haechanchan

This broke the internet for a reason

This show falls off towards the end in a very weird way, in my opinion they should have made about 2 episodes less because up until then the writing was pretty tight. The only other criticism I have is that the romantic relationships take a very central role towards the middle when the show already has a very intriguing plot to explore instead. Other than those two things, this show is FIRE! The music, editing and overall look of the show are amazing (ignoring Kants weird looking tattoos). And of course the acting is beyond what I could have imagined. The cast knew exactly what was required from them and they all played these characters to a T. They could not have cast better actors for these roles. The hype the show had was absolutely justified and I think it only decresed towards the end because the story was dragging a little and they focused on the romance to much. Nevertheless, this show is absolutely worth a watch.

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Really bad and not in the fun way

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.

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A trainwreck if it weren´t for Boat/Sorn and Oat/Jun

Was I watching this show religiously every sunday? ... yes
Is this show pretty bad? ... also yes

Boat and Oat (the actors of Jun and Sorn) are doing so much of the heavy lifting here. If they had gotten different actors for them this show would have been beyond terrible. Paired with the fact that their characters are the only ones with solid writing you can basically only watch this show for them. They're not perfect but definetly the (only) highlight of the show!
The other couples are written terribly.
Why am I getting 3 nc scenes per episode for people I barely know? (I skipped through basically all of them. They don't work if I don´t know anything about these characters.) I get what they were going for with Champ and Thai. You can see glimpses of their dynamic and the deeper problems in their relatioship but it never gets addressed satisfyingly.
Why is the relationship between two women mainly happening off-screen and they just tell us about it later-on? If you don´t want to write about them that´s fine but just leave them out completely instead of giving us this half-baked mess.
The other characters in the show are either incredibly under-written or their storylines go absolutely NO-WHERE. Why exactly does Sorn's brother show up in the last few episodes he does absolutely nothing and then leaves...
Apart from the writing the post-production is terrible. The amount of times that the odd (and way too loud) music or the weird editing completely took me out of the show is insane.
All of my plenty critiques aside I did like the show (and by that I basically exclusively mean Jun and Sorn's story) and had a great time laughing at the badness of it all. If that is what you want in a show then go nuts. Just beware!

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Potential for a season 2?

I think the show leaves some very important questions unanswered...Did the feelings between Gam and Pepper just disappear? But even more importantly: Will Thame´s fans find out about his relationship? If or rather When they do, how will the company handle it? I think there is a lot of potential for a second season where they could explore some of these issues. The way it was left right now I also don´t like the implications it has for LYKN. If their fans ever find out that their dating will Riser react the way that Oner did? I think they could have really made a strong statement here in that regard. Of course they kind of do that with the character of Baifern who in the end learns to treat Thame the way she would anybody else and gets over her parasocial relationships with the members. But is that enough? Not imo. Apart from that this show is truely amazing. Yes it is slowburn but it is romantic and beautiful and the characters have become a great comfort to me. Will definetly rewatch this show in the winter when I need some warmth.

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