This review may contain spoilers
South Korea's first ever lesbian dating show.
This is the first dating show I've ever watched, and I've really enjoyed it. Let me start with a brief summary of the show before describing what I liked, and what I didn't.* Show Summary
The show starts with seven women, all lesbian, bisexual or pansexual, arriving one at a time at the location where they will be living together for a week. There is plenty of awkwardness at the start, as each person arrives to greet those who arrived earlier. The more extroverted personalities stand out while the more introverted people mostly sit back to observe. Room mates are assigned, eyes wander and people start to get to know each other. Each woman is then given the opportunity to write an anonymous note to whoever first caught their eye. The one who receives the most notes gets to go on a date with the person of their choice.
The following day, our "catfish" contestant arrives to even out the numbers at eight. She immediately chooses an existing contestant for a date, while the remaining six women remain behind. Over the rest of the week, various activities and games are played, conversations happen, advice is sought and given, gossip is shared, misunderstandings occur, meals are cooked, tears are shed and life is lived. Towards the end of the week, more one on one dates happen giving contestants the opportunity to spend time together.
* Show Quality & Other Observations.
I found the quality of the show to be quite high. It was professionally filmed with good quality sound (including the outdoor scenes), and was quite well edited. The location was suitable, although I would have preferred it was filmed in summer rather than winter.
One thing that caught my eye from the very start was just how good looking all the contestants are. (A skin care company is also a sponsor of the show). Also, there was zero skinship shown on camera, with a focus on contestants interacting and bonding on an emotional level. Consequently, there are numerous scenes of extensive dialogue between contestants.
* The Controversies
Unfortunately, some controversies have diminished this show, which is quite disappointing. I will only mention here the two known issues that affected the show, and not any of the other rumours and accusations that were made.
1.) Before episode 3 was publicly released, the showmakers became aware that one of the contestants had previously worked as a Cam Girl. Consequently they decided to "remove" that contestant from the show. Because filming had already been completed, they chose to edit this contestant out of many (but not all) scenes she was in.
[UPDATE: A new "extended version" of this series has now been released which does not remove the contestant.]
2.) One of the contestents is only 19 years old, much younger than the other contestants, most of whom are in their early 30s.
* What I Liked
I loved seeing same-sex attracted women represented in a "normal" and genuine way, especially in a country that is still largely homophobic. Although imperfect (as we all are), all contestants seemed to be kind and sincere people who were choosing to participate in the hope of finding love. We got a glimpse of their weaknesses, strengths, hopes, fears and humanity.
I generally liked the structure of the show, although there were some things that I would have preferred were done differently.
I liked that they didn't have a panel of commentators interjecting their thoughts into the show, taking time away from the contestants.
* What I Didn't Like
In my opinion, semi-erasing one contestant from the show was a silly decision and an over-reaction by the showmakers, and it resulted in a poorer show than what it could have been. It sometimes resulted in important interactions with other contestants being deleted, leaving viewers confused about why something was now happening. [UPDATE: The "extended version" corrects this.]
I thought it was unfair to accept the teenage contestant when the rest of the contestants were (in some cases) old enough to be her mother. I have no problem with age gap romance, and if she did end up with one of the other contestants, I would have been very happy for her. However, I think they should at the very least, have told her the ages of the other contestants so she could have made an informed choice about whether or not to participate.
I thought the instructions that went with the "love notes" were sometimes ambiguous, and because these notes were anonymous, it sometimes resulted in confusion and misunderstanding.
None of my 'shipped couples ended up together, but that is hardly the fault of the show.
We didn't get to see all contestants do their final confession on the last day. It is unclear if those contestants chose to not participate in this, or it was just edited out.
I really hope there are more seasons of this show in the future, and other companies also begin to produce GL dating shows.
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Its pretty bad ...
I'm a big GL drama fan, but this drama is pretty bad. Specifically ...* The acting ranged from average to bad. In my opinion, the most naturally gifted actress in the entire series was Kina Kinnary Chaleunphol who played Som. Some of the bit part actors were terrible.
* The sound ranged from satisfactory to bad. Sound levels were often inconsistent, with some dialogue being way too quite and then sometimes background music being too loud. Dialogue audio often included a lot of background static suggesting cheap recording equipment was used, and/or the audio people didn't know what they were doing.
* The cinematography was actually OK, so at least their camera crew were competent.
* But by FAR the biggest weakness of the drama was the script. Much of the drama consistested of meaningless subplots and semi-random scenes that went for too long and contributed nothing to the narrative. There seemed to be a concerted effort to stretch out the runtime. Even the main plot (if I can even call it that) was simplistic, but somehow also managed to be confusing. Overall, it is an amateur production that falls well short of most of the Thai GLs that have been made in the last couple of years.
Even though this drama was pretty bad overall, it does have (in my opinion) the most realistic love/sex scenes of any Thai GL to date, so it should at least get credit for that. If you're a hard-core GL fan, then it is still worth a watch, otherwise I'd suggest you give it a miss.
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