NaraLookpeach

Connecting to You has such a cute and genuinely interesting premise. The idea of seeing the invisible connections between people as coloured threads is probably the thing I liked most about this series. It gives the show a visual identity of its own, and I especially liked that the colours and even the way the threads change can tell us something about a relationship without the characters having to say it out loud.

And yet, the more I watched, the more I felt like the series didn't quite know what to do with its own concept.

Chia Kai's ability is fascinating, but I wanted the story to actually explore it more. Why does he have no thread connecting him to anyone when he clearly isn't as isolated as the series makes him out to be? He has his grandmother, friends and people around him, and even complicated relationships are still represented by threads. If the point was that Chia Kai was emotionally disconnected from everyone, I needed the story to show me why. Because he is actually quite open and approachable, which makes his complete lack of connections difficult to understand.

The same goes for his ability itself. He suddenly loses it, which made me think we were finally going to learn something important about where his powers come from — only for him to get them back after bumping heads with Ta Wei. That's it. Apparently all it took was a sufficiently dramatic headbutt.

The romance has a similar problem. I really liked Chia Kai and Ta Wei together, and their everyday interactions are genuinely sweet. But emotionally, I often felt like the series was skipping steps. We go from Ta Wei distrusting Chia Kai, to working and living together, to an accidental drunken kiss, to realising they have feelings for each other, and finally to discovering that they actually met as children.

All the ingredients for a meaningful romance are there. I just never felt like the emotional development had enough time to catch up with them.

I also wasn't completely convinced by the childhood connection being used to explain why their thread was so special. It's a cute idea, but because the series had spent so much time making that thread mysterious, I wanted the answer to feel more meaningful than simply finding out that they had crossed paths years ago.

Still, I can't say I didn't enjoy the show. It's warm, funny and easy to watch, and Chia Kai and Ta Wei have a lovely chemistry. The supporting cast also adds a lot of charm, and I liked that the supernatural ability wasn't just there for the romance but could actually be used in the police cases.

In the end, though, Connecting to You feels like a series with a really good idea that needed more time and a little more confidence in its own worldbuilding. I kept seeing glimpses of a much more interesting story underneath the cute romance — and I wish the show had dug a little deeper.