Self-righteous leads, mildly entertaining mysteries, better towards the end
To start, this female lead is too infallibly good at too many things. I’m not inherently opposed to an OP FL- it’s not realistic, but I’d still happily watch her kick butt as long as I like her.
The problem is, I like more down-to-earth characters, and she is not. She does a lot of moralizing. I don’t disagree with everything she says, but her self-assured, self-righteous tone as she goes on about justice bothered me, especially at the beginning.
I wouldn’t have minded so much if the show acknowledged how naive it all was, e.g. by throwing her a morally complex case that challenges her simplistic ideals. And the show actually does focus a lot on horribly wronged people who seek their own justice. What justice truly means seems to be a theme- but it’s not explored that deeply. Our FL never strays far from her convictions that righteousness will prevail and the law is the way. We’re not here to watch her grow, only to watch her kick butt.
While I’m rolling my eyes at her preaching, the ML is oozing in admiration. She smiles demurely in response. I think the FL is pretentious; the show thinks she’s noble. This is a fundamental disconnect that permeated the show and made it hard for me to enjoy it.
As for the ML himself, he seems tailor-made to be her perfect boyfriend. Super supportive, caring, everything good, etc. He’s also her perfect work partner, with a complementary approach and perspective. Overall I did not find him very interesting. Too artificial.
Their relationship starts early- he’s pretty much a sap for her right from the beginning. While this is unusual for dramas, I think it’s fairly realistic in the present scenario. Their relationship is refreshingly free of misunderstandings, develops at a normal pace, and is ideal in all ways.
Unfortunately, I just did not enjoy their sticky sweet romance. Watching two people you don’t care about be happily in love is boring at best; here, I found it downright cringe. Their romance is full of contrived, overly dramatic scenes. He saves her from every over-the-top situation you can think of (fire, water, assassins, etc). I fast forwarded through a lot of it.
The side characters are alright; I didn’t feel too strongly about anyone. For better or worse, their friends all pair up neatly. This means there are multiple sweet relationships for you to feel good about, though I found some of them a bit cheesy at times.
Looking at the characters and their relationships, this show is actually quite a treasure for female empowerment. There are strong female characters and good relationships between them. Even the ML feels secondary to the FL. It’s just a shame that they overdid the FL’s sainthood to the point where I couldn’t stand it.
Plot-wise, the first half or so of the show covers ~4.5 independent cases, one right after the other. These cases are methodically developed, spanning several episodes each. I like this slower pacing because it gives me time to consider the evidence.
But for some reason, I found these cases incredibly easy to guess. I would inadvertently figure out the culprit based on things like classic drama patterns (eg it’s usually some nice-seeming character that shows up fairly early in), and who’s facial expressions they keep zooming in on. I would then have to wait patiently while the leads continued to put together evidence and act lovey dovey with each other. Overall, the mysteries were still interesting enough, but I wish they had been a little less obvious.
As the plot progresses, the FL’s path is surprisingly smooth. She doesn’t make any real enemies; in fact, she is loved and admired by many powerful people. I don’t necessarily object to her lack of obstacles, since there is plenty of other intrigue. However, I found myself rolling my eyes at everyone doting on her.
The main plot is pretty much just classic palace power struggles, but I thought it was fairly well done. As a result, my rather low opinion of the show improved towards the end. I like the way our leads slowly uncover the backstory, the growing ambiguity, and the way everything falls into place with the final reveal. This last point is particularly fun to watch, and works out so well thanks to the show’s careful setup. If not for the last few episodes, I would have given this show an even lower score.
Acting wise, since I don’t like the FL, I’m tempted to blame the actress, but that might not be fair. I’ll refrain from commenting on acting since I watched a lot of this on 1.25X speed. I did find Ao Rui Peng’s martial arts technique to be surprisingly good- crisp, clean, and solid.
Other production-level stuff (music, settings, costumes, etc) were all decent. Cinematographically, they do some artistic things with camera perspective and reflections. I liked most of it, except for the views upward from inside a cadaver. As if bodies are just empty sacks.
The segways into my final rant. If you are going to pretend to be an expert in a field, you better show me that you’re serious. This girl does not even wear an apron to conduct an autopsy; she ties up her sleeves, but you can still see them dragging across the corpses. Even worse, her idea of an exam is to reach into a small incision and pull out an entire human organ. Uh, ever done a dissection? It’s nowhere that clean and easy.
These may seem like unimportant details. And I get it- “she fearlessly conducted an autopsy while everyone else puked at the side” is all we’re meant to take away. Still, representing a profession without properly doing research is somewhat offensive. Get it right or else don’t try. Personally, I think they should have kept it all off-screen, like Imperial Coroner.
Overall, I appreciate some parts of this show, but mostly I couldn’t stand it. If I’m honest, most of my complaints probably cascade out of not liking the FL- thus cringing at her romance, rolling my eyes at her popularity, picking on her dissection technique, etc. Perhaps if they had been more subtle about her sainthood, I might have enjoyed this show.
ENDING – READ AHEAD ONLY IF YOU WANT TO KNOW, CONTAINS SPOILERS
I consider this a happy ending. All the major protagonists make it through and are launched into happy futures. Not much time is devoted to showing where everyone goes, but it’s enough to give you an idea.
Still, I found the ending surprisingly dark. Not that the show was that light to begin with, but a lot more people died than I expected. It’s as if they decided the cleanest way to tie up loose ends was to kill off all these morally ambiguous characters. And some ending scenes were overly contrived and dramatic… this show really does have a thing for drama.
