Dear.M (2022)

Really Enjoyable but Also Trope-y with a Side of Flaws

If I rated this purely on my emotional enjoyment, I would give it a 10 out of 10: this is a fun college drama chock full of romantic feelings and character-made drama. Its premise reminded me of a toned-down version of Gossip Girl: all the characters are initially connected by a mysterious blogger who falls in love at first sight and makes them all re-evaluate their own crushes, loves, and relationships as they speculate as to the identify of this person. I had known nothing about the parent story for which this show is based on, Love Playlist, but had been drawn to early descriptions of this drama and the trailer that eventually came out.

That said, when I take emotion out of it, I find story and characters that are a bit limited by traditional romance story tropes that are unashamedly invoked: you have CLEAR "nice guys/good girls" and CLEAR "a-hole [male] players/manipulative [female] witches." Their backstories can get a little cliche too with clearly-sympathetic tragedies and traditional parental issues/ambitions to succeed. I would argue that seasoned romance series/Kdrama watchers will be able to completely predict almost all, if not all of the story progression, from beginning to end, just within the first few episodes. Is this necessarily a bad thing? No, I don't think so - enjoyable is enjoyable. However, I think if you are considering watching this, you should know exactly what it is and what it is not: it's a simple, cute story about college kids' falling in love and having challenges with their relationships while going through college. It's not a grandiose, unique story with fantastical mind-bending twists or deep meaning.

There are some clear continuity errors and contrived plot points in the story - they aren't horrendous, but they are very noticeable. For a non-spoiler example, at one point a character loses their phone. By the next episode, they mysteriously have recovered it/might have bought a new one - how exactly did they get this back/buy a new one and input all their old, same contacts in? As for the contrived plot points, I don't want to spoil anything for you, so I will vaguely say that sometimes, things that happen or motivations that the characters have are way too "on the nose" and I personally would have preferred that the show be a little more subtle about it.

The acting is sufficient for a Kdrama, but notably decreased a notch from other big budget performances: for example, I found some of the crying scenes so forced and unbelievable that those momentarily took me out of the drama. However, if you put those weaknesses aside, I think you find a cast that is very believable and does a good job: this is apparently Jeong Jae Hyun's acting debut, and I honestly never would have known that if I didn't read it in an article. I wasn't a Park Hye Soo fan to begin with, but her performance will make me check out some of other works, as I loved the sincerity with which she played Ma Joo Ah. For other characters, many will recognize Roh Jeong Eui from her prior performance as NJ in Our Beloved Summer and I think you will find her performance refreshing as she definitely sells her performance as a different type of person. I also found Lee Jin Hyuk particularly hilarious as the clearly-comic-relief character who gets crapped on just for our benefit, and particularly enjoyed the straight-forward, independent person played by Woo Da Vi. Hwang Bo Reum Byeol and Lee Jung Sic round out the rest of the notables by playing appropriately hateable characters. Overall, I really enjoyed the ensemble cast.

As of writing, the OST seems to be unreleased/still coming out, but I think they did a good job. Park Hye Soo originally wanted to be a singer (she is from Kpop star) and Jeong Jae Hyun is part of NCT, so they naturally do an excellent job with the song covers featured in this Kdrama. I don't think there are any bangers that will be sung for the ages, but don't let you stop enjoying the songs that do exist.

Overall, I think this is a light, easy watch to pick up. You won't find anything groundbreaking, but don't let that stop you from giving this a try - I can't say it's an absolute work of art, but I think if lighthearted romances are your cup of tea, you'll enjoy this.

Read More

A College (MF) Romance Series that Misses the Mark

The English language websites all state that Dear.M (2022) is about an ensemble cast of college students looking for an anonymous social media user called Dear.M but that couldn’t be further from the truth; the series was just a slice of life college romance.

Dear.M (2022) is a spin off to the Love Playlist (2017 - 2019) anthology which is about young adults navigating romantic love, friendship and other relatable problems. The only returning cast member from Love Playlist’s 2019 run was Bae Hyun-sung as Park Ha-neul; who's on screen partner, Kim Sae-ron was replaced by Roh Jeong-eui as Seo Ji-min. This series delves into the problems they face after becoming a couple.

NCT’s Jaehyun stars as Cha Min-ho, an intelligent Computer Science major/scholarship student navigating issues in the apps he created and the changing friendship he has with Park Hye-su’s Ma Joo-ah, a cheerful girl who has never fallen in love and had a dream. Yet.

Lee Jin-hyuk plays Gil Mok-jin and Woo Da-vi stars Hwangbo Young, an unconventional opposites attract couple.

Friends to lovers is my favourite trope and this series 👏🏽 did 👏🏽 not 👏🏽 disappoint! 👏🏽 NCT’s Jaehyun and Park Hye-su’s chemistry was so natural and the latter’s acting is impressive despite this being his debut acting role!

However, what prevented my rating from being higher is much more than the series’ strengths. Namely, a lack of a cohesive theme tying all the characters and their emotional arcs together, the writers’ abstention of writing emotionally resonant scenes, etc. It makes scenes that require dramatic acting or emotional impact… awkward to watch? Min-ho and Joo-ah’s flashback scenes had SO MUCH potential to actually become emotionally resonant but always get cut short just to transition to Ro-sa’s schemes.

Speaking of Ro-sa, dedicating so much screen time to the antics of a 1-dimensional jealous, and conniving “villainess” to Ha-neul and Ji-min’s relationship instead of developing underwritten female characters, female friendships, and character writing is irresponsible and echoes the mismanagement in the writers’ room.

Hence, it resulted in a 12 episode TV marathon that had me press the “skip” button way too many times; but Min-ho/Joo-ah’ scenes, the series OST: Maple Latte, Look At Me, and Something’s Wrong did alleviate the series’ flaws.

We need more college stories and while Dear.M (2022) may not be a classic, it is one step closer to the right direction.

P.S. The representation of a diabetic character was natural and I appreciated how respectful and thoughtful Hwangbo Young’s friends were to her!

P.P.S about my rating:

1.) The acting getting a score of 6 is a good rating alr. It just didn't stand out or blow me away.

2.) I couldn't give a higher rating to the music because the volume of the songs were really low. I did get LSS from the aforementioned songs!

3.) I rarely rewatch TV series and that has nothing to do with the quality (despite not really liking this one that much.) My overall rating of the series is my final rating of it!

Read More