Something in My Room (2022)

These other reviews gave me too much hope

The reviews I read about this show gave me some hope of good story with endearing characters, but what I got was a terrible story and lukewarm characters
honestly I wouldn't even recommend watching this for the experience, you'll be left disappointed and not even sad just wondering why everyone (besides the actors I think) gave up on everything they set up for the story

NO FILLTERED SPOILERS
I wanna start off by saying this about the two main couples
1. Phob and Phat; Though the interactions between these two was really cute I just didn't see where it was coming from, it just suddenly happened and I was not happy about it. Also the fact that they slept with each other weirded me the f out 'cause...what- WHAT? WHY??? I don't care if he has more of his memories an thus is more corporeal now, that's a dead, the visual of it is weird because the writers want to treat Phob like he's alive (like clothes off and sweat) but he's NOT, I wish that if them sleeping together had to happen it was more...ghostly (I know it sounds weird)

2. Dream and Lak; I'm gonna be honest with you I didn't even get the vibe that they were dating (maybe it was the translation but of well), so when she said they were breaking up all I could think about was her super comfortable interactions with Phat and the none existent one with her actual boyfriend and wondering if the writers don't know how how straight romance is supposed to look like. their chemistry was nonexistent and it was so sad how the writers thought they could make me care about them at all. 'cause I didn't

now the story
There were moments in this story where I thought it was like cooking water on a stove to make some tea; I thought it was gonna get to a boil, I just I had just give it a bit more time, but it never did, so it went from normal temperature to lukewarm to completely cold while the fire was still on
I don't care that by the end it seems like it was an open ending to maybe a potential second season, what I got from this sucked because it just felt rushed and most of the story lines were dropped, like literally, I'm just supposed to assume that episode 9 where Lak was talking about the light taking other people was to be connected to the the potential second season but that's just some bull the story didn't make me care enough about when it was first mentioned

but my biggest gripe was with the story and character of Nuan
you mean to tell me that Nuan, the landlady, Khins (Phob's dad) stalker, the weirdo who installed cameras inside the the house she was renting to spy on her tenants(also I believe she was spying on Phobs family when they lived there), the freak who also came into said house in the middle of the night just to sit on the sofa of the person she was stalking, and who also was able to see the person she was stalking's dead son not being able to pass over but did nothing about it, get's to face no consequences and live on as if she isn't a dangerous mentally ill person? why was I even hoping for something there

I know I'm sounding overly critical of this show, but believe me, I did like some of the things they set up
I like the fact that Nuan had a broken relationship with her father and in the end she was able to mend it in some way before sending him off to pass on
I liked Da (Phobs mother) complicated feelings towards her child because by having him she couldn't pursue her dreams
I liked how Phat submitted Phobs design to the NOVA competition (how that would have concluded if he won would have been funny)
The series had very complicated storylines planned out but none of them had a proper conclusion, and for it to simply be left to a second season isn't how I feel things should be left to, because I feel like none of the storylines had any conclusion, or not the conclusion it deserved

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interesting and enjoyable

7/7.5

watch the uncut version. do that. if you dont it will suck 4 u. the show is LONG which honestly i love since i think it's utilized well and if shows are 1h+, written well, and pseudo slice of life then ALLOW IT.

summary: it's a ghost boy story. ghost boy (phob) has 2 find out why he died and real boy (phat) helps him. love ensues.

i feel like there's a certain type that likes these shows...i am uncultured and an adult baby so i don't. most times this specific trope—in literally ever country because, you know, death—end with open-endings regarding the life/love OR they part ways forever (in life) often coming together way later (aka in death/afterlife) so. the latter happened. wouldn't it just be better to find someone with a heartbeat? (dont even get me started on sex physics here). for these reasons, i avoided it but that was a MISTAKE! my friend told me to watch so i bit the bullet.

it isn't exactly central to the plot, how he dies, but what it means on an emotional, psychical, intra/interpersonal, and even physical, level. they keep up with these aspects, throwing in some (not overbearing) social commentary and plenty of philosophical notions and artsy bullshit to keep me interested. personally, i think phob is the main character since we see him first and follow him the whole time and see through his eyes. for me the romance was incorporated but not the main thing—which makes sense due to the writer's life experience—which i appreciatee. i'll talk about romance specifically the least.

themes: loneliness, depression, trauma, parental loss/abandonment/abuse, friendship, love, death, GRIEF. the concept of life itself. the remnants of grief are all around; the true haunting aspect. traces of people that won't go away no matter how we wish it would or wouldn't. the elements of surveillance in the show are ominous but also highlight that theme—someone could be watching, something could be in your room, something lingers. a house has a sort of heartbeat but it also may not have been your home.

