MiyamotoMusashi

That´s an accurate description. The process usually is fun to watch (though i think the triangles in 1997 and 1994 were completely unnecessary and not credible one bit), but once they get together, there is almost nothing that is shown, or after it is formed like you said, meh.
If i think of the Reply series, 1997 had a quick time skip and i think one episode in which they were actually together and it was ok, 1988 had a few scenes after they got together (i think it was two).
1994, at least from that aspect, was the best.

Yeah i completely agree, hence why i can´t really root for them, even if the writer wants us to.

I sincerely think it might be a cultural thing, i mean that until you are married and the families are basically united, you are not supposed to meddle or something. I have heard from several Korean natives that until it´s really serious with the thought of marriage, you would never invite your boyfriend or girlfriend home and introduce them to your family, let alone making them get involved in such a personal affair like domestic abuse.
From my point of view, it´s a no-go to not both mentally and physically support your partner and her family in such dire circumstances, but i guess we have to accept it.

This was a good drama overall, pretty unique in the beginning, the way they bickered was gold, and i wished that would have continued a bit longer.
The relationship for the most part was sincere and touching as well, the way they both changed their traumas or weaknesses into strengths was also noteworthy.
Unfortunately the last few episodes featured too much unnecessary nonsense and drama and too many clichés.

7.5/10.

Yep, too clichéd for a writer who is so unique in most other areas.

Just learned there will be a season 3.
Great.

You are right (i wrote about that below as well). The writer has problems writing about romance. She deals with everything else pretty maturely but her romantic plot lines are usually the weakest thing about her dramas (see Reply series).

Just one thing though, i think what Ik-Sun basically says is, she thought he was so exhausted from the job and on top with her, that she feared he would break up with him. And since she did not want to get rejected again (after her past relationship), she acted out of fear and broke up with him first.
Of course that does not justify her basically hurting him intentionally by claiming she fell for someone else. It was pretty immature.

On the other hand, i liked at least the reason for why we will see less of winter garden couple, and it was sufficiently built up as well, so personally i see no reason with that...
Except how superficial are the relationships that the guy you are seeing seriously and see a future with, can´t be part of your life even when you deal with family issues.
I don´t know if that´s a cultural thing but the relationships i know are not about "you deal with your side, i deal with mine".

Next year seems unlikely but i have no doubt it´s gonna happen unless the actors are tired of it (which i doubt since they are also doing a variety show). Ratings are still as good as season 1, the writer-director duo are highly established in the industry, especially after Reply 1988, and actors doing multiple series or movies is not rare.
Kim Dae-Myung was in two movies in 2020 besides first season of HP, Jung Kyung-Ho also had a movie in 2021, Cho Jung-Seok had two dramas and two movies in 2019.
Especially since HP cast is big and the scenes of each character spread over a long time, with different context and so forth, it´s definitely possible.

Nevertheless it might be unlikely for 2022 since apparently the duo wants to keep humane working hours (i bet also one of the main reasons why there are so many product placement scenes to cover the increased cost), so they might not push for a rushed schedule to quickly finish it.
Or they actually finish it with this season, and main couples all get or stay together and all of their problems are more or less resolved. It´s not impossible within almost 4 hours to be honest. Jun-Wan and Ik-Sun are just a good conversation away from getting back together, winter garden couple has consistently stayed strong, so with them there are no problems, bear-Chuchu seem to get ahead, and the feelings of Song and Ik-Jun are already established.
So if the last two episodes do not feature long patient scenes, i think it´s possible.

To summarize, the main character´s arc that need to get resolved are:

- Jun-Wan and Ik-Sun getting together
- Yang dealing with his mother, something he could not do for his ex-wife, and getting together with Chuchu (or not, who knows)
- Ik-Jun and Song admitting their feelings openly and getting together.

There is not much else that needs to happen if we are honest.

And beyond that, there is nothing they really have to feature. Of course it can go on and on with patient stuff, band meetings and rehearsals and new problems introduced,
But from the already established stuff, a season 3 does not have to happen narratively.

Oh totally, i am not talking about him. Emotional investment from his side is perfectly understandable. I am talking about her.
We have seen how much they were in love, Jun-Wan acted towards her like towards nobody before or part girlfriends, heck he was ready to propose if i remember correctly, so him feeling the attachment still and wanting to get back, i can somewhat understand.

