time I was worried that they were going to follow that stupid trope, I was pleasantly surprised when it didn't happen.
3. The way they resolved the problem of the love rivalry between Joon Soo and Hoon Nam was also very mature. The two men worked it out like two grown adults, resolved their differences, and Joon Soo accepted Jung Eum's choice as well as Hoon Nam's sincerity.
4. The childhood connection backstory wasn't nearly as dramatic as with WWWSK or HPL, nor was it resolved so haphazardly or so corny. One of my major complaints with the aforementioned dramas is the way they chose to resolve those backstory plots. No complaints from me about The Undateables. It was significant, but not overdone, they didn't make a huge deal over their childhood connection.
5. The second female lead was neither super clingy nor a bitch towards the female lead. Both women both made their intentions and feelings clear to each other without being super melodramatic or mean.
6. The Undateables has kept my interest even past episode 12, which is the same point where both WWWSK and HPL both lost their interest for me. I liked each mini-story of the "Undateable" couples, they were very sweet and funny. Maybe it's because I'm single and want meet someone who fits me, but I was really invested in those stories.
I think the main reason why this drama clicked with me where "What's Wrong With Secretary Kim" and "Her Private Life" didn't is because even the characters who are kind of despicable (Hoon Nam's father and cousin) are also somewhat likeable. They feel like real, flawed people. I never got that sense of realism and relatability from WWWSK or HPL, they were almost like watching self-insertion fanfiction.
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Plot, the plot is where this drama went wrong.
It was a nice and light romance and I really like watching Hoon Nam (Namgoong Min) fall desperately in love with Jang Eum (Hwang Jung Eum). But that was about it unfortunately. I only watched it to the end because of these great leads, I just wish the plot had had more oomph. It seemed to jump all over the place and pick up different plot lines and discard others with no ending (like with Jang Eum's friend Choi Joon-Soo).The ending of the series felt really abrupt and cut short as well.
I probably will not watch this drama again, I'm just still disappointed in the lacklustre plot, just a few tweaks and it could have been amazing. However, if you do like Namgoong Min, I definitely recommend watching this drama just don't expect too much plot wise.
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Unnecessarily draggy
I felt that this show dragged on needlessly. I don't think it's a rule that a certain number of episodes are required, so why not get a good editor and cut all the unnecessary stuff out? Just sayin'. I also found myself rooting for the second male lead, rather than the lead. He was a lovely person, and always wanted what was best for her. The male lead was a little too one-dimensional for me. So many side stories I was having difficulties keeping up with the names, that all sound alike. It was a pretty good show to watch, but I don't feel the need to watch it again, which, to me, is a sign of a show worthy of a 9-10.Was this review helpful to you?
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Friendship & Love
First part so-so, from the 14th episode it became more interesting.However, the plot isn't exactly the best. What did I like about this series? When the main woman lead breaks up with her boyfriend and manages to make him feel some of the suffering she felt. I also liked Namkoong Min's acting, at the beginning of the 25th episode when he prepares the speech for his father-in-law, it's an amazing moment. I follow this actor because he is a great performer.
Some tears around the 22nd episode.
No word for the cousin and his relationships with women, especially with the poor coach. He too, after being left, became a better man and made amends.
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Good, interesting premise
Things I liked:1 Both leads were great. The actress is one of my favorites and the actor although this is the first series I watch with him was great.
2 I liked the relationship of the heroine with her father.
3 I liked the premise, it was fun and intriguing.
4 Some funny scenes.
Things I disliked:
1 Not enough romantic scenes for me.
2 I don't like romantic triangles and this one was painful for me since I like the actor.
3 I didn't care about the second couple. I didn't think they were interesting characters.
4 The premise was great but I think the execution could be better. The script wasn't up to par with the idea.
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What a cute drama!
I watched because of the handsome guy Nam Koong Min. Started from 12 Years Promise, The Girl Who Can see Smells, Beautiful Gong Shim and now Undateable. All because of him. He is absolutely gorgeous.Personally, I think this drama is simple, but it has a lot of mixed feelings. And it is a meaningful also. This drama really makes me laugh a lot. It's just I don't really like the ending. Why Choi Tae Koon don't have love partner in this story?
Nice storyline, nice acting. I can see Nam Koong Min has improve when he play the role as a romantic guy compare when he was in 12 Years Promise.
Nam Koong Min has a new fans now and that was me. I really want to see him again in rom-com drama. Oppa! I'll be waiting!
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NO.
This show is one of the biggest disappointments I have ever watched in my entire life.I'm not even sure how you mess up a concept this easy to make entertaining? But somehow the writer and director managed to do that. The beginning of the show had so much potential and they squandered all of it for absolutely no discernible reason whatsoever.
Despite the bad reviews I decided to go in mostly blind, and I found myself actually enjoying the beginning of the show. I thought it was going to be simple, the two leads work in close proximity to help the FL in her job while the ML gets something he needs from the FL in exchange for helping her. Over time they become closer, they learn more about how their lives intersected and eventually they will fall in love.
