Some of The Worst Writing and PPL I’ve Ever Seen
My 4 categories are Acting/Cast, Writing, Direction/SFX/Music, Entertainment Value.
Am I in the Twilight Zone? This drama was one of the worst I’ve ever seen, but how are so many people are saying it's their favorite? I’m flabbergasted…I was trying to avoid using that word because it sounds weird, but it’s the only way I can describe my feelings right now.
Acting/Cast: I like Kim Seon Ho (김선호), who plays the male lead. I know him from Catch Yoo Ryung, which is a drama I really enjoyed. His character is probably the only okay thing about this drama and he’s not even a well-written character. All the acting is bad from nearly everyone. Even the child actors weren’t great, aside from maybe Kim Min Seo (김민서). However, I think this is probably due to bad writing and directing; even the actors had no idea how to deliver these terrible lines. 1.5/10
Writing: The first half of the drama is decent. Although, the male lead literally is a Gary Stu, which is a clear indicator of bad writing. He’s good at everything, he went to a good college, he has a perfect personality, everyone loves him, blah blah blah. The female lead is a little better because she starts off very flawed. This was a nice surprise as drama writers tend to be afraid of writing flawed female leads. However, her character growth isn’t written well and when episode 11 hits (more on this later), any hopes for more character growth goes out the window. This drama has no message and it could have had one if the male lead wasn’t a Gary Stu. Then the female lead could learn to value people for their hearts and not for their schooling and designer clothes. One of the flaws that the female lead has is that she’s materialistic. Apparently this isn’t a bad thing because they use her materialism for all kinds of product placement and she never stops being materialistic. Ugh...the PPL in this drama is so bad that calling it PPL doesn’t even feel right. It should be called shameless advertising or infomercials or something. If the PPL interrupts the flow of a drama, then it’s a problem, and this happens multiple times. I think what happened was, they didn’t fulfill enough of the PPL requirement in the first half of the drama, so the second half was jam-packed with it to make up for it. Poor planning on their part. They even have a long Domino’s pizza commercial in the last episode where the actors have to pretend like they’ve never tasted pizza before. It’s so cringey. And the PPL isn’t the only thing that’s cringey about this drama...as I’ve mentioned earlier, the dialogue – particularly the dialogue between the two leads – it’s so bad. It’s so bad that I can swear the actors were cringing just as much as I was. There are multiple instances where the female lead simply tells the male lead how her personality is. That’s not how that works...we’re supposed to be shown a character’s personality, not told. Now let’s talk about episode 11. This is when the drama really imploded. The leads are now dating, but of course they got to put in the ‘secret relationship’ trope for the sole reason of trying to pack as many tropes as possible into this drama. In an attempt to keep their relationship secret (which is already super disrespectful and why I hate this trope), she physically abuses the male lead. It’s even to the point where she makes him bleed. It was not cute, it was not funny, it had nothing to do with the story, it was alarming. This chick is supposed to have feelings for him and she can still do all that to him! Imagine if the roles were reversed and it was the male lead who was slapping, kicking, and head-butting the female lead out of “reflex”. But no, it’s okay because it’s a man being abused by a woman. This is when I wanted to drop the drama. I was disturbed by the female lead’s behavior (and by the drama writers thinking that this is perfectly fine and funny). It was no longer cute or romantic by any means. However, I decided to keep going mostly because I wanted to type up this review. Unfortunately, since that point in the drama, it was a painful watch through to the end. The physical abuse stops, but the female lead’s crazy does not. Her personality in the first half of the drama and her personality in the second half of the drama are two completely different characters. She is so vastly different that I was expecting the male lead to fall out of love with her since she’s not who he fell in love with anymore. She is so cringey, constantly talking with a baby voice trying to act “cute”. If you thought Welcome to Samdal-ri and Doctor Slump was bad, hold my beer. The leads had decent chemistry in the first half of the drama, but since the female lead has now become some sort of baby-talking sleep paralysis demon, the chemistry has left the building. By this point in the drama, I’m well aware of how terrible the writing is, so when the male lead’s mystery gets uncovered, I’m already 100 steps ahead. I won’t “spoil” it, but think of the most cliché thing that it could be and you’ll be correct. I really hate this trope, too; it’s so lazy and makes no sense. Around this time, the female lead starts to blatantly emotionally manipulate the male lead into revealing his past to her (something that he has kept private from everyone). Excuse me bitch, how long have you known him?? And you think you have the right to know all his secrets?? And what makes matters worse is that there are no interesting side stories to keep me from wanting to drop this drama either. All the side relationships are also kind of annoying and/or weird. To be completely honest, I thought almost all of the characters themselves were annoying. 1/10
Direction/SFX/Music: The best thing about this drama is the filming location. The production value looks decent. The OST is decent. The directing...I don’t know who to blame. With such a bad script, can you really do anything to make it better? It's also as if the last half of the drama is a completely different drama. 4/10
Entertainment Value: The first half was decently entertaining. I liked the frenemies vibe that the leads had. I liked watching her befriend the townspeople (although it could have been done much better). However, the second half is so bad (from episode 11 and on) that I was actually angry. I would have dropped this at episode 11, but I was so freaked out by all the positive reviews that I wanted to finish this drama so that I could write one. 1/10
Overall, I gave this drama a 1/10. I have to give it a 1 because I would have dropped it at episode 11. There's only one drama I've seen so far that has worse writing than this one and that's The Third Charm (and that's even debatable). If you didn’t like Welcome to Samdal-ri, you won’t like this. There are no good characters, no chemistry, no message, and every cliché in the book is thrown into this drama. It ends up turning into a series of PPL commercials.
