It's not that ridiculous. I mean, at least, it doesn't rely on the contract-relationship trope, which would have made it feel cheap. The reasoning makes sense, given that it was 1994 and you couldn't contact someone unless you had their phone number or home address. She moves in, hoping her ex-fiancé - who stood her up at the alter - will return to the apartment, where he has apparently left some of his belongings. While her goal was marriage, Sena's dream was to become a professional pianist. Both experienced setbacks that forced them to stop and re-evaluate their lives. However, instead of calling it a failure, they refer to it as taking a 'long vacation'. I loved it; it's a cute and reaffirming show about bouncing back from a bad slump. Plus, the nostalgia really hit me! There were times when dating required people to put in so much more effort because a loved one couldn't be contacted in an instant via a quick message.
Does someone know if they’ve already started shooting? The actors should be free right now and Lee Je Hoon is going to start filming for Taxi Driver s3 in March.
The end ruined everything... They murdered the series with that end without a second season... 😵💫
I was disappointed at first, too! But if you think about it, that ending made perfect sense for a show like this. The scriptwriter wrote it without a second season in mind. A further season has been green-lit since then, but when that last episode aired, the intention was not to leave things open just to pave the way for another season.
After reflecting on it, I considered the message the ending was meant to convey. It’s just my interpretation, but it helped me accept the finale: it was symbolic. Even though the plot had a fantasy twist, the writer is, at heart, a realist. The show was not meant to suggest that injustice is easily fought and overcome or that solving a single case would create a perfect world. No—there will always be people abusing their power.
That’s why the characters being on a road toward an uncertain but hopeful future felt like the perfect ending. The show wasn’t meant to wrap everything up neatly but instead leave us contemplating the ongoing fight against injustice, which makes the finale feel purposeful rather than incomplete. But that's just my two cents!
Perhaps I watched too many crime/investigative dramas and am tired of police corruption/incompetence. 100 against…
It's probably because there have been too many dramas with similar themes since. When 'Signal' came out, it was quite revolutionary in its merging of crime, thriller, and fantasy. It was quite a trend-setter. Not saying that plots surrounding police corruption were never made before, but 'Signal' took a unique approach, attaching multiple sub-stories and two timelines to an overarching narrative. At the heart of it, this show is about fighting injustice, and while most shows would have a hero who'd single-handedly beat the system and make the world a better place, this drama never failed to show that its heroes are small and powerless unless they join forces. I liked how the message was that there'll always be people abusing their power, but that's bearable because there'll also always be people fighting them. It's about the power of ordinary people. I don't know if I'd still love it this much if I were seeing it for the first time now, though.
I didn't read the novel or anything but from these episodes alone it's shows that she feels inferior because she…
Sure, but I feel like there's more to it cause that would be so lame as a main reason for this amount of hatred towards herself, her father and her hometown. I can imagine that her being mixed made her get noticed more as a 'target' for not just bullying, but SA as well. The village already talked about her all the time because she apparently had such a rebellious personality. Maybe she left because she didn't want people talking about the awful thing that happened to her and be all like "That was bound to happen to her" or something. Perhaps, she thought that Yeon Su was too innocent to be dragged into the mess. She knew he liked living in that village and didn't want to shake up his peaceful little world that she, on the other hand, only had traumatic memories of. I'm not sure but I hope that the drama is headed towards a more impactful and layered narrative cause I love the actors and would love to watch it, but as of now it seems so...mundane? Korea loves mixed people, someone like her would be chased after by agents wanting to recruit her to some big entertainment company. Mixed idols like Jeong So Mi were targets of bullying, but they were discovered in their childhood for their looks. If at all, having 'white' features would have tons of benefits in the Korean society that's obsessed with caucasian beauty standards.
Has anyone read the book and can spoil, what happened to the FL? She doesn't behave like that over people badmouthing her, right? For some reason, I believe that she experienced SA and therefore believes she's not 'pure' enough for the ML or too trauma-packed to deserve him? At least that's my theory.
As someone who defended the drama after it got bashed so much after the first two episodes, I have to say: I gave it some time and the story is just really not captivating enough. I don’t know why the script was picked by such a great cast. Maybe they had faith in the writer and network. Maybe the plot was changed completely in the two-year editing process. Would like to know what went wrong cause I can’t imagine that this result was anyone’s plan from the get-go…this stuff happens a lot due to budget cuttings or miscalculations, censorship, network interventions or a dysfunctional writer-director teamwork. There’s gotta be something?
