dramalala

Anyway, I’ve got other things to do so this is as far as I’ll go, but I just want to note that the 6–7 reviews with 100 or close to 100 people marking them helpful are not empty hate posts. They actually mention what worked and what didn’t:
- “When Mediocrity Goes Viral” (6/10) --> explained pacing issues, lack of romance buildup, uneven acting, while still noting Yoona was “fine,” Chaemin “has potential,” and food was the true star.
- “Mouthwatering food but bland storytelling” (7/10) --> praised the cooking battles, creative ingredients, and food cinematography, also highlighted Chae Min’s comedic timing. But then critiqued the weak villains, disjointed storylines, and unsatisfying ending.
- “If I were the king, this plot would be chained up in the dungeon !" (6/10) --> gave credit to the leads for doing more than the script deserved, praised production values and food sequences, but criticized pacing, dropped subplots, and a romance that never fully bloomed.

These aren’t mindless hate posts. They balance positives and negatives, which is exactly what makes a review useful. By contrast, many of the 10/10 reviews are more emotional reactions like “best drama ever, don’t trust the haters.” Totally valid as enjoyment, but not very helpful for undecided viewers.

I’ll also say this: there are definitely some reviews that swing too far in the other direction, scoring it a 1/10 and acting like nothing about the show was enjoyable. Personally, I don’t take the time to read those because I don’t trust a review from someone who invests 12+ hours in a drama yet claims they found nothing worth enjoying. That’s just my preference.

As for the comparisons: I checked the first 7 pages of reviews myself. I only found *1* critical review that mentioned Mr. Queen, but I found several glowing ones comparing this drama to Scarlet Heart Ryeo and praising it as “better because of the ending”. If comparisons are invalid, then that logic should apply to both sides, not just the critical ones. Otherwise it just looks like people are policing reviews they don’t like.

And about the “8/10 reviews with 100 likes being pushed back”, that’s just how MDL’s system works. The order is based on recent helpful votes, not on locking in the first batch of likes forever. If more people recently voted the 6-7/10 reviews useful, they climb. That doesnt mean the 8/10 ones are suppressed or "mass-downvoted” it just means voting shifted. Unless there’s actual proof of fake accounts, it’s unfair to assume bad faith when the simpler explanation is that readers found the detailed critiques more useful at the time.

Ironically, if you check the page now, it’s filled with 9/10 and 10/10 reviews from the last 24 hour at the top, with about 18 and 34 votes. Does that suddenly make everything fair again? The point is the system surfaces what people are voting as useful in the moment, whether it’s positive or negative. Rather than complaining about "mass voting", how about writing your own review, Ella? Make sure you write both the strengths and weaknesses, and then people will judge it useful and vote it up. Thats far more productive than dismissing the thoughtful, balanced reviews others have taken the time to write.

Honestly, it’s a bit ironic. People are complaining about the “sudden hate” when most of those critical reviews were written 5-6 days ago. They are only showing up on the front page now because many readers voted them as helpful. That is not a coordinated wave of negativity, it is simply the site’s system surfacing reviews that others found useful.

What I also find telling is that the detailed 6–7 reviews, even if critical, are the ones readers tend to upvote. They usually explain both the strengths and weaknesses, which makes them more helpful for someone deciding whether to watch. By comparison, a lot of the 10/10 reviews are pure enthusiasm. That is fine for expressing enjoyment, but not as useful for people trying to judge if the drama suits their taste.

Saying analysis only belongs to "deep" dramas is exactly the kind of belittling I meant. Comedy is crafted which makes it just as open to analysis. And the irony is you’re here spending time reading and replying in the same comment section you call "too time consuming and non-productive".

And yet, dissecting and analyzing is exactly how comedy is made in the first place: timing, setup, payoff, all of it is deliberate. So if someone finds it therapeutic to engage with that, why belittle it? If it’s "too much" for you, that’s fine, but putting down how others engage with it says more about you than them.

Even a rom com isn't above critique. Whether it’s a short reaction or a 10 page essay, that’s what the this page is for. And for some people, those essays are how they process their emotional distress from watching the show, it's fun, it's therapy. If you're only here for light entertainment, that's cool, but just scroll/block instead of acting like dissecting a drama is a crime against fluff.

I’m not dismissing discussion. My point (which I repeated a few times now) is that with 5,000+ votes, a 0.1 shift takes hundreds of perfect 10, so the math does matter. Sure, rating purges can affect numbers if hundreds of votes were bots, but in that case the change is exactly what you would call “the math is mathing". Anyway, I’ll leave it here. This back and forth is just circling between "the math isn’t mathing" and "it's impossible to have any discussion in MDL", which is not something I'm interested in talking about when I first reply to the original comment.