the acting was okay. nut is way better than whatever that was in that other show that was bad. oxygen something idk. i really love took's face lol. all the veteran actors did a good job and the young ones have ways to go but they could be worse. for the most part it wasn't distracting so i don't have much to say but 'ok'. Faii is the weakest but it's ok gorl take lessons with them. Shout out to that Green kid (Ben); had no fuckin' clue who he was but i recognized that face. Imagine my surprise when the episodes he features he tore that shit up. i am 5y older than him wow i feel old. anyway that was a great surprise and elevated the scenes—a true thespian.

my main complaint for the show isn't in production or poorly thrown together content but this consistent trope in tv shows...parental forgiveness. it's something we do all over; we don't want to admit that our caretakers can be absolute garbage, fucking failures. we get uncomfortable asserting that some do not deserve our peace, respect, time, you yourself. i get that a lot of cultures find that bond impenetrable and a fucking SIN to break but it would be interesting if the truth was told. sometimes you do not get to be forgiven perhaps especially in, their death. comparatively, phat and his mom's rship had some issues that were well addressed. they were very close because of parental (father) abandonment—which his best friend (Dream) went through (in a much more traumatic way)—and it created a sort of dependency and potential for emotional incest. however, they're able to separate themselves/their identities. i appreciated showing this and the dichotomy between the different types of child/parent rships. and, to be fair, iirc Dream never forgives her father but i think she comes to an understanding with him but that's a much different situation.

lak (actor is also my type) and dream's storylines were sad and their relationship was a bit murky/unclear and lak was a bitch for most of the series but like...it makes sense. i didn't realize his loss of his parents, who were college professors, was an allegory for people being disappeared until my friend told me and that hit hard. radical workers, intellectuals, etc are actively persecuted for wanting a better world. it was really well done to tie it to his alien obsession and being captured right on your own soil. one because cencorship and two because metaphor. this (disappearing) happens everywhere and the places where we are have some bloody history. a place where people have been tortured by the state, for having radical ideas, could be right next door.

re romance: they had good chemistry and it was nice to watch their bond grow but it's sloooow and if you're expecting it to be exclusively about a) /their/ specific rhsip and b) their love every ep then...sorry lol. they both had a life b4 each other and they tell us about it. i was kind of surprised how slow it was but i ended up loving it so i was like whatever cool. in the end, Phat and Phob have to part ways—obviously—and Phat is with a woman after, but his heart yearned for his ghost mans and he also loses his mom later. it's sad but (imo) it doesn't mean, as others may think which is ok and understandable, that his need/desire to live on, find love, and connect, create a life is for naught just because he yearned or lost.

love is not the only thing in the world. his mom was worried for precisely that reason: allowing yourself to be swallowed, consumed, eclipsed in love and merge completely with them. something she and her son had to actively get tangled out of. you'll give up your life just because someone you love has left, or is gone, and won't come back? how is that truly living? the point is that life goes on; some shit doesn't work out but you can be happy here, you will be okay. and that death is never the actual end. in psychoanalytic terms that i probably am misinterpreting, death is eternal, the everlasting drive because we matter materially.

i know the writer is a man and this is a personal story which is really cool. it has all he things i wish a lot of these shows would have and i appreciate that this level of care and thought comes from him, his specific perspective, but also as a man himself. it could have gone in every opposite which way but it was thoughtful and imaginative; interesting and actually artistic. it's all so contradictory, placing no constraints on the ability of the characters to be full fledged human beings with a range of experiences, goals, desires, needs that change along with the journey of life. it feels very personal but universal, a la moonlight (i am not comparing but if you know u know).

i lost someone extremely close to me about 6 months before watching this so i think, had i not experienced that and the absolute mess and confusion that grief is, i may not have been as affected or interested. it is clear this man knows what grief is on a personal level because the show doens't allow you to sweep it under the rug, like the characters try so hard to do. like i'm sure he has, like i have. it is so much easier to run even if it kills you. anyway, this is more realistic than like 80% of these shows and it's not even possible...wild.

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kinda frustrated me

I was really lost at some point. I'm still watching episode 5 but I just want to write this review. I feel like I missed something and I'm pretty lost right now. but so far from what I have seen it isn't that bad the only thing that really ruins it for me is the fact that I don't know what is happening. Im so frustratef and I need to do some research I think because I really don't know what is happening in this series so far. it kinda scared me at a point and it was 3:00am when I started watching it and I opened the lights in fear because of the jump scares. it's funny and cute sometimes as well but if I wasn't this post I would have rated it better.

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Deserves more recognition..

..although I understand that part of that is due to the fact this series is pretty hard to find, at least on official websites. Even the ones on youTube are a cut version that is missing a lot of key parts. When each episode should be just over an hour and the cut version is 45-48min each, that's quite a bit left out.

