haechanchan

oh boy...where do I even begin?
The biggest (and honestly only) issue here is the writing.
The music, the set-design, THE COSTUMING and the directing are all phenomenal in my opinion. And the actors are all doing an amazing job, sometimes they're given whack dialogue (looking at you JimmyOhm) but they all give solid performances.
Unfortunately none of these things are able to save the atrocious writing here. Some examples:

- The progression of both Khanin's character and the romance between him and Charan are terrible. They both start out really well but after the first couple episodes both just fall into a kind of routine and NEVER progress beyond it. It makes the show really boring to watch since both of these things are the most important parts of the story. (Like a good 75% of the time it feels like there is NOTHING going on because those two just sit there and flirt and it's like "hello we have a story to get back to!".)
- Another thing that didn't get any progress/isn't fully explored is Charan's character and specifically his childhood-trauma. The fact that his mother's death was partly caused by the monarchy has seemingly no impact on his actions later-on and his relationship to the royal family.
- The two side-couples: RamilPaytai and CalvinJay are super underwritten. The first one has an interesting dynamic (that was honestly more intriguing than the main couple's) that is never explored to it's fullest potential. They almost seem to be written into the story more as a way to add more NC scenes rather than to tell an interesting, emotional story. CalvinJay are almost not worth talking about. Again there is a lot of interesting story just left un-executed.
- The only woman in the competion for the throne is Ava. Her whole story is basically about the inequality that women in Emmaly face. She has to convince the other's to let her compete. This was all fine and dandy until the last few episodes where she just drops out of the race. Her character is fully irrelevant after that and to some extant even extranuous to the story.
- Other than the characters the plot and it's progression is really bad too. We spend the first couple of episodes not even close to the place where the entire plot of the drama takes place. Once we finally arrive in Emmaly the actual competition takes a backseat in the story very fast. (Mind you, it is the big draw of the show!) We spend the next few episodes in different places in Emmaly following Khanin as he attempts to resolve smaller and bigger problems in the country. (I just want to iterate that the competition is basically not happening throughout all of this!) The last few episodes focus on the competition again but by this point we are so far past the original plot of the show that it is super startling to come back to it. There are so many details, places and people introduced in the story that are never in a any way relevant to the plot again. For exaple: We spend one episode in the university where Charan teaches just for it to never be a relevant place in the story again. The fact that Charan is a professor whilst being a guard is also weirdly irrelevant.
-The story also has a little bit of a problem with it's message and what it wants to be. Is it critical of Monarchy?, I honestly could not tell you. It's stances on feminism and activism are very convoluted and it also fails to make a real point about abuse and love within hierarchical structures. It attempts to discuss these issues but cramming them all into one show whilst simultaneously being a political thriller (?) and a cute romance whilst attemting a hunger-games-esque plot simply does not work.
-And between all of this the show is somehow INSANELY BORING. Side characters just sit down and have long, seemingly deep conversation about the plot multiple times per episode. They speak in riddles and metaphors because the writers think it makes the drama cool and them seem smart but it just falls completely flat. Montages of the main couple seem to last forever while the other couples that are in dire need of more screen time just get nothing. We were told that the main plot of the drama would be the competition yet it is apparently a complete afterthought for the writers. We spend episodes watching the characters walk around aimlesly. The show is really good at making it seem like something is happening but there just isn't.

All of this is very dissapointing to many because we were all waiting for this grand, amazing, show-stopping drama. And this just was not it. I've seen a lot of people explain the bad writing by saying that "it just displays the real world and how not everything is perfect" but I have to disagree. The show does not have this dark, serious tone to justify this reading.

I think the thing that we can learn from this is that a drama like this should 1) always have an awareness for itself and 2) try to not be more than that. I don't want to discorouge reaching for greatness but just pick one ot two things to be and stick with that. Don't try to save the whole world in one 14-episode-show.

In a way I think that the show should have been longer to fully explore all the themes and storylines mentioned above but then again, look at what they did with the time that they did have. So maybe it is better this way.

At the time of me writing this (january 2026) the show has a rating of 7.6 and I am usually not the type of person to care for stuff like that but it truly doesn't deserve a rating this high. It pains me to say this but I truly would not encourage anybody to watch this. This is unfortunately not even good in a bad way I did not enjoy waching it one bit. I only did because at that point I was to far along and my ego did not allow me to just drop the show. It is not worth it's time not even for a hate-watch.

If you enjoyed the show I am more than happy for you, we probably just have a different opinion there :)

This is no shade to the actors by the way, I love them all.