Just so you know, I’m still watching this crap, not so much for the story… but mostly to see just how artificially the “writer” is going to force the Main Leads to stay close to each other :^)
I swear, I find that 10,000 times more interesting than this bland mush! Haha.
**In this drama, consequences do exist. Don’t worry, they usually disappear before the argument is even over.**
And yet, the first five episodes were actually pretty good! The characters were believable, their flaws were interesting, and their relationships were complex enough to build a solid story.
But don’t worry: the script gradually sets about sabotaging all of that. After all, why preserve the consistency of your characters when you can make them accept almost anything in the name of love?
**Let’s start with Mi-do, a true expert at shifting responsibility.**
She knows perfectly well how attached Ho is to her and how far he is willing to go for her. She criticizes him for making decisions without consulting her, while doing exactly the same thing behind his back. Then come the cheating, the lies, and the meetings with Han.
And when Ho dares to react? Miracle! The discussion regularly ends up revolving around Mi-do’s suffering, her trauma, or how Ho should have behaved.
**Mi-do makes the decisions, Ho suffers the consequences, and somehow he’s still the one who has to go back and revise his own part. What a talent!**
The most interesting thing is that she isn’t always lacking in self-awareness. Sometimes she acknowledges her mistakes and even goes so far as to admit that she used Su-a to hurt Ho, just to even the score. Now that’s a particularly creative take on responsibility!
And when she explores her feelings for Han, she has a hard time dealing with the idea that Ho might actually fall in love with Su-a. Apparently, romantic freedom works better when it only goes one way.
**Moving on to Ho, the happy holder of an unlimited subscription to Mi-do’s emotional after-sales service.**
And yet, the character is far from lacking backbone. In his professional life, he stands up for his convictions, takes risks, and knows how to stand up to dangerous people.
But in his relationship, his boundaries seem to come with an especially short trial period.
He gets angry, confronts Mi-do, considers breaking up… then goes right back to taking care of her. After her infidelity and three months spent helping her through her recovery, he even ends up suggesting that she date Han.
Three months of reflection to end up there. Psychological help? Actually rebuilding trust? Let’s not overcomplicate things!
His emotional dependency remains perfectly plausible. What becomes much less convincing is the way the script uses that weakness to make him accept more and more, while regularly presenting his sacrifice as a beautiful proof of love.
**And Han? He’s basically a walking rehabilitation campaign.**
Blackmail, threats, professional pressure, emotional manipulation… He even admits to using pity to seduce her.
But wait, we discover his painful past! Add a few personal confessions, two or three touching scenes, and a touch of romance. There you go: our manipulator suddenly seems much more like someone worth being around.
And, by happy coincidence, the more touching Han becomes, the easier Mi-do’s attraction to him is to excuse.
**Welcome to the trauma superstore: one extra revelation every time the script needs a mitigating circumstance.**
Except that trauma can explain behavior without justifying it. And more importantly, it does not erase the responsibility of the person making those choices.
The script also has a few very convenient recipes: a serious argument defused with humor, an accident that brings the characters back together at just the right moment, a confrontation that finally seems to promise change… before everything goes back almost to the way it was.
The most ironic part? **The drama sometimes knows perfectly well how to condemn the very behaviors it ultimately ends up romanticizing.**
**Just to be clear, I’m not calling for the death penalty to be reinstated for every romantic lie!** Cheating doesn’t mean you immediately have to organize a divorce, a move, and a farewell ceremony either. Reconciliation can be perfectly believable.
But it still needs to look like rebuilding a relationship, not a maintenance operation carried out exclusively by the person who was cheated on.
Because in this relationship, Ho seems to be doing every job at once: partner, nurse, psychologist, complaints department, and head of repairs. Mi-do, meanwhile, apparently retains the right to file new complaints.
And let’s remember one subtle distinction the script seems to miss: **being partly responsible for the routine a couple has fallen into does not make you jointly responsible for your partner’s infidelity.**
Ho has his flaws, obviously. But the problems they share in their relationship do not make their respective responsibilities interchangeable. Two people can suffer equally without having committed the same acts. It’s not a misery contest where the first one to cry gets their mistakes erased.