And the thing with this series is that every moment has purpose. There was no unnecessary filler or drawn out drama.. the story moved along and anything you see is crucial in understanding what is going on. It made for a slow burn as far as the romance was concerned but I didn't mind it in this case since the story was intriguing and engaging enough on its own. And, really, it made the moment they finally got together that much sweeter in my opinion.

I also liked how there was really no villain in this story. Everyone has their pros and cons and most have made mistakes that they regret. I was actually really happy that they showed the consequences of bringing your child up with certain beliefs in the character of Nuan. Her parents put pressure on her to marry and carry on the family name and, while they passed away thinking it wasn't as important anymore, Nuan was stuck with that mindset because they never told her otherwise. The series also showed how keeping secrets, thinking it's less cruel than knowing the truth, can lead to further misunderstandings and overthinking. It was a bit extreme in this case, with Phob essentially committing suicide because everything was going wrong from what he saw, but still it is a very poignant message that communication is important, even if the truth isn't pretty.

I found the acting hit and miss throughout the series though the two mains (Nut and Plan) did a great job in my opinion. A series like this that has some light-hearted funny moments woven into the more serious nature can sometimes be hard to pull off and seem disjointed but I thought they did a great job with it here. Part of that is the writing which flowed nicely and carried out well by the actors.

One sequence that really stood out to me is when Ben's play is going on and it switches from what's being shown on stage to the actual memory of what really happened. I thought the visuals and use of the stage lighting worked well in communicating which was the play and which was the memory. Especially with the fact that you have Nut playing Phob who is supposedly being portrayed by Win in the play but as Phob is watching from the audience, he sees himself in the character on stage. I know it sounds confusing but trust me, it worked.

This is one of those series that I feel bad for seeing as it doesn't have the same kind of reach as other ones but it definitely deserves a watch. I think it even has re-watch value in the sense that once you know what's going to happen, you can go back and look for hints and foreshadowing.

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Exciting Start, Long Solutions and Examination of Fantastic Elements

It actually started well. The light mystery and horror theme and the fact that it didn't get cute too quickly was good. However, I still couldn't avoid getting bored. The solution of the mysteries was slow and long. There were some nonsense (ex-lover, weird real estate agent and alien boy) I can't say much about this nonsense because I mostly fast-forwarded.
The chemistry of the couple was good, I expected more kissing and physical intimacy. I didn't understand why we watched their first kiss from a distance.
I understand that the ghost thing is difficult, but it is also a subject where many different things can be tried in a fantastic way. I don't understand why ghost stories are always the same things.

The clichés of ghost love dramas:
The ghost is attractive and has amnesia.
Together with the human person, they search for the ghost's past.
They always find a painful past.

For example, I think the dream thing was a good topic and could have been used much more efficiently.

I feel like writing a short ghost story.

▪ The handsome ghost of the house falls in love with the cute boy of the house and enters his dreams, where they flirt.
▪ The cute boy falls in love with the ghost. (The ghost is already in love with him.)
▪ The cute boy wants to see the ghost and ventures into the dark waters of the mystical world.
▪ Of course, there is a price for this. He opens his third eye and sees other things along with the ghost.
▪ The ghost wants to materialize and makes a deal with a shaman.
▪ As he destroys spirits that should not exist in the world, he obtains an item that allows him to materialize for a certain period.
▪ Luckily, the cute boy can now see all spiritual beings and is a human.
▪ The ghost and the human, in order to be together (and, of course, to make love), embark on a hunt in the dark world.
▪ Normally, there are many ghosts doing this job, but none do it with a human, and our ghost quickly becomes famous.
...
These are the things that come to my mind for now.

I think they shouldn't hesitate to add fantasy elements. Adding fantasy elements doesn't necessarily mean using special effects.

Other than that, it's not very memorable for me, but it's better than most ghost stories. The female character, Dream, was good. It was well developed. I liked her.

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Everything was decent...EXCEPT the romance

It’s funny because the only reason I tried to watch this was for the romance premise. But the romance was the only part that truly sucked. The plot is interesting and the writing and acting are decent.

But the “romance” has very little to do with the characters falling in love. It’s nothing more than a series of cliche moments of physical proximity that are drawn out like queer bait thumbnails.

You don’t have the push and pull of conflict or the characters coming to terms with feelings. Even though the acting is okay, I just don’t feel any chemistry between the leads. There’s no urgency. It falls flat and they just don’t convince me that their characters have feelings for each other. So I guess that part of the acting is bad.

I may have gone a couple months in between episode 3 and episode 4. But I watched episodes 4, 5, and 6 all in a row and all of the above became clear.

Honestly the show was a little better before the romance aspect was introduced.

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Just Brilliant

If you can ignore all the unfinished questions you have or things that started but never went anywhere, this is the best acting series I have watched so far.

