scenophile

I was super excited for this one. Even though I didn't like the "fate" aspect that much, I liked the concept of two opposites as the main lead. Most of all, when I first started, I loved that the main female lead was ACTUALLY a tomboy, from the way she dressed to her reputation at school.

But after the first episode, and after the male lead appeared, that practically disappeared, and the "tomboyishness" of the FL was completely dimmed down again. Her clothes became pretty "cutesy," and worst of all, the plot hit her with ALL—and I mean ALL—the damsel-in-distress cliches, from "girl with a hurt ankle needs guy to carry her" to "girl is about to get bullied and guy saves her." I just...the main lead started off so strong. What happened?

To add to that, I was never a fan of insta-love in the first place, and this just confirmed my disdain for it. The main character's personality completely did a 180 the second she laid eyes on the ML, and the amount of whining and crying she did afterwards pissed me off. I didn't see ANYTHING attractive at all about the male lead, and to be honest, the second lead was much more fun and caring.

Lastly, the plot was just...bad. I'm okay with a drama that revolves around the romance plotline, but it has to be good. The story for this entire drama was predicated on one misunderstanding after another, because the main characters refused to communicate at all.

The only characters that I really liked was Angelina, who started off annoying but quickly became the badass that I thought the main character would be. Honestly, the second pairing was so refreshing because she was so upfront and straightforward about her feelings.

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Light-hearted goodness

This is similar to Hospital Playlist in its slice-of-lifeness, where we get to follow a few characters around the hospital and just living their lives. The main cast of characters is fun to follow and they have a really enjoyable dynamic, and of course I loved seeing all the cameos each episode.

I do think the plot starts getting a little muddied? It's hard to explain because there's not really a clear A-plot, but I do think that as the episodes went on, they started to blur into each other a little bit because the main characters weren't having such clear plotlines, and the subplots of their patients also became less memorable and impactful, with less clear messages or ends. Some arcs that started were wrapped up a little haphazardly, and I wish we'd gotten more character development for our main girl; she started off in a lower place and while it was clear from the start that she was a good doctor and cared about people, I feel like the actual trajectory of her attitude was more told to us than shown.

Ultimately, I still think this was a really enjoyable watch and it's something I think people could rewatch as a feel-good show. I'm honestly not sure if I'll remember anything from it but I made my weekends relaxing.

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The only good part: the FL

I'd been waiting for this childhood-friends-to-lovers drama to come out for the longest time, but after watching it...I think the only good thing about it is the FL.

She's the very typical type of FL you see in Chinese youth dramas — not too bright but really optimistic and bubbly, but I absolutely love how Zhang Miaoyi plays her. She's endearing, chaotic, lovable, fun, but most importantly, stands up for herself when it counts. Which is why it was very disappointing that none of the other characters really matched her energy, and it was even more disappointing that the drama gave up on developing her character in exchange for tropey romantic scenes. For example: the FL is apparently good at martial arts but this is suddenly forgotten so that the ML can come and save her.

Just in general, the plot felt choppy. A lot of youth dramas have cookie cutter scenes; the better ones link them together well and make it seem like they're memorable moments in someone's life. In the more typical youth dramas, they remain recognizable tropes and it just feels like one scene after another, which is what this one felt like. In terms of the side characters, they were also very cookie cutter and I didn't really care for the friend group as a whole either. The plot and the characters all just felt like they were going through the motions.

Additionally, this is one of the dramas where the dubbing really negatively affected it. It was very obvious and made lots of dialogue seem off. For the FL, it was best when we got ZMY's original voice, but there were some lines that were dubbed and it was very jarring to see the mouth and sound suddenly not match up. For the ML, the voice didn't match the acting at all.

With that being said, the acting of the ML was...not good. He had very few expressions (and basically no microexpressions) throughout the show, and I just felt like it was very flat and bland.

And so: I don't think I really felt the romance. The hardest part about doing friends-to-lovers is transitioning from the platonic relationship to a romantic one, and that transition was very confusing and random. I wasn't sure when it happened and because of the lackluster acting and lack of well-paced plot progression, the leads felt better off staying friends.

My advice? Watch When I Fly With You instead. It's one of the few recent coming-of-age dramas that did everything right.

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From strangers to...acquaintances

I appreciate a fluffy, drama-free romance show as much as the next person, but I just didn't really feel any spark between the main leads, despite the way they actually meet being quite promising.

They are cute at certain moments, but the biggest issue for me is just that they're always so POLITE, and it never got better. Even in the penultimate episode, their conversations felt very robotic ("Would you like some [food]?" "Yes, thank you. Wow, that is spicy!" "Here, have some water.") I know this type of relationship probably does exist and works for some people, but as someone who likes a bit of casualness and banter in their everyday dialogue, their conversations just felt like ones I'd have with a coworker who I'd just met at a networking event. Ultimately it made their relationship feel pretty flat and repetitive; they do something cute, everyone teases them about it, repeat.