No one’s twisting your words. I'm just pointing out that with 5,000+ votes, the math makes a 0.1 jump very unlikely unless hundreds of people give 10. That isn’t twisting your words, it’s just numbers. I did say that if you dont want to discuss numbers, it's fine not to reply. I only kept engaging because I thought you had real sources on how MDL calculates ratings, but you don't. From what I know, rating purges are just to clear bots or spam. The average still comes from real user votes. If they just purges ratings at random, then why have rating system in the first place.

I notice you jump in whenever people criticize this drama, so it clearly means a lot to you, and thats fine, people can defend whatever they feel strongly for, but that doesnt make the numbers any less real. MDL even has an API for pulling stats if you want to do real data analysis (and thats beyond whatever feeling people have for the drama), so pls don't say "the math isn't mathing" jst because you dont understand it. That dismisses the work of people who actually use this site's data to build proper datasets for kaggle and elsewhere.

That’s literally how MDL’s average works? Or do you have any source that it's doing it differently? I think it's just the straight average of user votes, not weighted like IMDB (which they're transparent about). All the data is right there, you just need to do the math. I get this is your precious show, but if you don’t want to do the math, it's fine to not jump into my reply.

I'm just looking at the math. With 5,057 votes averaging 8.5, it would take ~300 existing voters changing their scores to 10 or ~360 new voters giving perfect 10, just to bump it to 8.6. Anything less wont move it by 0.1 and thats in the best case scenario of everyone giving a 10. I mean you get new people tuning in mid run, but you get more people tuning in near the finale/after.

Maybe it's because the plot stopped going anywhere... But before the die-hard fans come after me for saying that, usually there just aren't as many people tuning in mid-run to change the rating much. Ratings usually shift more near the finale or after, when new viewers binge the whole thing and then rate it.

I thought it was a fun flip. The west often claiming eastern knowledge and heritage as if it were their own achievement, esp during colonialism. Here, Joseon gets to "claim" the macaron as theirs, and the envoy wouldn’t even know the difference.

Historically, both. He oppressed Joseon by taking women from across the country for his own pleasure, seizing land from the people to turn into his personal hunting grounds, asking for more tribute from the people, and suppressing his counselors and also scholars that are not directly involved with the court with harsh punishments or even killing them for pushing back against his commands.

I agree with you. They sacrificed character depth and skipped over the stakes and political tension you would expect from a sageuk to keep this a light fusion drama. At this point, I’m just watching for the comedy and the food, which do deliver. The romance also feels a bit flat for me since there isn't much push-and-pull (despite the leads having chemistry), but for people who enjoy insta-love stories, this will probably hit the spot.

I agree. If I didn’t know the history, I'd never guess this King was supposed to be a tyrant, he feels more like a bratty chaebol heir with no bite. The romance moves way too fast, without the push-and-pull that would make it feel earned (my personal opinion), and the FL barely seems fazed by palace politics. I get that it’s meant to be a light fusion sageuk with comedy and food-porn appeal, but that choice comes at the cost of depth in the characters, the plot, and even the time-travel logic. At this point, I guess I've just made peace with it and am watching purely for the comedy and food-porn.

It disappeared at the moment the King wrote the title "Mangunrok" on the recipe book he was working on [see ep 4].

I get what you mean. For me too, episodes 5 and 6 felt slower compared to the earlier ones. Personal opinion: I usually enjoy the playful push-and-pull dynamic before the couple gets together, so once the feelings start to settle in, I find myself a little less invested since the pining stage is my favorite. So it really need another elements to keep me as engaged. However, the reveal about the mangurok last week made it feel a bit less mysterious than before, and the court politics seem lighter than what I’m used to in sageuks, so there isn’t as much tension. I also agree that the Chinese envoy plot didn’t need to stretch over two episodes, like, c’mon, this is set in the Yeonsangun period, and the last couple episodes barely tapped into that rich political setting. Your mileage on court politics might differ, but it’s one of those times where I wish they weren’t tying this to a real historical figure, because that naturally raises expectations for viewers interested in the setting. That said, I’m still enjoying it for the humor and the food.

Full supernatural? I mean that’s literally the neighborhood this show lives in, it's a fantasy drama. It's like complaining that a murder mystery went full murder.