This review may contain spoilers
Unique BL, but not the best BL
The storyline was interesting in the beginning and then fell off the handle.
Takeaways:
1. Love timeloop + medical drama
2. BL with a plot
3. Decent actors, some were better than others, especially the actors who played Rit, Sing, Jinta stood out. The leads were kinda stiff in emotional scenes and stared at each other creepily; wasnt the strongest chemistry, but wasnt the worst. Part of it could be because of the script. Some actors don't really have any real roles like the female doc, ex-gf of Tin's, the evil friend duo of Tol's or the mutual friend winggirl.
4. Plot.
I was going to give up on the series because it took me forever to finish ep 1. There was a lot of medical info dump and stiff acting from Tin (maybe because he was exhausted?) and repetitive time loop scenes, but I powered through. From ep 2 to 11, the story telling was quite compelling, albeit with a lot of loopholes. Like the convenient family friend/savior or tutor-student relationships , handing over the book to get Tol up to speed in ep 12, or change of rules wrt timeloop didnt make sense. The way Tin and Tol switched personalities was also questionable. Tin was not friendly towards Tol in the beginning because he thought he was responsible for drunk driving, but then did a whole 360 and started falling in love with Tol for no real reason because imo Tol was so unlikeable. When the POV switched to Tol, Tin was kinda emulating Tol's earlier behavior which feels so out of character for Tin, especially as a Doctor, where is his empathy when he decided to leave Tol at the hospital knowing how frantically he was searching and waiting for Tin for hours. The characters conveniently remember the past or forget it atleast in the later episodes its shown that Tin starts remembering Tol from the kiss. Anyway, the mystery was more of less solved by episode 4, the rest of the episodes was about romance and learning small new information about the characters/loop and getting out of it. Despite that the middle episodes were entertaining up until the POV change to Tol. While I don't hate the idea, the plot fell even flatter after that and there was a lot of scene repetition. Finale felt predictable more or less though I dont know why Tin has to be in a coma for an unknown length of time and how he suddenly wakes up to find Tol at the clocktower. I feel like I could go on and on about the problems I had with the plot.
5. Music was okay, nothing outstanding, not terrible.
6. Wish the cast had a slightly diverse wardrobe when they are outside the hospital/uni setting. Like Tol could have worn more casual clothes instead of his uni uniform. Thats a side-effect of a story set in time-loop, but I feel like this show had more scenes to work around to change wardrobe as opposed to shows like Reset (Chinese).
I think I'm being quite generous with my rating here. I would rate it 7-7.5 since there wasnt anything especially outstanding about it. But I love how the show has more plot than a typical BL, but also not quite well-written for it to be a Thriller and would love to see more such attempts from the BL industry. Despite the awkward romance, I feel like it had the right amount of romance and I enjoyed how there were good kisses but no explicit NC scenes and the narrative was mostly focused on developing and resolving the plot. In comparison to Manner of Death that I rated slightly higher at 8.5, I feel like while that had less romance, it was more gripping whodunit mystery that was more compelling until the very end.
Takeaways:
1. Love timeloop + medical drama
2. BL with a plot
3. Decent actors, some were better than others, especially the actors who played Rit, Sing, Jinta stood out. The leads were kinda stiff in emotional scenes and stared at each other creepily; wasnt the strongest chemistry, but wasnt the worst. Part of it could be because of the script. Some actors don't really have any real roles like the female doc, ex-gf of Tin's, the evil friend duo of Tol's or the mutual friend winggirl.
4. Plot.
I was going to give up on the series because it took me forever to finish ep 1. There was a lot of medical info dump and stiff acting from Tin (maybe because he was exhausted?) and repetitive time loop scenes, but I powered through. From ep 2 to 11, the story telling was quite compelling, albeit with a lot of loopholes. Like the convenient family friend/savior or tutor-student relationships , handing over the book to get Tol up to speed in ep 12, or change of rules wrt timeloop didnt make sense. The way Tin and Tol switched personalities was also questionable. Tin was not friendly towards Tol in the beginning because he thought he was responsible for drunk driving, but then did a whole 360 and started falling in love with Tol for no real reason because imo Tol was so unlikeable. When the POV switched to Tol, Tin was kinda emulating Tol's earlier behavior which feels so out of character for Tin, especially as a Doctor, where is his empathy when he decided to leave Tol at the hospital knowing how frantically he was searching and waiting for Tin for hours. The characters conveniently remember the past or forget it atleast in the later episodes its shown that Tin starts remembering Tol from the kiss. Anyway, the mystery was more of less solved by episode 4, the rest of the episodes was about romance and learning small new information about the characters/loop and getting out of it. Despite that the middle episodes were entertaining up until the POV change to Tol. While I don't hate the idea, the plot fell even flatter after that and there was a lot of scene repetition. Finale felt predictable more or less though I dont know why Tin has to be in a coma for an unknown length of time and how he suddenly wakes up to find Tol at the clocktower. I feel like I could go on and on about the problems I had with the plot.
5. Music was okay, nothing outstanding, not terrible.
6. Wish the cast had a slightly diverse wardrobe when they are outside the hospital/uni setting. Like Tol could have worn more casual clothes instead of his uni uniform. Thats a side-effect of a story set in time-loop, but I feel like this show had more scenes to work around to change wardrobe as opposed to shows like Reset (Chinese).
I think I'm being quite generous with my rating here. I would rate it 7-7.5 since there wasnt anything especially outstanding about it. But I love how the show has more plot than a typical BL, but also not quite well-written for it to be a Thriller and would love to see more such attempts from the BL industry. Despite the awkward romance, I feel like it had the right amount of romance and I enjoyed how there were good kisses but no explicit NC scenes and the narrative was mostly focused on developing and resolving the plot. In comparison to Manner of Death that I rated slightly higher at 8.5, I feel like while that had less romance, it was more gripping whodunit mystery that was more compelling until the very end.
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