My Safe Zone

There Is A Plot!

I've seen a lot of criticism of My Safe Zone's plot; mainly, viewers saying that there isn't one, which I disagree with. If you're paying attention, the series tells us precisely what it is. Jane is Alin's safe zone, and the series is constructed around that single fact.

What I do agree with is that things moved too quickly. Jane and Alin were put into so many scenarios that we barely had time to recover from the last mishap in their relationship. This threw the series's pacing off. My Safe Zone could have benefited from either more episodes or fewer plot points to keep the story grounded and give the more significant points more time to be explored.

The true gem of My Safe Zone is the chemistry between Lena and Miu; no one can top what they gave us in My Safe Zone. And I'm not referring to the intimate scenes or their great acting performances. They have a give-and-take that I'm sure stems from their longtime friendship, which really gives life and sincerity to Jane and Alin's relationship. I really want to give props to the director for not stifling natural chemistry.

I'm looking forward to their next series, where hopefully they are given a great script with roles that suit them and their abilities.

Read More

Cozy and visually stunning

THE GOOD:
- Everything is gorgeous. The sets and cinematography are going all out to create beautiful, magical, cozy, warm experiences
- The plot is cozy. There are conflicts, but they don't drag on and they always feel warranted and realistic. Some angst but nothing terrible.
- The character motivations make sense. This shouldn't even be praise; but after a lot of shows lately, it stood out that this show actually provides plausible character motivations for each character action. Each thing leads to the next.
- Good chemistry, nothing feels awkward or forced. (Except when its supposed to)
- Hilarious side characters. I always love side characters, and the coworkers in this really delivered

THE MEDIUM:
- The theme song is not very good, and is also overused, but also the sound engineers did a good job of how it was used? And also adding diversity by using some variations of it. Some effort was put in, but the song itself has a gratingly circular melody.

THE BAD:
- For me, I would have liked to spend more time in the period before things are "out in the open". That is a very fun period of light misunderstandings and flirting, that was finished too soon. A few things about the pace move on a bit quickly, but we are trying to tell a full story in 8 eps so I guess we gotta keep moving.
- Too much focus on intimate scenes. It's fine if that's what you are looking for, but that isn't why I'm here. One would be sufficient.
- Tons of PPA. I have grown to accept a lot, but it was pretty jarring at times they are like a jump scare as we cut suddenly to a product.
- Some plotlines felt a bit undeveloped. But I mostly forgave that, because they didn't sacrifice their actual purpose to fit the space they were given, they just could have been fleshed out a bit more.
- The parents were pretty awkward while also being focused on too much. They also had a somewhat vague or handwaved setup -- everyone is living in what looks like a very wealthy neighborhood, but both single parents don't seem to be working. Meanwhile financial matters are also a central plot conflict as though we are a low income family. There was some dissonance in this part of the premise.

Read More