Already not the biggest fan of the first season, I watched the second because I had admittedly enjoyed the fast-paced predecessor and its criticism of our capitalist society. While this season was psychologically more layered, it felt lengthy and repetitive. We knew these locations, we had seen people bulge and surrender to this inhumane system in the face of their desperate situations or simply their greed. Season two didn’t add anything to the mix. As expected, no one had originally intended to make a sequel and it just came into being because Netflix wanted to follow up on the massive commercial success.
what patronising bs is this what new ideas its the same lame messy infidelity love triangle shit this writer always…
I don’t think that a drama focused on research on reproduction would make sense in any other setting than one where normal conditions don’t apply and where the composition of cells is not altered in some way. I’m not a biologist, but I think that if cell-biologists could conduct this kind of research in space, they would. That’s the most unrealistic thing about this drama btw! An almost all-Korean crew embarking on an expensive space mission to do a research that will hardly bring in any profit! Medical research would never get that much attention and budget, unless it’s for the sake of finding a solution for a pandemic or something. But oh well, it’s a drama.
what patronising bs is this what new ideas its the same lame messy infidelity love triangle shit this writer always…
Even if the space station turns out to be a backdrop only, issues like life, love and death could (not saying will) be depicted in a slightly more layered way compared to an office setting. It adds imminent danger and risk, making everyone involved appreciate certain things more that are a given on earth. Be it human interaction, living organisms, the simple act of eating ice cream or seeing two flies mate. The overarching theme being reproduction, I think that this will be about growing as a person and living with a purpose. The ml is so smitten by the fl because she loves what she does and she appreciates life in every form while he loves bringing new life into the world. For me, that’s pretty unique. That’s why I find harsh judgements of the overall project at this early point unfair.
what patronising bs is this what new ideas its the same lame messy infidelity love triangle shit this writer always…
You don’t know that yet. The sfl abused the ml’s powerless position to entangle him in a relationship. He had hit rock bottom and she was a nice girl, too. It seems like the father doesn’t have any intention of letting them stay together and the ml’s agenda seems to be to grow in his field, not to marry into a chaebol family. I’m not defending anything, maybe the plot will prove problematic in the future. But who knows at this point? I’m just angered by the way people declare one drama filled with tropes as a masterpiece after a few episodes and another as trash just because it’s different. And it IS quite different. It’s the first kdrama with a space setting, it uses quite interesting visual storytelling techniques and it’s overall quite experimental. Everyone fixated on the love-line which I’m quite sure won’t be that important because Gong-Hyo-Jin expressed a few years ago that after hitting her 40s, she’s not interested in taking roles in romance-driven dramas.
To defend this drama, bash another? After starting with "the amount of bashing I’m witnessing here is beyond…
Well, bashing the other drama is, at this point, more than reasonable cause 1. It’s already over, 2. Like, 3/4 of even its fans hated the final episode and 3. It ended up spreading problematic political messages. This drama, however, has just started and people are calling it boring, trash, not worth its big budget. It’s too early to tell, but everyone’s already rating it. That’s all I’m saying.
Let's make theories because I am so bored. Who think sfl will kill everyone 😜. Someone commented this but I…
My theory is that Lee Min Ho’s character is going to go back to earth after a serious injury or whatever, leaving it open whether he’ll survive. Fast forward to a year later: there’s a reproduction clinic and, surprise, he survived and is the person in charge. He has broken up with Go Eun and he and Eve are going to run into each other. The ending will be open. But I do believe that someone is going to die. Maybe the Spanish commander?
While I firmly believe that everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, the amount of bashing I’m witnessing here is beyond unreasonable. It’s a niche genre about research on reproduction in space with a romance sub-plot which I think is not going to be the focal point. But people are finding so much fault with it when obviously, it’s not their preferred genre to begin with. When ‘When the Phone Rings’ started, the ratings hovered around 8.8-8.9. That’s so high considering that it’s a tropey wattpad coded show with the most blandly written female protagonist, drawing attention mainly for a male lead thirsting after a mediocre woman and its steamy scenes. What I’m seeing here is especially disheartening because these days, there are so very few dramas attempting to come up with something new. This one is trying and I think that’s laudable. Yet, all that productions companies are going to take away from this kind of negative response is that new, innovative ideas are not worth investing in. All I’m trying to say is: give this drama a couple of episodes before judging and rating it. It was incredibly expensive and hard to shoot, the least it deserves is to be given a bit of time.
After reflecting on it, I considered the message the ending was meant to convey. It’s just my interpretation, but it helped me accept the finale: it was symbolic. Even though the plot had a fantasy twist, the writer is, at heart, a realist. The show was not meant to suggest that injustice is easily fought and overcome or that solving a single case would create a perfect world. No—there will always be people abusing their power.
That’s why the characters being on a road toward an uncertain but hopeful future felt like the perfect ending. The show wasn’t meant to wrap everything up neatly but instead leave us contemplating the ongoing fight against injustice, which makes the finale feel purposeful rather than incomplete. But that's just my two cents!