**And since we’re talking about responsibility, there’s one detail the script sometimes seems to forget: fiction also sends a message through the way it resolves its conflicts.**
You don’t need a narrator announcing, “this is good” or “this is bad.” When problematic behavior regularly ends up being forgiven, minimized, or rewarded, the resolution is already saying something. And what it says isn’t always particularly flattering.
The characters had everything they needed to be interesting. Their contradictions, mistakes, and weaknesses could have fueled a mature story with genuine development.
But why bother with lasting consequences when you have a brand-new trauma, a touching scene, and a Ho ready to report back for duty?
**The result: trauma becomes an excuse, manipulation starts looking like romance, and emotional dependency practically gets a medal for services rendered to love.**
In the end, the most mistreated character in this story may not even be Ho.
**It’s the very concept of responsibility. And, incidentally, the viewer whose romantic fantasy isn’t watching a manipulator find love, a manipulative woman receive mitigating circumstances, and a man turn his dignity into a renewable subscription.**
But hey, everyone has their own definition of romance. Mi-do wanted to feel butterflies in her stomach again. Apparently, she mistook the aviary for a collection of red flags.
Cette série mais une distance considérable en termes de réalisme émotionnel vis a vis des pseudos séries réaliste de merde actuel je pointe pas du tout une série (A Love Other than Yours)
It's a little kitschy and predictable, but the first half is pretty watchable. I mainly have a few reservations…
I get what you mean, especially about the lack of originality. That said, I don’t think the problem is necessarily the initial concept, but rather what they do with it. Sometimes they have interesting ideas, but they end up getting buried under the same old storylines we’ve seen over and over again.
As for historical dramas, I’m not really a fan. I feel like I’m almost always watching the same thing, although of course there are exceptions, like *Mr. Queen*. So I have less perspective on episodes getting shorter, but I understand what you mean about giving characters enough time to develop.
And then, why do they always have to throw conspiracies, revenge plots, etc. into romances, for example? I mean, can’t they just tell a romance story? XD
Anyway, there are still some dramas I’m looking forward to this year. I hope they won’t disappoint me.
It's a little kitschy and predictable, but the first half is pretty watchable. I mainly have a few reservations…
Honestly, this year, here’s what I’ve seen:
- An original concept to start with. - A first half that is often good, but already hints at a second half packed with clichés. - And then, unsurprisingly, a second half that piles on the clichés and becomes interchangeable with a large portion of 2026 dramas. - All of it extremely predictable.
It's a little kitschy and predictable, but the first half is pretty watchable. I mainly have a few reservations…
Honestly, it’s not as bad as the vast majority of what we’ve had this year. I’d even put it in the upper end of the average range. That said, if you’re not feeling it, that happens. Maybe in a different frame of mind, you’ll be tempted to give it a try.
**SPOILER:** My reservations about the second half turned out to be justified. It’s a VERY 2026 second half…
Dans les séries où elle joue le rôle d'une mère elle est souvent l'incarnation de la mère abusif et toxique (voir violente avec les membres de sa famille).. Mais ça passe toujours comme normal, je suis toujours sur le cul quand je vois ça..
For the positives, even though I find the cliché of the insufferable ML who eventually turns into a teddy bear pretty tiresome, I still enjoyed the couple's dynamic overall. With the obvious exception of the infamous "I'm leaving you to protect you," which I could definitely have done without...
The chemistry works well, and the actor playing the ML does a very good job. As for the actress playing the FL, I always find her convincing in her roles. At least, I don't remember ever seeing her give a bad performance.
The comedic moments are enjoyable, and the ML's secretary works very well as the stereotypical, good-natured character who's always ready to support the ML.
Finally, I didn't feel like the last few episodes were rushed. However, I do find the second half noticeably weaker than the first, mainly because it falls back into generic, interchangeable, cliché-filled storylines.
Overall, decent entertainment, but nothing more.
Things were already starting to go off the rails from episode 6, but the last three... What a nightmare. Episode 9 alone is a 35-volume encyclopedia of every possible cliché. XD
But the most absurd part is still Seol Hui: she teams up with the cousin again, encourages him in his schemes, plays innocent when she finds out he tried to kill the ML, and even manages to threaten the FL. And the consequences for all that?