Am I in the Twilight Zone? This drama was one of the worst I’ve ever seen, but how are so many people are saying it's their favorite? I’m flabbergasted…I was trying to avoid using that word because it sounds weird, but it’s the only way I can describe my feelings right now.
Acting/Cast: I like Kim Seon Ho (김선호), who plays the male lead. I know him from Catch Yoo Ryung, which is a drama I really enjoyed. His character is probably the only okay thing about this drama and he’s not even a well-written character. All the acting is bad from nearly everyone. Even the child actors weren’t great, aside from maybe Kim Min Seo (김민서). However, I think this is probably due to bad writing and directing; even the actors had no idea how to deliver these terrible lines. 1.5/10
Writing: The first half of the drama is decent. Although, the male lead literally is a Gary Stu, which is a clear indicator of bad writing. He’s good at everything, he went to a good college, he has a perfect personality, everyone loves him, blah blah blah. The female lead is a little better because she starts off very flawed. This was a nice surprise as drama writers tend to be afraid of writing flawed female leads. However, her character growth isn’t written well and when episode 11 hits (more on this later), any hopes for more character growth goes out the window. This drama has no message and it could have had one if the male lead wasn’t a Gary Stu. Then the female lead could learn to value people for their hearts and not for their schooling and designer clothes. One of the flaws that the female lead has is that she’s materialistic. Apparently this isn’t a bad thing because they use her materialism for all kinds of product placement and she never stops being materialistic. Ugh...the PPL in this drama is so bad that calling it PPL doesn’t even feel right. It should be called shameless advertising or infomercials or something. If the PPL interrupts the flow of a drama, then it’s a problem, and this happens multiple times. I think what happened was, they didn’t fulfill enough of the PPL requirement in the first half of the drama, so the second half was jam-packed with it to make up for it. Poor planning on their part. They even have a long Domino’s pizza commercial in the last episode where the actors have to pretend like they’ve never tasted pizza before. It’s so cringey. And the PPL isn’t the only thing that’s cringey about this drama...as I’ve mentioned earlier, the dialogue – particularly the dialogue between the two leads – it’s so bad. It’s so bad that I can swear the actors were cringing just as much as I was. There are multiple instances where the female lead simply tells the male lead how her personality is. That’s not how that works...we’re supposed to be shown a character’s personality, not told. Now let’s talk about episode 11. This is when the drama really imploded. The leads are now dating, but of course they got to put in the ‘secret relationship’ trope for the sole reason of trying to pack as many tropes as possible into this drama. In an attempt to keep their relationship secret (which is already super disrespectful and why I hate this trope), she physically abuses the male lead. It’s even to the point where she makes him bleed. It was not cute, it was not funny, it had nothing to do with the story, it was alarming. This chick is supposed to have feelings for him and she can still do all that to him! Imagine if the roles were reversed and it was the male lead who was slapping, kicking, and head-butting the female lead out of “reflex”. But no, it’s okay because it’s a man being abused by a woman. This is when I wanted to drop the drama. I was disturbed by the female lead’s behavior (and by the drama writers thinking that this is perfectly fine and funny). It was no longer cute or romantic by any means. However, I decided to keep going mostly because I wanted to type up this review. Unfortunately, since that point in the drama, it was a painful watch through to the end. The physical abuse stops, but the female lead’s crazy does not. Her personality in the first half of the drama and her personality in the second half of the drama are two completely different characters. She is so vastly different that I was expecting the male lead to fall out of love with her since she’s not who he fell in love with anymore. She is so cringey, constantly talking with a baby voice trying to act “cute”. If you thought Welcome to Samdal-ri and Doctor Slump was bad, hold my beer. The leads had decent chemistry in the first half of the drama, but since the female lead has now become some sort of baby-talking sleep paralysis demon, the chemistry has left the building. By this point in the drama, I’m well aware of how terrible the writing is, so when the male lead’s mystery gets uncovered, I’m already 100 steps ahead. I won’t “spoil” it, but think of the most cliché thing that it could be and you’ll be correct. I really hate this trope, too; it’s so lazy and makes no sense. Around this time, the female lead starts to blatantly emotionally manipulate the male lead into revealing his past to her (something that he has kept private from everyone). Excuse me bitch, how long have you known him?? And you think you have the right to know all his secrets?? And what makes matters worse is that there are no interesting side stories to keep me from wanting to drop this drama either. All the side relationships are also kind of annoying and/or weird. To be completely honest, I thought almost all of the characters themselves were annoying. 1/10
Direction/SFX/Music: The best thing about this drama is the filming location. The production value looks decent. The OST is decent. The directing...I don’t know who to blame. With such a bad script, can you really do anything to make it better? It's also as if the last half of the drama is a completely different drama. 4/10
Entertainment Value: The first half was decently entertaining. I liked the frenemies vibe that the leads had. I liked watching her befriend the townspeople (although it could have been done much better). However, the second half is so bad (from episode 11 and on) that I was actually angry. I would have dropped this at episode 11, but I was so freaked out by all the positive reviews that I wanted to finish this drama so that I could write one. 1/10
Overall, I gave this drama a 1/10. I have to give it a 1 because I would have dropped it at episode 11. There's only one drama I've seen so far that has worse writing than this one and that's The Third Charm (and that's even debatable). If you didn’t like Welcome to Samdal-ri, you won’t like this. There are no good characters, no chemistry, no message, and every cliché in the book is thrown into this drama. It ends up turning into a series of PPL commercials.
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