npatch

Waste of an interesting idea. There's no awareness towards therapy and treating people without just acupuncture and moxibustion or herb concoctions which is commonplace in any historical of the era.
Yet there's no awareness for the science itself. They use it out of desperation and it all looks as if it's not used intentionally but out of desperation and luck. Not to mention yet again overshadowed by a conspiracy and a villain. And yet again inconsistent characters who are bright and have intuition when it suits the scenario but are dumb as nails when it matters the most.
It could be much more. Shame.

The fact that this show rides on absurdity to the point of stupidity is beyond me.
Forced comedy like "she must be a beggar bc she is malnourished" even though she has good clothes, is clean and has a camera, is more annoying and just generally stupid than funny and it's a constant theme in this story.

You're right. Although still, not a fan of Moon Chae Won, at least in this particular one. Reid does feel like he's on the dot with this particular character, but his character stays a lot in the background so it's difficult to give him a good score so a pass it is. I can admit the rest are good enough.
A real shame though. There is potential, just not executed well.
Writer seems average. One of the directors too.

Anyway, time to get back to finishing it, I also don't like to drop and usually I don't even when I should have. Have 4-5 eps still.
Have a good day.

To be honest, from the cast I only really liked Kang Ki Hyung. The rest just don't capture any of the original characters or what they personify. Perhaps the Garcia equivalent a bit, although she lacks the crazy, she's only slightly eccentric without the constant witty humor.
Oh and from villains Kim Won Hae....he's a fave actor anyhow but he really drove his role home.

Most kdramas do unfortunately. And the worst part is for cop shows, because you're not supposed to go anywhere without backup for exactly that purpose, but then that makes things more difficult for script writers....you deny them the easy/cheap thrills.

That wasn't the problem. The problem was the writing. Whoever it was, would have flopped because the writing made his role very limited. Instead of dropping text walls of scientific jargon to support a hypothesis or even make one(here Kang Ki Hyun mostly got to make them), he got reduced to filling in a couple of lines here and there most of the time. No chance for the genious to shine. Instead he released that particular ability only in the form of the annoying person who corrected people on wrong beliefs while chit chatting, by dropping some unknown scientific fact. Less than 5% of Reid's original character.

Bland.
They really crippled Spenser's role, to make Oppa stand out more. Spenser used to drop scientific lectures all the time. He always had a lot to say, to support the profiling. And even though they had to cram 15 seasons in one, his part is still very limited compared to Joong Gi's. I fully agree on Kang Ki Hyung being an amalgam of the 3 you mentioned. I actually thought the same and wrote it to someone asking me about the korean version some days ago. I also think that part of Hotchner is in Joong Gi's role. How he seems to take charge whenever Kang Ki Hyung is not present, as well as Derek Morgan.

Some scenes are wasteful, which then has an effect on how many meaningful scenes we have. Moon Chae Won always looks like she fears for her life, really uninspired acting. Writing is also bad in some cases.

The major problem I saw with the writing was that it tried to replicate the show with Korean sensibilities but failed to capture the charm of the original. e.g. one difference that makes no sense in the original is that US has no mandatory CCTV, yet in Korea it's almost everywhere. I remember a case where I was like "Just check the CCTV, that crossroad is bound to have some" and it took them several scenes to do so because contrary to the original, that particular "obstacle" in the story would have been too easy to move on from. They'd have to alter some other part to make it difficult but then if done wrong, you'd still find a scene where the characters are purposefully avoiding the solution that's staring them in the eyes to drag the scene and convey the difficulty of the investigation somehow.

I have a single recommendations list on my profile. Anything I'd ever recommend is there. I also liked Manager Kim but I don't think I had that many issues with it. Perhaps because it was more comedy than serious. Stupidity in comedy is not uncommon or too much of a contrast, but in a serious plot where people try to be cunning and manipulative, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

Yap agree with everything. It's all basically a pattern of writers wanting to probably not invest much time in the writing of a new show and they default to using stupidity over intelligence, since stupidity is easy and intelligence requires research and a lot of brainstorming+verification which can be a rabbithole in itself. So one is clearly better in terms of time and budget efficiency during production (disregarding popularity when airing but it seems the people have lower standards for this to be acceptable for so long). Problem is they really don't try the way that can produce a masterpiece. Very few productions exist where they actually do the research. From cop/prosec shows my fave is Stranger exactly because it avoids most of these cheap mechanics. So far I haven't found inconsistencies but it's overall so good that even if there's any it'd still be high up for me, because against it we have shows like the above.
I shudder to think that somehow this is the upper limit in terms of complexity that the korean population can absorb and prefer to think reasons are like cutting down costs and covering with big name cast or production value etc.

Haven't watched Tracer but not surprised either. Although, I'm not against overpowered protagonists because you can't always have bad guys having the upper hand. Sometimes you need a good guy who's gonna flex that hard and prevail in an epic way without the David vs Goliath pattern.