But the fact that she broke it off after one comment from her brother (who did it without knowing anything, meaning the context of Jun-Wan´s struggles, nor the fact that the girlfriend was her) is teenager behavior, no matter what the background context is. He has always been honest with her, so the mature thing would have been to address it and deal with it together, not pretend to have fallen for somebody else and basically increasing the emotional injury on Jun-Wan even more.

And i get that she basically was doing it as a preemptive action before Jun-Wan maybe might have broken up with her (which he showed no indication of by the way) and she would have felt more hurt, especially since her last relationship ended so shittily and left a trauma for her, but i think the show needs to address that that is not a sufficient reason and that she made a mistake.

That´s why i can´t really get behind and root for it completely.

Best episode of the season for me. A lot of developments for the staff, but also a patient story with more depth and a nice parallel to the 5 main characters, who would probably donate a liver for their friends as well.

- The interactions of the five mains were amazing in the beginning scene, even if it was product placement once again.

- Gyeo´s story with her mother was touching, maybe because it really hit close to home with an abusive father and a mother who has given up, only that i would be the younger brother if we draw a parallel. I liked how maturely it was handled, from her explaining everything to Jeong-Won, to his reaction and response to it. Very well done. And nice cameo from Lee Il-Hwa, immediately recognized her unique voice, was wondering if we will see her in another project of the writer after we had the Sung Dong-Il cameos.

- Dr.Do´s plot was also very well done, even if it was rushed a bit. Nice to see more focus on him, it´s a good character.

- Chuchu´s parents thinking Jun-Wan is the bear cracked me up. Yang being so amazed at the photos once again underline his feelings for her.

- Ik-Jun and Song-Hwa relationship are really like bread crumbs over all the episodes.

- Still can´t get behind the Ik-Sun Jun-Wan relationship at this point. It does not really fit in the context of this drama in which the characters usually show incredible maturity in their worldview and actions.

- I know globalization has many negative aspects but it can also be amazing seeing a Korean TV show in 2021 has their main characters perform a Bon Jovi song from 20 years ago, and it was pretty good.

- In context of that, Jeon Mi-Do looked amazing in the leather outfit.

- Jeong-Won being jealous but still solving the situation in a way fitting of his personality was funny.

- I hope Chuchu and Yang work out, and Yang leaving to US is a ploy for his mother, so that he can pretend Chuchu is the reason he stayed in Korea, so that the mother is thankful to her.

- I could have gone without the cliffhanger at the end, does not really fit a show that is not living off suspense and i doubt something will actually happen, we will see.

Dr. Do had night shift at the end, so he is out.
Yes, someone from the four main leads is meant.

What do you mean?

I don´t see it because if you wanted to, you can reduce the amount of shown patients and in return concentrate on them much more. As macabre as it sounds, people suffering, with a specific context of why they got sick, the reaction of their surroundings, the anguish of trying to get better and so forth, could have provided a similar experience as PP.
Here the patients and the focus remains superficially, we are told what they have, but we can´t feel it.
It´s not like HP has not shown to be capable of doing that, it just rarely did. Just to give an example, the two mothers bonding over the fact that their two young children were waiting for a heart transplant, the fact that the mother who was optimistic at first went into depression over months of waiting, the fact that the second mother still came to the hospital as moral support and so forth, those scenes really got me emotionally. But it was a rare case of the writer taking time and showing the patients´family in this case, and how they struggled with their situation.
But for the most part, a patient story gets 20 minute or so, and a lot of patients with different injuries or diseases get shown to add a lot of technical terms.
To take up your point, you can sympathize with the doctors if they as well are shown with more focus, that´s my point. I don´t think it is hard to sympathize with someone who, potentially, is shown to be always tired, sacrifices a personal life for the most part for their profession and passion to save lives and so forth, but these things have to be shown intensively and with focus, and not just told. In the recent episode, we are told that interns are always tired, show as that with background information, instead of just telling us and moving on.

On your last part, i definitely agree with you, and you have also made a few things more clear to me, so thanks for that.
The revolving door metaphor seems fitting, if you, just like me, watch the episode in succession, you are just oversaturated with in the end short and ultimately meaningless patient stories over and over.