Every 2 episodes should be about working on a new task while the leads slowly get closer and work on themselves as well. They both have trauma and issues that are introduced but tells me why nothing seemed to have been worked on the entire show? The writers are in such a hurry to have these two make out that they forgot how to write a STORY. At the time those two people had barely even known anything about each other and you're already having them kiss?
I had to drop it after their second? kiss. I could not physically continue watching. Sometimes you just have to choose happiness before the frustration kills you.
Don't talk to me about these boring a** annoying side characters.
Terrible. I hate it. I might never give a low rated drama a chance again…
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The story started out with a really great premise. A woman with a romantic personality but "hot mess" in her career/personal life has to team up with a control freak
and relationship phobic "love expert" to help a group of unique people trying to find the one. From go it feels like a fun, light, sweet drama with great potential for hilarity and romance. Unfortunately, the main premise, that is the most satisfying part of the story, gets buried under loads of melodramatic manure of sub plots. Politics were unnecessary, complicated sub plots of secondary characters with way to much back story was also a complete waste of momentum. It would have been much better to have used the zero match characters to help advance the main story instead. The over use of unnecessarily complex backstories also killed much of the momentum of the main story and made the "fate" part of the romance seem uncomfortably contrived. As a whole the main story would have been better had it been the focus of the drama with scenarios created by interaction with the zero match members as catalyst to naturally advance the main relationship. I say it time and again but the truth is less in stories like these is always more! it's great to have well developed character backgrounds but if you have to explain it instead of letting it be discovered naturally throughout the story it's probably too much! Or in the least it is not relevant enough to do more than cause your story to drag.
I also want to mention that the love triangle/square in this story was boring and overly cliched to me. The second male lead never felt like a believable peer to the lead couple in my opinion and was even presented many times as if he was their senior. Maybe it was his style or demeanor but I never really felt like he fit the bill as a believable rival. He really didn't lack for anything and his (I'm guessing) awkward/nerdy backstory was pretty shallow to make him so relationship reclusive. Other than being around as an orchestrated rival to the male lead it was very forced and nonsensical. The same with the surfer girl, other than a poorly constructed plot device these characters felt like the writers were trying to unnecessarily cram a square peg into a round hole. It over complicated things, was actually a drag to the story slowing momentum, causing friction that until the end was never completely satisfied .
The lead actors are fantastic even though the show as a whole leaves much to be desired. Sadly, much of the secondary cast are also great but because of the way the story progresses everything secondary seems to become disjointed from the main story and boring. I have to wonder when things go askew like this if the actors themselves lose insight or motivation? I defiantly feel, aside from a few emotional moments, the series concluded with many generic/lackluster performances in the secondary stories. I suppose in the end it wouldn't mater much because I suspect many of those scenes will be overlooked anyway with the help of many viewers skip buttons on the remote. Even to the end the conclusions are rushed or unsatisfying open-ended for the time invested if you actually see it all the way through.
The soundtrack wasn't anything particularly exciting. Overall comparatively generic next to other contemporary romantic comedies.
The rewatch value for me is pretty low, at least not without the aid of my fast forward button. I hate getting to the end of a drama that has some really great fluffy, squeetastic moments and feel like it would be a hassle to revisit them. I really can only hope that this doesn't deter the leads from doing another, better quality drama in the near future.
Overall I didn't hate this drama but I will be vocal about my utter disappointment of lost potential. I couldn't rate any lower because it was a decent quality production, and overall no better or worse than most generic rom-coms. Yet let me be petty to writers/directors for a moment and say please, please consider investing in solid concepts in the future instead of this "everything but the kitchen sink" cliche mentality that is becoming more ridiculously overused. I can understand generic and overused story tropes being so inclined yet hilariously satisfying, but to have interesting and fresh prospective/potential constantly tossed to the way side in underdevelopment for cringy gimmicks is wastefully nonsensical. It doesn't cost more to develop a good idea and execute it consistently. Even the ridiculous amount of drama ads can be inclusive of this with some creativity. As a regular rom-com fan you might like this drama with the help of the lead chemistry to kill time between other dramas but its completely fair to say there is nothing special about this drama. It's sad but we can only hope Nam Goong Min and Hwang Jung Eum don't make us wait to long until their next drama together to fill the void of disappointment!
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I started binge watching it so excitedly because I love the idea of fate and matchmaking.
I also fell in love with the lead actor (which is the first time I've seen him)
So overall I was enjoying it very much.. But unfortunately, it became into chaos..
They dropped the main idea of the drama and suddenly the leads fell in love with each other.. Not enough buildup whatsoever.
After that the drama became meh and the main leads story wasn't interesting anymore, I actually found the side characters were far more interesting.
I kept going because I wanted to see the end to the main idea, the matchmaking (the undateables) and the closure for their friends that's all.
The story really had so much to give but the writers just gave up. It started as a 7 but ended as a 5.. I gave it a 6.5 because I liked the idea.
The acting was good. Although I couldn't help but feel that the main lead actor didn't get much time as other characters.. It's the first time I saw something like this in kdaramas. I wish he had more depth and lines.
The osts were good but nothing worth remembering.
I wouldn't watch the whole drama again for sure. But I might watch the early episodes and some clips of it after a long time.
So overall only watch this if you don't care about the story and just want to watch the romantic comedy scenes :)
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