My experiences so far are the opposite. I don't know if you have the will and time to look through my feeds as I almost always write mostly to rant about such issues. The most common plot device is inconsistency of the "good guys'" intelligence, exactly as I write.
Bad guys are almost always one to two steps ahead, otherwise it wouldn't be interesting and they stay 99% consistently smart about it all the way. But good guys are usually the ones who falter only to make a grander comeback all the way at the end of the show. Most shows I've seen so far follow this pattern where you have smart good people stumble all the time so that climax at the end is more staggering. Ghost was like that as well, hence that ref. e.g. Ghost is about a CSI Cyber division whose protocol for cases is to always back anything up first thing. You get a new clue from a new location? First thing you need to do is back it up. At the most crucial point, the good guys who are introduced as very reliable and very good at their jobs, "forget to" so then the evidence are lost when they most need them. IIRC, the bad guys have some goons storm the Cyber division HQ and steal the original evidence.
You'll notice that a lot of times the introduction of the protagonists is too good to be true. You have someone who is a rising star in their respective field and later they do some dumb shit so there's again that staggering climax at the end when they regain their intelligence and finally win the bad guys.
That's what I really don't like. That the writers *have to* make the good guys do some uncharacteristic dumb thing to falter because they keep making the bad guys consistent. Think about it. If they were both smart to begin with, that would mean an incredible hurdle for the writers in terms of how each one one-ups the other. There are very few shows that can boast such good writing. Most of them make a good bad guy, good as in interesting, who will fall at the end and a good guy who will do some dumb stuff most of the time, maybe even get unlucky and win at the end, instead of being consistently smart about or at least "competent". There's a huge difference when you make a mistake and when you make a really dumb mistake which obviously has a greater effect/loss for you. And writers usually go for the latter so it's actually disadvantageous in a sort of David vs Goliath (e.g. cop/prosecutor going against corrupt system created by power hungry corp/chaebol family) where you could have e.g. the corp going after witnesses (which tehy obviously would go after especially if they are being charged with murder among other things) and the good guys are like "we did not expect them to go after the witnesses even if they are charged with murders too. they got us this time", which comes across as naive, which is super frustrating when you start with some ridiculous intro that the protagonist is someone who has studied profiling, contrary to everyone else, can enter the minds of criminals etc, yet when faced with someone intelligent they can't suddenly use their abilities and then your witnesses are killed and you're back at square one. A good writer would try to keep cops about but they'd be corruptible, or have some insane plot where many mercenaries storm a safehouse to off the witnesses overpowering the force protecting them. You know...something that makes sense even if good guys lose at the end.
Sorry for the wall text, but it's one of my usual rants so it comes out naturally xD. The irony is that the lazy writers almost all of them are consistent about one thing, they use the same dumb plot devices to move the story forward all the time, as if they get taught about them at school prior to working at a tv network.

I'm currently watching ep17, but for the life of me cannot understand why they needed to drag this show to 28 eps. There's really no reason. Sure Saimdang making paper was empowering, but they didn't have to give us the whole story. In the end it all started with Mount Kumgang which predates the Goryeo paper issue. I get they want to show a parallel of corruption between the past and present but they could trim out the flashbacks. It's like watching two shows with totally different objectives, intertwined.
Also can writers please stop abusing their characters? What's the point of making Seo Ji Yoon a phd candidate or Saimdang a super capable woman, when they both end up betrayed or just making dumb decisions half the time to alert everyone to what they are doing? Or asking "Why?" something is happening to them when time and again, the villains have made themselves quite clear as to their intentions. That just messes up the character.

While I understand what you mean, he fell in love with her diligence and professionalism, also the fact that despite her flaws she always strived to improve (and did). I'm fine with it being about preferences (if you think about it, Jeong Won was about to go become a priest, when he could have any type of woman in the show...shows he doesn't have the same criteria as others). Like I said, I understand that she's a bit flat, but on the other hand, I kind of like that she's not one of the same old types of character. That's how I see it at least.

I'd rather listen to this one blabbering for 57 min per ep than any other show with lazy writing and the same old "good guys doing stupid yhings until thr very last minute of the whole show for the ultimate climax". This show at least has a tight story.

Totally idiotic plot. Female lead was such a pushover and half of the events don't make sense. Very forced.

I don't think I've come across more than 2-3 screenwriters I consider good, because I judge them based on whether they use bad practices or not(tells me how much the writer cares for a show). I say practices because they are not all the same type. Sometimes it's an overused transition between certain types of events, other times it's a trope over the whole show where there's inconsistency due to misrepresentation(e.g. super cool lead who makes uber dumb mistakes until the very end for the ultra climax). Other times it's just dialogues that make no sense.
Writers in Kdramas tend to use a lot of them and quite frequently, which lowers the quality of the show and in some cases, depending on whether they misrepresent things, it breaks the show.

Also actors are hit or miss as well when it comes to their shows. Even good actors end up in bad shows every now and then, which in MDL, it's even easier to make a bad judgement(at least personally) because ratings do not reflect any reasonable scale. Also by that logic, say I come across an actor in a couple bad shows(could be due to bad management, not every actor can choose) and I miss those that are good because I veto the actor based on the shows I've watched them in so far. What if I like supporting actors a lot? Some of them act in like every show that comes out. Do you drop those shows because the leads are not to your liking?