Can only judge those that i have seen, and from those top 5 overrated (based on rating on this site):

DotS: It was a very good romance, heck the chemistry was so palpable because it was real at that point, hence why they married. But besides that, a lot of completely ridiculous events, hence overrated.

It´s okay to not be okay: I think people really liked the for K-Drama unique protagonist, since she was so outspoken, but that is not enough to justify a 9.0 rating, there was nothing else noteworthy.

Crash Landing on You: Another cheesy and full of clichées rom-com from Park Ji-Eun. It´s fun to spend some time, but a rating of 9.0 is way too much.

Hospital Playlist: It´s the best rated show on the site among another, yes very overrated. The usual witty dialogue comes up here and there from the brilliant writer, but it is among hours of hours of interchangeable patient stories that serve no purpose beyond it happened. There is almost no personal exploration of the characters, they almost only exist within the context of the hospital. I think it´s supposed to be a love letter to health professionals, but that makes it relatively dry.
It´s still very good at some parts, but it´s not even best drama of the director-writer duo, let alone best drama overall.

Flower of Evil: 50-60% of the show was brilliant and almost completely new in K-Drama land. The first 9-10 episodes were top notch drama entertainment, the premise was bold, the acting was spot-on, gotta praise especially Lee Joon-Gi for his performance in those episodes, the combination of murder mystery, romantic drama and psychological exploration of its main character were unique and always kept you at the edge of your seat, the episodes just flew by.
Then starting with episode 11, there was a significant drop in quality, whether it was overacting (suddenly everyone started acting like it is a 90s Makjang, especially Lee Joon-Gi whose character suddenly made a 180 degrees turn), characters becoming more stupid to fit the plot, completely predictable "twists", and events that have been done thousand times before in the same or similar fashion (not only the you know what in the last episode but everything before post episode 10), which is a stark contrast to both the unique premise before, and also the grounded style of dialogue and behavior of the characters before episode 11.

That´s the exact sentiment. You have no relation to the patients, and while it may be technically accurate and thus maybe interesting to actual health professionals, as an amateur you don´t get much from the treatment either, so it feels like a succession of random patient stories with no appeal. Just to give an example from the most recent episode, since that´s the freshest in my mind, the emergency patient, what purpose did it provide beyond being just another case. I think simply showing that it happens is simply not enough for a series like this.

The reply series mostly lived off the character interactions in context with a specific time period and a theme, so maybe it´s not fair to compare it to something like HP (though occasionally HP shows the brilliant and witty interactions as well, though unfortunately they are too spread out). But PP and Live i think can be very well compared.
And i do not agree that the setting of Prison Playbook and Live being inherently better or more sensational is the main or sole reason for the difference though. What Prison Playbook mostly lived off were the personal stories of the inmates or guards and they just happened to come together in the prison setting. The main appeal was not the confrontations with other inmates and such for the suspense part, but the writer taking the time to give many characters highlights and a backstory to underline how colorful and different the characters, contrary to simplistic view regarding criminals, can be in a prison, and thus build a relationship with the audience and stimulate investment.
In HP, the patients are interchangeable, you don´t know anything about the staff (even for the most part the 5 main characters).

Live as well, there were certainly some sensational stuff, but for the most part it dealt with mundane and daily tasks but what it made it special was the characters getting shown in both their professional and personal context, most of the time the interaction between the two worlds so to speak and how they effect each other.

That´s why i am perplexed about the rating, since within the same genre, there are far better examples, even if they might have their own faults.

I should add though, just to be fair, that it is possible that watching it weekly and waiting for next episode might create a different impression.
As a fan of the duo, i waited until season 2 came out and even aired 9 episodes, before i watched season 1, since from experience with their other shows, i can just eat up one episodes after another.
HP is the first one that did not do that for me.

