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This review may contain spoilers
Good if you watch 1/3 of it at 2x speed
There is a lot that works about this drama, even (in theory) the non-traditional format of multiple virtual "ML"s and a slower burn for the REAL ML. But it had a couple of weaknesses that made everything kinda unravel.
What works unconditionally:
- SIG. He is aging like a fine wine, and adds some really beautiful and subtle layers into a very understated character that weren't really in the writing, and he is without a doubt the best thing about this show. It's like a breath of fresh air once he's actually given room to fully embody his character, and those few episdoes after the mid point are the best of the show by far.
- The cameos and parody of romcoms and dating: The social commentary and poking fun at the romance genre in general provided a lot of laughs. And having a rotating cadre of famous MLs as the virtual boyfriends was delightful.
What sunk the show:
- The FL was too capricious. (I blame the writing as much as I blame Jisoo's performance). She vacillated between being oblivious of the ML or hating him up until she suddenly realized she liked him, then vacillated between wanting to be with him and wanting to never see him again up until pretty much the last moments of the show.
For the first half, if the underlying sexual tension beneath their "hate"had been played up and they'd gotten a lot more scenes together with those fun romcom "charged" moments, showing their growing attraction and conenction even while pretending to dislike each other, the virtual boyfriend format would have worked wonderfully, but little about their interactions were romantically compelling. We only see after the halfway point how absolutely smitten with the FL the ML has been this whole time, and I found myself screaming at my screen a little bit asking the show WHY they hadn't shown us more of this beforehand.
For the second half after they confess, the ML is super steadfast and consistent, but the FL refuses to learn despite making the same mistake over and over and over again and having terrible consequences. She keeps hiding things, lying to him, not facing her own feelings, and not just asking basic, easy questions or communicating. It just made their love seem childish rather than poignant by the end.
Another issue is the virtual bofyriends are given either too little or too much. Having one virtual boyfriend become almost a second lead, then another become an almost other second lead, while others are there for a half an ep, or for just one scene, made it all seem chaotic and uneven and made it hard to follow the threads of the themes or meaningful substance of the show. The boyfriends should have been more carefully paced and tied much better into the overall plot and FLs character arc than they were.
The final issue is that ALL of the IRL side charactesr are weak. They're just there to be people for the ML and FL to talk to. None of the other charactesr have character arcs or real goals or actually change by the end, or pull you in emotionally. you don't really care about any of them. Had some of them had interesting side stories to add, it would have helped keep the interest until the main story takes off.
Overall it was sometimes fun, funny, romantic, moving, and even poignant but I would not have gotten through it without heavy use of the 2x speed function.
What works unconditionally:
- SIG. He is aging like a fine wine, and adds some really beautiful and subtle layers into a very understated character that weren't really in the writing, and he is without a doubt the best thing about this show. It's like a breath of fresh air once he's actually given room to fully embody his character, and those few episdoes after the mid point are the best of the show by far.
- The cameos and parody of romcoms and dating: The social commentary and poking fun at the romance genre in general provided a lot of laughs. And having a rotating cadre of famous MLs as the virtual boyfriends was delightful.
What sunk the show:
- The FL was too capricious. (I blame the writing as much as I blame Jisoo's performance). She vacillated between being oblivious of the ML or hating him up until she suddenly realized she liked him, then vacillated between wanting to be with him and wanting to never see him again up until pretty much the last moments of the show.
For the first half, if the underlying sexual tension beneath their "hate"had been played up and they'd gotten a lot more scenes together with those fun romcom "charged" moments, showing their growing attraction and conenction even while pretending to dislike each other, the virtual boyfriend format would have worked wonderfully, but little about their interactions were romantically compelling. We only see after the halfway point how absolutely smitten with the FL the ML has been this whole time, and I found myself screaming at my screen a little bit asking the show WHY they hadn't shown us more of this beforehand.
For the second half after they confess, the ML is super steadfast and consistent, but the FL refuses to learn despite making the same mistake over and over and over again and having terrible consequences. She keeps hiding things, lying to him, not facing her own feelings, and not just asking basic, easy questions or communicating. It just made their love seem childish rather than poignant by the end.
Another issue is the virtual bofyriends are given either too little or too much. Having one virtual boyfriend become almost a second lead, then another become an almost other second lead, while others are there for a half an ep, or for just one scene, made it all seem chaotic and uneven and made it hard to follow the threads of the themes or meaningful substance of the show. The boyfriends should have been more carefully paced and tied much better into the overall plot and FLs character arc than they were.
The final issue is that ALL of the IRL side charactesr are weak. They're just there to be people for the ML and FL to talk to. None of the other charactesr have character arcs or real goals or actually change by the end, or pull you in emotionally. you don't really care about any of them. Had some of them had interesting side stories to add, it would have helped keep the interest until the main story takes off.
Overall it was sometimes fun, funny, romantic, moving, and even poignant but I would not have gotten through it without heavy use of the 2x speed function.
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