The story had you glued to the screen, you just wanted to know what happened next and how they can stay together. Ending was well done. OMG how great to watch a series that didnt have cheating, sagas or nobody spoke to each other. Thank you.

The acting from everyone was superb. A huge shout out to Nut (Phob), his facial expressions alone had you watching (if I was younger, I would marry him, arhhhh), his acting was on point, Plan (Phat) was cute and played his character so good, you immediately fell in love with these two and rooted for them to be together. I cannot express enough the way they made there characters come to life and fall in love was fantastic, they laughed, touched easily, kissed easily, cried easily, TALKED everything out, fantastic.

Phat’s mother Chris brilliant, Dream was gorgeous and you wish her a HEA, Lak was strange but you liked him, Ben, wasnt to sure if he was good or bad but played his part well, Nuan complete b$&#h but acting was great, Chao sweet old man, Phob’s dad felt sorry for him.

Glad I paid for the whole series, it was so very good and I dont watch many shows a second time but would watch this, especially to see Phob’s expressions and the natural way this shows flows and how they make it feel like it is real. BRILLIANT

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Confusing, unsettling, not romantic... meh

I had little expectations, to begin with but when I watched the first few episodes I was actually pleasantly surprised... and then it went nowhere. The acting is pretty good overall, each character seems central and feels pretty realistic. Phat is the cutest character and so is Luck, they should've made them a pairing instead. Phob is okay, he is funny but really unstable which is understandable because his intense emotions before death are being uncovered slowly. Dream is by far the most interesting character. A good friend that you can rely on with the most interesting family history. Phat's mother is okay, she is a little inconsiderate towards her son but she is not aware of the supernatural happenings so it is understandable. The landlord lady Nuan is the weirdest most unsettling character I have seen probably in any BL. Her acting deserves praise but since I am not a fan of thrillers I did not enjoy her character lol.

The problem I have with this drama is that it is a thriller and it is full of suspense, but it doesn't really go anywhere. Take for example Manner of Death or Not Me. These are also BL with a story that keeps you guessing, but it actually feels like there is progress in the story and the ending feels clear and well realized. In this one, not only is the BL aspect kept to a minimum, It also feels more superficial and like the couple has a weak bond. This is one of the worst things a BL can do in my opinion. I can excuse shitty scenarios if the main couple has chemistry and you can feel the love. For me, this was just a half-baked supernatural story with a BL couple added into it. I wouldn't recommend this BL to many people. Only if you love suspense and supernatural things I would recommend it. The drama is too long and is not a BL in my opinion. If the supernatural theme felt better executed I would rate it higher but as it stands, it's a no for me.

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Worth every second

Very rarely have I a seen a drama that pulls the water works out. Every story within the main story was brought to an expected end. None were rushed or left open ended. Which I loved.

Nut and Plan brought out their best work without relying on nc scenes to make their story believable and complete. Phob and Phat's timely meeting set the tone and pace of the series. Every nuanced expression and emotion was felt. The ending was expected because a love like that just isn't forgotten.

The imagery, costuming and ghostly effects were great without going over the top. The three main shooting locations did become tedious to see but budgets to consider was acceptable. Only peeve, Phat's mother seemed invisible until needed. It seemed days would pass without seeing each other.

I would recommend watching over a period of days to truly enjoy the story and everyone's performance. In a era where fast food is easily accessible this was like a nice meal.

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To tell you honestly, after reading the synopsis, this was like the LAST thing I wanted to watch (especially after just finishing 'He's Coming to Me': nice, but STILL please spare me this genre the next time:) but reading the reviews, that was another story. So, I DID obtain myself best copy of this, ironically not the one available directly on Channel 3/Ch3 Plus youtube (the both links listed here on MDL under "Where to Watch"). Turns out, someone on Channel 3 was too smart for their own good. You need to sign up for Channel 3 Premium to see each actual episode in full, else you won't see the best it has to offer, which might significantly influence your review. Without this, you might not be even AWARE you haven't seen the real, uncrippled product. While I do understand the channel would like to revenue some profit from the online audience, this might not be the smartest way to do it, LOL.

First I was bored, REALLY not into ghost stories. If not anticipating the BL appreciated by the reviews, this series would not live to show me its 20th minute, lol. I didn't like either of the guys, I found them similarly "attractive" to those in 'Lovely Writer' which briefly plays on one of the character's laptop. Episode 1 was a pain for me and if not for the positive reviews, it would be my last. Thanks to those, I decided to drop this after episode 2, instead. As much as I am a sucker for a nice kiss scenes, I won't watch a whole series for it anymore. It didn't save 'Lovely Writer', so it definitely won't save something GHOST RELATED.

Dropped after episode 2... Main reason: Lack of interest.

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