We have to wait until the final third of the last episode for the kidnapping, which was committed in front of witnesses, to finally be mentioned. The aunt and the cousin are implicated, but Seol Hui, despite being an accomplice, slips through the cracks. Not to mention the nurse selling medical secrets...
**And just as expected, no visible or even implied consequences for Seol Hui!** Meanwhile, for Do Yun, they're made perfectly explicit. Once again, it feels like the secondary female characters benefit from some strange kind of plot immunity, no matter what they do. What a surprise... ;^)
hmm from the synopsis, the story sounds very outdated..
It's a little kitschy and predictable, but the first half is pretty watchable. I mainly have a few reservations about what comes next... I hope we don't fall back into the same old corrupt-family plots and power struggles at the expense of the romance and the original premise, which was actually quite original. I'm also worried about secondary characters willing to stoop to anything out of jealousy or greed for the inheritance, without ever facing any real consequences. It would be a shame to waste that potential on such worn-out plot devices.
K-Drama 
La distribution est plutôt conséquente.
Petit crush sur l'actrice ♥
On verra, peut-être une bonne surprise.
I swear, I find that 10,000 times more interesting than this bland mush! Haha.
And yet, the first five episodes were actually pretty good! The characters were believable, their flaws were interesting, and their relationships were complex enough to build a solid story.
But don’t worry: the script gradually sets about sabotaging all of that. After all, why preserve the consistency of your characters when you can make them accept almost anything in the name of love?
**Let’s start with Mi-do, a true expert at shifting responsibility.**
She knows perfectly well how attached Ho is to her and how far he is willing to go for her. She criticizes him for making decisions without consulting her, while doing exactly the same thing behind his back. Then come the cheating, the lies, and the meetings with Han.
And when Ho dares to react? Miracle! The discussion regularly ends up revolving around Mi-do’s suffering, her trauma, or how Ho should have behaved.
**Mi-do makes the decisions, Ho suffers the consequences, and somehow he’s still the one who has to go back and revise his own part. What a talent!**
The most interesting thing is that she isn’t always lacking in self-awareness. Sometimes she acknowledges her mistakes and even goes so far as to admit that she used Su-a to hurt Ho, just to even the score. Now that’s a particularly creative take on responsibility!
And when she explores her feelings for Han, she has a hard time dealing with the idea that Ho might actually fall in love with Su-a. Apparently, romantic freedom works better when it only goes one way.
**Moving on to Ho, the happy holder of an unlimited subscription to Mi-do’s emotional after-sales service.**
And yet, the character is far from lacking backbone. In his professional life, he stands up for his convictions, takes risks, and knows how to stand up to dangerous people.
But in his relationship, his boundaries seem to come with an especially short trial period.
He gets angry, confronts Mi-do, considers breaking up… then goes right back to taking care of her. After her infidelity and three months spent helping her through her recovery, he even ends up suggesting that she date Han.
Three months of reflection to end up there. Psychological help? Actually rebuilding trust? Let’s not overcomplicate things!
His emotional dependency remains perfectly plausible. What becomes much less convincing is the way the script uses that weakness to make him accept more and more, while regularly presenting his sacrifice as a beautiful proof of love.
**And Han? He’s basically a walking rehabilitation campaign.**
Blackmail, threats, professional pressure, emotional manipulation… He even admits to using pity to seduce her.
But wait, we discover his painful past! Add a few personal confessions, two or three touching scenes, and a touch of romance. There you go: our manipulator suddenly seems much more like someone worth being around.
And, by happy coincidence, the more touching Han becomes, the easier Mi-do’s attraction to him is to excuse.
**Welcome to the trauma superstore: one extra revelation every time the script needs a mitigating circumstance.**
Except that trauma can explain behavior without justifying it. And more importantly, it does not erase the responsibility of the person making those choices.
The script also has a few very convenient recipes: a serious argument defused with humor, an accident that brings the characters back together at just the right moment, a confrontation that finally seems to promise change… before everything goes back almost to the way it was.
The most ironic part? **The drama sometimes knows perfectly well how to condemn the very behaviors it ultimately ends up romanticizing.**
**Just to be clear, I’m not calling for the death penalty to be reinstated for every romantic lie!** Cheating doesn’t mean you immediately have to organize a divorce, a move, and a farewell ceremony either. Reconciliation can be perfectly believable.
