Colum H

There is a plethora of weird turgid paralyzed faces, fat lips, double eyelids and odd noses in this (as there is in most thrumpty episode dramas). Grandmas' unwrinkled forehead and face freaks me out much more.
As a chap and aware of the unrealistic beauty standards which mainly impact women I'm not dissing any of them but I'm sometimes glad I get to concentrate on the subs.

Park Do Ra has a lot in common with Clark Kent..

The leads are OK and I could cope with the batshit crazy mum but really it was just all too bland and directionless to keep me interested after the first 20 or so episodes. I enjoyed the first bit though.

The FLs character over the first 4 episodes killed it for me.

Excellent show! thoroughly enjoyable and just seemed to get better the further in I got.

Enjoyed this enough to finish it. It loses its way in places but the characters are well played and pull you in.

A lot better than I thought now I've finally managed to watch it all the way through.
Mi Ran an Do Hyun were great but I have to admit to FFing lots of bits they weren't in. All a bit same old well worth a watch though.

Squandered potential. The start peaked my interest but half a dozen episodes in and I didn't like any of them. Just a bunch of snidey, petulant children. Dropped.

We need more comments! surprised how many I agreed with.

Great review - I made it to 16 before I couldn't take it anymore for all the same reasons you mention

Contrived nonsense - any attempt at realism is thrown out early on in favour of 'creating suspense'. Laughable as a Police Procedural series and too superficial to be a thriller it relies on characters taking turns to be suspicious and 'grey'.
Dropped

This just didn't grab me and I found myself skipping many scenes. the manufactured jeopardy of every episode didn't excite me and I really found it hard to care about the competition between Anthony and Oh, and the whole send up of the industry. Go Eun and her mum were the only characters I was bothered about.
I only got to episode 4 so it might pick up after that but 4 hours is enough of an attempt for me.

Agreed there are some excellent old dramas out there, though the misogyny does tend to be at a whole different level when present. That Fool (2009) and O My Lady (2010) are a couple of sweet dramas.

As beautiful as You for me just stalled almost immediately

YT FMVs - all the good bits of a 16 hour drama fitted into a 4 minute video causing you to wade through 956 minutes of blandness...

I have a similar prejudice against short dramas - I'll try and take your advice on that.
Loads of people write 10 star reviews over all sorts of terrible (to me) dramas there are only a couple I would ever argue with anyone over. The strangest things can make or break a drama for me.

Maybe not on Pinterest but I've certainly been dragged into dramas by posters and screenshots before. Mostly leading to disappointment I may add but hey ho! Fated to Love you being one that I also didn't enjoy - gaslighting and lying just ain't romantic.
Thanks for the article I'll try a couple of those.

I often stop before the end of C-Dramas and of quite a few K-dramas too.

Contrived Drama, Makjang and effects laden shows that are character driven = good, as opposed to 'exciting events' loosely strung together on cardboard cut out characters = bad.
Like the Western movies where you get half an hour of character and plot before an hour of seen it all before set pieces and interminable battles with little to no jeopardy involved.
Not saying all dramas used to be great at all but they seemed to spend less time trying to appeal to as many people and cultures as possible than they do now..

Good points well made.
I feel like there are so many bland dramas at the moment getting high scores for fan service over plot. Healing drama = nothing much happened but it was 'nice' and inoffensive. I got into K-Dramas for the lack of jump into bed Romance ( 5 hours just to hold hands - sweet) and the lack of reliance on 'excitement' for plot. Perhaps I'm just old and grumpy and tomorrow I'll wake up all enthusiastic again (and not bald please!)