The second couple were also cute at times, but ultimately very similar to the first. It seems like there's some light-hearted banter when each character is with their friends, but they completely shut down when they're with each other. It would've been interesting to see this dynamic open up over time, but sadly we barely got any of it and we jumped to them just being together in the ending. I think some of the writing just feels very generic and not quite tailored to the actual character arcs. Zhou Zheng and Geng Xiao Xing are given the iconic line: "If we break up, then we can't even be friends" — but their storyline was never friends-to-lovers anyways and I didn't feel like the "friendship" had become that vital because the progress was very minimal.

Instead, that line should've been reserved for the third couple, which turned out to be my favorite despite having the least screentime of them all; that's Dou Dou and Feng Ya Song, a couple that you could tell really felt comfortable around each other, with a really good "we like each other but can't say anything" dynamic. I wish they'd gotten more scenes paced throughout the show instead of having all of it in one episode near the end.

I'm also just not sure about the mix of themes: dubbing industry and cooking. Part of it is personal preference (I don't care much for cooking or for the dubbing industry), but I think individually it's also just...fine. The cooking doesn't really add any character depth and it feels kind of random the way it flits in and out. The dubbing industry part had some interesting moments; the songs are great and the voice acting is actually really satisfying with all the historical drama scenes, but there's actually no clear through-plot for it. There are events and projects here and there but you don't really get to follow the characters towards a specific goal, and it's definitely not one of those "follow your dreams" dramas because the tone stays pretty monotonous throughout. I think the part I liked least about the dubbing industry plot were all the fangirls fawning over the main boys — I know this is a common drama trope, but it was way too reminiscent of the idolization we saw in old dramas like Meteor Garden that it made me cringe a little. Plus, one can only take so much of the side characters comparing themselves to the male leads and calling themselves "little nobodies."

Overall, I can understand why so many people enjoyed this drama, and I do love how unproblematic it is. It's heart-warming for me too, but was really missing the spark for me, especially as the show went on.

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Give me more of the original cast

So I was sort of middle-of-the-fence about season 1, and I feel similarly about season 2.

To start with the good things — the vibe of the show is on point. The cinematography and set design give, and the effects do a nice job of tying it all together. I particularly love the look of Hyun-su's monster form.

The characters that had survived S1 were all my favorites — Ji-su, Eun-yu, Hyun-su, Yi-kyung — so I was really excited to see how they stories would continue and who they would meet along the way, but I tuned out to have a bit of mixed emotions on this.

I liked Hyun-su's story but I felt like we barely saw it. There were a few episodes where he was completely sidelined and just in general the subplot of him being experimented on ended really fast, which was disappointing because it would've been a much different plot than the "humans running from monsters in the wild" situation we'd seen before.

I was the most satisfied with Eun-yu's story and her screentime. It was amazing seeing her develop into such a badass, and she had really good chemistry with Chan-young, who is probably the only new character that really grew on me this season.

With that being said, I felt like there were one too many new characters that were introduced and I don't think I was that invested in a lot of them. There were a lot of soldiers and some new people who were also just living at the base, and overall I didn't think focusing on all of these characters were necessary. There were several antagonists, some of which I didn't care too much about, and overall with so many subplots I feel like they took screentime away from the original cast. To be honest, I also just found the soldiers difficult to tell apart.

My biggest gripe, however, is with Yi-kyung and how sidelined she felt when she was supposed to be a main character. I've never been a fan of the "special child" trope, and this really reminded me why — a new character comes in and suddenly all our original cast acts like they're the most important and their existing plotlines fizzle out. Yi-kyung was pretty much shown only in relation to her daughter this entire season, and even the other characters like Hyun-su got a bit of this treatment near the end.

It's one thing if we had gotten more time to gradually see the development, but the time jump + flashback method didn't help.

Other than this, this season still ends on a strong note, and I'll be tuning into S3, for Hyun-sun, for Eun-yu, and for Chan-young.

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Nonsensical

This drama started out extremely promising but by the end...it made little to no sense.

The idea of exes being brought together by a dating show is really interesting, and I was really excited for the drama to build on the tension that our leads established in the first episode. Instead, the "dating show" wasn't at all interesting or relevant to any of the subplots that we ran through, and most, if not all, of the characters became very irritating.

The first issue that arose for me was just that the drama didn't take advantage of its "dating show" premise at all. I think it would've been interesting if we'd actually gotten a broad cast of characters that we'd be able to see become friends. Instead, the show changed the dating show to some sort of "throwback" theme where it was the FL and her two friends, plus the ML and his two friends. Six people who were from the same high school. And most importantly, it is NOT a dating show if it's obvious from the very first second what the three pairings are. I don't mind this in general (since all pairings in dramaland are pre-ordained) but every time the characters called it a "dating show" or talked about how it was trending and getting super popular...I just did not believe it at all. I felt like there was zero drama, competition, or anticipation — which is what usually makes a dating show fun. I am a master of suspending my disbelief but I can only go so far.