The problem is, I like more down-to-earth characters, and she is not. She does a lot of moralizing. I don’t disagree with everything she says, but her self-assured, self-righteous tone as she goes on about justice bothered me, especially at the beginning.
I wouldn’t have minded so much if the show acknowledged how naive it all was, e.g. by throwing her a morally complex case that challenges her simplistic ideals. And the show actually does focus a lot on horribly wronged people who seek their own justice. What justice truly means seems to be a theme- but it’s not explored that deeply. Our FL never strays far from her convictions that righteousness will prevail and the law is the way. We’re not here to watch her grow, only to watch her kick butt.
While I’m rolling my eyes at her preaching, the ML is oozing in admiration. She smiles demurely in response. I think the FL is pretentious; the show thinks she’s noble. This is a fundamental disconnect that permeated the show and made it hard for me to enjoy it.
As for the ML himself, he seems tailor-made to be her perfect boyfriend. Super supportive, caring, everything good, etc. He’s also her perfect work partner, with a complementary approach and perspective. Overall I did not find him very interesting. Too artificial.
Their relationship starts early- he’s pretty much a sap for her right from the beginning. While this is unusual for dramas, I think it’s fairly realistic in the present scenario. Their relationship is refreshingly free of misunderstandings, develops at a normal pace, and is ideal in all ways.
Unfortunately, I just did not enjoy their sticky sweet romance. Watching two people you don’t care about be happily in love is boring at best; here, I found it downright cringe. Their romance is full of contrived, overly dramatic scenes. He saves her from every over-the-top situation you can think of (fire, water, assassins, etc). I fast forwarded through a lot of it.
The side characters are alright; I didn’t feel too strongly about anyone. For better or worse, their friends all pair up neatly. This means there are multiple sweet relationships for you to feel good about, though I found some of them a bit cheesy at times.
Looking at the characters and their relationships, this show is actually quite a treasure for female empowerment. There are strong female characters and good relationships between them. Even the ML feels secondary to the FL. It’s just a shame that they overdid the FL’s sainthood to the point where I couldn’t stand it.
Plot-wise, the first half or so of the show covers ~4.5 independent cases, one right after the other. These cases are methodically developed, spanning several episodes each. I like this slower pacing because it gives me time to consider the evidence.
But for some reason, I found these cases incredibly easy to guess. I would inadvertently figure out the culprit based on things like classic drama patterns (eg it’s usually some nice-seeming character that shows up fairly early in), and who’s facial expressions they keep zooming in on. I would then have to wait patiently while the leads continued to put together evidence and act lovey dovey with each other. Overall, the mysteries were still interesting enough, but I wish they had been a little less obvious.
As the plot progresses, the FL’s path is surprisingly smooth. She doesn’t make any real enemies; in fact, she is loved and admired by many powerful people. I don’t necessarily object to her lack of obstacles, since there is plenty of other intrigue. However, I found myself rolling my eyes at everyone doting on her.
The main plot is pretty much just classic palace power struggles, but I thought it was fairly well done. As a result, my rather low opinion of the show improved towards the end. I like the way our leads slowly uncover the backstory, the growing ambiguity, and the way everything falls into place with the final reveal. This last point is particularly fun to watch, and works out so well thanks to the show’s careful setup. If not for the last few episodes, I would have given this show an even lower score.
Acting wise, since I don’t like the FL, I’m tempted to blame the actress, but that might not be fair. I’ll refrain from commenting on acting since I watched a lot of this on 1.25X speed. I did find Ao Rui Peng’s martial arts technique to be surprisingly good- crisp, clean, and solid.
Other production-level stuff (music, settings, costumes, etc) were all decent. Cinematographically, they do some artistic things with camera perspective and reflections. I liked most of it, except for the views upward from inside a cadaver. As if bodies are just empty sacks.
The segways into my final rant. If you are going to pretend to be an expert in a field, you better show me that you’re serious. This girl does not even wear an apron to conduct an autopsy; she ties up her sleeves, but you can still see them dragging across the corpses. Even worse, her idea of an exam is to reach into a small incision and pull out an entire human organ. Uh, ever done a dissection? It’s nowhere that clean and easy.
These may seem like unimportant details. And I get it- “she fearlessly conducted an autopsy while everyone else puked at the side” is all we’re meant to take away. Still, representing a profession without properly doing research is somewhat offensive. Get it right or else don’t try. Personally, I think they should have kept it all off-screen, like Imperial Coroner.
Overall, I appreciate some parts of this show, but mostly I couldn’t stand it. If I’m honest, most of my complaints probably cascade out of not liking the FL- thus cringing at her romance, rolling my eyes at her popularity, picking on her dissection technique, etc. Perhaps if they had been more subtle about her sainthood, I might have enjoyed this show.
ENDING – READ AHEAD ONLY IF YOU WANT TO KNOW, CONTAINS SPOILERS
I consider this a happy ending. All the major protagonists make it through and are launched into happy futures. Not much time is devoted to showing where everyone goes, but it’s enough to give you an idea.
Still, I found the ending surprisingly dark. Not that the show was that light to begin with, but a lot more people died than I expected. It’s as if they decided the cleanest way to tie up loose ends was to kill off all these morally ambiguous characters. And some ending scenes were overly contrived and dramatic… this show really does have a thing for drama.
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