That´s a good point, i think that might be the main reason why i can´t fully get into it (love the witty dialogue and the banter of course though). The patient treatment stuff is simply not so interesting to me because in the end the patients are interchangeable, you don´t get into the treatments in-depth either, for the most part it´s just about different hospital workers interacting with the patients in one way or the other. The patients are featured way too shortly to create an attachment, so it´s really reduced to doctors and nurses in different positions and their daily lives almost. It´s too thin to be a procedural and cover 90 minutes or more each week, at the same time the personal stuff also comes way too short to stimulate a deep connection to the characters either.
And i am not only talking about romance obviously, though that can be part of it (but definitely does not have to) but just personal stuff to combine with their professional lives. You get just a few scenes for each character that are spread over two seasons and almost 40 hours.
Anyway, that´s my impression, i really tried to love it as much as the other stuff from the duo, but it´s way too dry.

I think, to make a valid comparison beyond the stuff of the duo, i think the drama "Live" about police officers did this much better. You got an in-depth view into their daily lives and the challenges of their profession at almost every level, but Writer Noh never sacrificed the personal characterization of the cast.

They were not perfect by any means, but i feel like they still had a clear concept and stuck to it.

And like you alluded to, i sincerely think the writer not being used to the seasonal structure is one main reason why this feels lackluster often.

I usually love the dramas of the duoy whether its reply or prison playbook.
HP is a series of widespread great moments with a lot of scenes that you can skip in-between, especially most patient stuff.

Got to episode 7 after finishing the first season, i gotta say both are very overrated with 9,1 and 9,0.

Because it is only occasionally great, but most of the time pretty lackluster.

Just finished the first season yesterday, since, despite being a huge fan of the writer-director duo (or maybe because i am a huge fan), i decided to wait until season 2 comes out to reduce possible withdrawal symptoms.
And i have to say, of course underlining that this very well might be nitpicking and complaining on a very high level, still have to say it´s not my favorite of the duo, let alone best K-Drama, which the high score suggests.
The fact that the drama is still very much above average is a no-brainer, the duo is so creative in their storytelling, dialogue, interactions and so forth, it´s always a delight to watch anything created by them and how they seeminglessly can pull on your heart strings, and that includes Prison Playbook, which technically has Lee Woo-Jung only as creator. So i will not mention this part again, the duo are one of the best storytellers in the visual medium period right now, not only in Korea but worldwide, and that´s not an exaggeration.

Having said that, this drama really felt like a series of loosely interwoven scenes that by themselves are certainly impactful, but seemingly have no connection with each other whatsoever for the most part. There was barely an overarching narrative, something to hold onto really to structure the scenes around. It was a pure slice of life at least 90% of the time, basically concentrating either on the hospital events and the characters in context with the hospital in outside settings. And the dialogue in the scenes is witty, interesting and so forth, does not change the fact that you could, for the most part, interchange the scenes with each other and nothing would change as consequence narratively. And the countless patient scenarios did not help, since the quality of them varied a lot, or they were very similar in their setting.
I think Prison Playbook did this much better, since you definitely had a few overarching plots in succession but still did not neglect the character interactions, characterizations and so forth, so it was a well done mix between slice of life in a prison setting and highlighting the many different characters while still not neglecting something overarching (basically mini-arcs).

Heck, a lot of scenes felt really cut off, without no conclusion, despite featuring pretty monumental interactions (someone confessing for example, and then it was forgotten and taken up a few episodes later on the side), did not seem very well thought out in that aspect i must say.

In addition, while i did like the characters, especially main ones, individually, and sometimes with one another, i did not really like them as a group, i did not feel the chemistry as much as the groups in Reply 1997, 1988 or Prison Playbook.

I don´t know whether it´s to do with the new season structure, thus the writer did not know exactly how to pace things, or whether it was done on purpose to stretch things out to three seasons, but yeah, i felt that was missing.

Some positive things beyond the usual stuff from the director-writer duo:

- The music/band scenes were really done well and cut into the episodes fittingly.
- Jo Jung-Suk reached A-level status in Korean actors for me. Before this, i liked him in his roles, and he was profilic to a certain extent, but in this he is brilliant. His comedic timing, his presentation of witty dialogue, his serious scenes, or sad scenes, he was great.
- Jung Kyung-Ho basically plays the same character here as in Prison Playbook, and that includes going after the sister of one of his best friends secretly.
- The allusions to Prison Playbook and Reply series were nice.
- Jeon Mi-Do, to quote the movie Crazy, Stupid, Love, is the perfect combination of cute and sexy.

Good idea, it is the ending of episode 8, much earlier than i remembered.