So I usually go by what captures my eye and mood and judge it on its own merit(good points vs bad points). But I usually end up giving more weight on how often these practices are used, because to me that's a sign that the production rushed and they resorted to the "easy way out" when in some cases it's to the detriment of the show.

Again, this is how I rationalize my own criteria.

I get that. I'm not trying to change your opinion. I'm only justifying mine and my criteria.
It has nothing to do with budget, apart from the reputation(and perhaps skill) of the crew attached. My examples so far have to do with dialogues and generally talking. It's not like it requires different locations,scenery etc. I think that had they thought it through they could have written something better. I'm not attacking this show specifically, or any 20+ show, but the general pattern in the industry where most writers slap one of those cheap mechanics and call it a day. And again, these things are being done even in high profile shows with larger budgets and shorter episode-wise.

I don't know more than 3-4 shows that have over 24 eps, so I don't know how standard it is for them specifically, but the norm for kdramas is 16eps and sometimes 20 and even then these writing mechanics are very common. I can't count the times I've been frustrated in some character being lobotomized momentarily just for the sake of the show's progress. To me that feels like super cheap conflict resolution. The problem is not the pacing being slow. The problem is how they choose to implement that and they often end up using the same old mechanics to advance the story, as if there's no other interesting way to produce drama which also results in messing the characters.

I'm very frustrated with this show. It's 53 episodes needlessly because there are always misunderstandings that take too long to resolve and no one is behaving like a normal person whenever they talk. Classic lazy ass writing. Why should Gang Shim say that the lawyer was the one that screwed her over all those years ago and at least have her father change lawyer and spare us an annoying character? When someone tells you something strange, you inquire more, you don't say "What are you saying? You're not making sense" even when the sentence was clear enough and letting them go. That's how this damn show has gone that long. At this point I'm only watching for Nam Ji Hyun and for Yoo Dong Geun, and because my damn OCD doesn't let me leave show unfinished. Apart from them all the others in the family are annoying and I'm only half way in the drama.
No matter how it ends, I'm def not gonna recommend it to anyone.

I never said they should have thought of a twin. That's why I mentioned a mental breakdown specifically. What gets me is that the rest of the people around him, do not consider the weirdness in his actions at all and don't act concerned. Even multiple personalities would have been plausible considering how different Kang Ho and Soo Ho acted. But that's beside the point. The point is that people don't care, which is unreasonable.
Also, Kang Ho knows how to act like Soo Ho. they are brothers. They grew up together. He knows how Soo Ho acts. If he wanted to, he'd at least act like him. At the very least he could be less talkative, which Soo Ho was, and always look as if he thought he was above everyone else, which he also was like when he was a teenager. We've seen flashbacks, which means Kang Ho remembers. Especially since Soo Ho was always the favorite one in his memories. The fact that Kang Ho despised his brother, means that he's at least familiar with Soo Ho as a character. So at the very least he could do something close enough. I mean, sure Kang Ho despised Soo Ho enough to want to mess his life, but at the same time, what was gonna be the endgame for Kang Ho in all this? He was an ex-con, so he should have thought about how this would affect him from day one. If he didn't try to emulate his brother at all, he'd get in trouble eventually.
Yes his acting does look like Jim Carrey but this is not supposed to be a comedy. If anything the poster, description, tags etc, don't show it as one. Jim Carrey on the other hand, does mostly comedy. You know it as a viewer going into it, thus changing the criteria you judge with. But here there's nothing for you to do so. Which is why I'm judging by serious-show criteria.
I've watched YSY in Hit the Top. His character was eccentric there too, but at least it was justified. Here the justification is very iffy. Any ex-con would at least try to have an exit plan, even if it's dumb. Kang Ho just goes through the motions and only manages to move on because everyone else just doesn't care about it. At least in Hit the Top, Cha Tae Hyun's character was there to save his ass when he did sth over the top, or at least provide some criticism for it, but here there's no one. I'm also very disappointed because his mother never figured it out. A mother should be able to tell her sons apart, at the very least, and she did know she had two sons, contrary to everyone else who thought Soo Ho was an only child.

My issue was mostly with the first half. The second half where he realized what he was doing with all that power and it changed him, he became a more serious. That's fine. But for the first part, while I understand your justification and I do agree with most of it, I still feel he was way too exaggerated. But kdramas have this annoying thing sometimes where there's something totally unrealistic happening, everyone sees it, everyone hints at it, but they always just move past it without thinking about it. To me it's very annoying when writers and directors feel that it's good writing when you release piece of information, let the viewer know it, then have everyone in the drama act absent-minded/stupid/indifferent and just move past it, instead of trying to have the script follow along what the user knows. Because then, you just sever the suspension of disbelief. To me, the way Kang Ho was portrayed at first would raise so many red flags, I'd at least consider that he's having some mental breakdown. But his associates, who are supposed to be part of the judicial system and should at the very least be bright people, ignore everything as "it's nothing, he's just acting weird". At this point, everything Kang Ho does just seems ridiculous that the fact that nobody cares to look into it, just becomes unreasonable. My point is, tone it down a bit so it's not too obvious.