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More Confirmation Than Revelation
The biggest weakness for me was the central twist. It wasn’t particularly well concealed, so when the reveal finally came it felt more like confirmation than revelation. Unfortunately, the explanation that followed didn’t make it any more satisfying. The villain’s motivation felt far too thin to convincingly explain how they became the person we eventually see. I don’t need a villain to be sympathetic or redeemable, but I do need to believe the path that led them there, and Notes from the Last Row never quite sold me on it.Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
All the Ingredients Were There, but I Never Felt It
I really wanted to love Twinkling Watermelon. It has so many of the ingredients I usually respond to in a K-drama: likeable characters, family, friendship, music, nostalgia and a story with plenty of opportunities to hit emotionally. Shin Eun-soo was also one of the main reasons I watched it, and I thought she was great.But somehow, the show just never moved me.
I think part of the problem was the pacing. Whenever the story created tension or a potentially interesting conflict, it often seemed to resolve it almost immediately. Things that felt like they should have been allowed to breathe rarely did, so I never developed that desperate need to find out what happened next.
The reveal between the two time travellers particularly bothered me. We’d only recently been shown that they both still had their phones from 2023, and then those same phones were used for the big moment where they discover each other’s identities. Instead of being a satisfying reveal, it felt like the show had shown me the answer immediately before asking me to be surprised by it.
There were also threads that seemed to disappear along the way. Early on, the challenge to play a Nirvana song felt like it was setting something up, but unless I missed something, it never really went anywhere.
None of this made Twinkling Watermelon bad. The performances are good, the characters are charming and I can understand why so many people absolutely love it. But for a drama built around relationships, youth, family and second chances, I expected it to hit me much harder emotionally than it did.
Sometimes a show can do almost everything right on paper and still leave you strangely untouched.
And that’s probably my biggest criticism: I finished it, and then almost immediately forgot about it.
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Kim You-jung Deserved a Better Story
I watched Dear X because I’ve become a fan of Kim You-jung after My Demon and 20th Century Girl. She didn’t disappoint. In fact, this is probably the best I’ve seen her. She convincingly portrays a manipulative, narcissistic and genuinely unsettling character without ever softening her edges to make her more likeable. It’s a fearless performance.The drama itself is a different story.
The opening arc is excellent. I don’t usually enjoy school settings, but this was easily my favourite part of the series. The relationship with Jae-oh and the baseball storyline gave the drama emotional weight, and it reminded me at times of a lighter version of The Glory.
Unfortunately, it steadily loses momentum after that. Once the story shifts into Ah-jin’s acting career and her relationship with her actor boyfriend, I found myself much less invested. This became one of the rare K-dramas where I reached the end of an episode without immediately wanting to start the next one.
The finale was where the story really lost me. Character motivations that had felt consistent for most of the series suddenly became difficult to believe, and the tragic ending felt more interested in shocking the audience than earning its emotional payoff.
Despite all that, I’m still glad I watched it. Kim You-jung’s performance alone makes it worth seeing if you’re a fan of hers, even if I don’t think the writing ever reaches the same standard.
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A Beautiful Beginning That Lost the Tide
I watched Summer Strike after seeing a TikTok edit and wondering how I’d managed to miss it. The first episode immediately hooked me. I even started the second one instead of going to bed.The opening episodes are exactly what I hoped for. The small coastal town, the library, and the central idea of stepping away from a life that has become nothing more than surviving all felt wonderfully understated. It had all the ingredients of a memorable healing drama.
Unfortunately, it never quite maintained that momentum for me.
The series tackles a lot of heavy subjects, but they didn’t have the emotional impact I’d expected. I’m not entirely sure why, perhaps because there were so many dramatic storylines competing for attention that none of them had enough space to breathe.
My biggest disappointment was the setting. I wish the ocean had become more of a character. The town and library were charming, but the coast felt underused. Given the premise, I kept expecting the sea to play a larger role in the story’s atmosphere and the characters’ healing.
Even so, I’m glad I watched it. The first quarter of the drama is genuinely captivating, and although the rest didn’t quite live up to that promise for me, it still offered moments of warmth and reflection that made it worthwhile.
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