But it still needs to look like rebuilding a relationship, not a maintenance operation carried out exclusively by the person who was cheated on.
Because in this relationship, Ho seems to be doing every job at once: partner, nurse, psychologist, complaints department, and head of repairs. Mi-do, meanwhile, apparently retains the right to file new complaints.
And let’s remember one subtle distinction the script seems to miss: **being partly responsible for the routine a couple has fallen into does not make you jointly responsible for your partner’s infidelity.**
Ho has his flaws, obviously. But the problems they share in their relationship do not make their respective responsibilities interchangeable. Two people can suffer equally without having committed the same acts. It’s not a misery contest where the first one to cry gets their mistakes erased.
**And since we’re talking about responsibility, there’s one detail the script sometimes seems to forget: fiction also sends a message through the way it resolves its conflicts.**
You don’t need a narrator announcing, “this is good” or “this is bad.” When problematic behavior regularly ends up being forgiven, minimized, or rewarded, the resolution is already saying something. And what it says isn’t always particularly flattering.
The characters had everything they needed to be interesting. Their contradictions, mistakes, and weaknesses could have fueled a mature story with genuine development.
But why bother with lasting consequences when you have a brand-new trauma, a touching scene, and a Ho ready to report back for duty?
**The result: trauma becomes an excuse, manipulation starts looking like romance, and emotional dependency practically gets a medal for services rendered to love.**
In the end, the most mistreated character in this story may not even be Ho.
**It’s the very concept of responsibility. And, incidentally, the viewer whose romantic fantasy isn’t watching a manipulator find love, a manipulative woman receive mitigating circumstances, and a man turn his dignity into a renewable subscription.**
But hey, everyone has their own definition of romance. Mi-do wanted to feel butterflies in her stomach again. Apparently, she mistook the aviary for a collection of red flags.
And on top of that, it gives me a little hope for *Vagabond* again.
As for historical dramas, I’m not really a fan. I feel like I’m almost always watching the same thing, although of course there are exceptions, like *Mr. Queen*. So I have less perspective on episodes getting shorter, but I understand what you mean about giving characters enough time to develop.
And then, why do they always have to throw conspiracies, revenge plots, etc. into romances, for example? I mean, can’t they just tell a romance story? XD
Anyway, there are still some dramas I’m looking forward to this year. I hope they won’t disappoint me.
- An original concept to start with.
- A first half that is often good, but already hints at a second half packed with clichés.
- And then, unsurprisingly, a second half that piles on the clichés and becomes interchangeable with a large portion of 2026 dramas.
- All of it extremely predictable.
**SPOILER:** My reservations about the second half turned out to be justified. It’s a VERY 2026 second half…
The chemistry works well, and the actor playing the ML does a very good job. As for the actress playing the FL, I always find her convincing in her roles. At least, I don't remember ever seeing her give a bad performance.
The comedic moments are enjoyable, and the ML's secretary works very well as the stereotypical, good-natured character who's always ready to support the ML.
Finally, I didn't feel like the last few episodes were rushed. However, I do find the second half noticeably weaker than the first, mainly because it falls back into generic, interchangeable, cliché-filled storylines.
Overall, decent entertainment, but nothing more.
Things were already starting to go off the rails from episode 6, but the last three... What a nightmare. Episode 9 alone is a 35-volume encyclopedia of every possible cliché. XD
But the most absurd part is still Seol Hui: she teams up with the cousin again, encourages him in his schemes, plays innocent when she finds out he tried to kill the ML, and even manages to threaten the FL. And the consequences for all that?
We have to wait until the final third of the last episode for the kidnapping, which was committed in front of witnesses, to finally be mentioned. The aunt and the cousin are implicated, but Seol Hui, despite being an accomplice, slips through the cracks. Not to mention the nurse selling medical secrets...
**And just as expected, no visible or even implied consequences for Seol Hui!** Meanwhile, for Do Yun, they're made perfectly explicit. Once again, it feels like the secondary female characters benefit from some strange kind of plot immunity, no matter what they do. What a surprise... ;^)