The "dating show" is also barely a plot point at all, other than serving as an excuse for our main leads to spend time together, and having those little interviews at the end. Instead, the drama rolls through different subplots that take place OUTSIDE of the show, and then every once in a while they say something like "we have to film" and then one of the expected couples goes to a restaurant or something. The show seems to make little sense — inserting stories like a wedding for an elderly rural couple.

When the dating show is relevant to outside subplots, it also just...doesn't make sense. I can overlook the weird situation that forced our female lead from being a producer role to starring in the show and still being behind-the-scenes because that was such a big part of the premise, but when a character becomes the lawyer for someone trying to sue the dating show she's currently on, or any of the second female lead's shenanigans, the conflicts of interest render the dating show setting even less believable.

With that issue aside, however, I just think the plots aren't interesting or well written. It uses tropes like "car accident" and of course the evil second female lead to trigger plots, and with all of these things it just feels like the writing is from a drama that aired in 2010.

I often just find myself thinking that these two main characters...these two people just shouldn't be together.

Beyond the first few episodes, there's very little tension between the pairings. Our main leads get back together extremely fast without ever sitting down and having a mature conversation. Both of them have very valid perspectives — both of them were selfish and either cold or pushy in the past — but in the end it feels like the drama went for a "we just love each other" approach. They say the right things by the end, but it doesn't quite feel earned.

They are both bad at different points in the drama; the FL constantly puts down the ML when he has concerns about a SML who is rude, petty, and very obvious insulting towards him because he wants the FL. It's played off like a "misunderstanding" because she didn't think the SML liked her, but the lack of respect towards the ML and her refusal to listen to his concerns should've been a much bigger deal.

And then the ML does something that is even crazier and unforgivable; the FL's father, who she is no-contact with because he is a horrible person who keeps dating women much younger than him, hosts a FAKE FUNERAL FOR HIMSELF so that the FL will come and give a nice speech about him and he can see her. The ML learns about this event and SAYS NOTHING?? AND JUST LETS THE FL GO TO IT AND GIVE HER SPEECH UNTIL THE FATHER HOPS OUT OF THE BUSHES AND SAYS "GOTCHA"????? The idea that because he did it because he thought it would "be good for her" is absolutely insane to me. If someone ever did that to me I would cut them off right then and there forever; I don't care if they thought it was for my own good or if my parent was on their deathbed — this is a decision that the person needs to make for themselves, especially considering how much trauma the FL had around her father. But the drama just...moves on. The ML says he didn't know about the extent of it, and the FL just insists that she won't love anyone else, despite this pushiness being the exact reason why they'd broken up in the first place, and despite this behavior being just insane in general.

The other two couples are fine, but pretty unmemorable. I think three couples might've been too much and diluted the emotional impact of each. If it were up to me I would cut out the divorced couple, since they're mostly there for comedic relief anyways.

I could go on, but you get the gist. This is a drama that starts out promising but quickly devolves into nonsense. Even the ending scenes where we got mini interviews started out very insightful and revealing in the first few episodes, but ended up feeling out of place because of the "dating show" theme not being clear.

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Wholesome but short

There were some scenes in this short web drama that really hit me hard when it came to insecurity and family, and I was really surprised that this drama was so pure — its really just about two people who found each other and fit perfectly together like puzzle pieces.

There are some parts of it that kind of went in over my head though, where conversations were confusing and I wasn't really sure what was going on. And of course, since it's a short web drama, there are some subplots I wish they delved into and side characters I wish they explored but there was no time for. Other than that, though, this was still a really nice watch.

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Mostly flashbacks

This had a little conversation between the leads, but it was really mostly flashbacks from the original series, which was cute to watch but nothing new.

I kind of wish we saw more of their lives — what their little family and house look like, what they were doing in their careers, how their friends were doing in their lives and relationships, how their parents were, etc. I do understand different sets and outfits probably weren't in the budget though and that they had limited things to work with.

The little conversation between the director and screenwriter was funny though and it gives me hope for a season 2!

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Sisterhood

The strongest part of this one was definitely the relationship between the three sisters (and their grandmother). Scenes with all 4 of them were so endearing and it was pretty sweet to see that all of them have love lines.

Surprisingly, I think the romance of the main leads ended up being the weakest of the bunch. They had good chemistry and the whole "mystery" of their backstory was interesting while it was on screen in episode 1 and in the final episode, but in between, it felt needlessly overdramatic and hard-to-believe. I also just personally found it hard to root for the main couple when they had such a big, one-sided, secret hanging over them.

On the other hand, I thought the eldest sister's romance to be really touching (good yearning!), while the youngest sister's was so innocent and sweet.

Overall, I think this had good moments, but the main romance was kind of a miss. Also, using AI while the characters are supposed to be working in creative fields? BOOO. Tomato.

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The Pinnacle of Youth Dramas

Oh my god. I really don't know what I'm going to do with my life now that this show is over.

At first glance this might seem like every other Chinese youth drama — sunshine FL/quiet ML, some grade-obsessed parents, sports day, a playful second couple — but so many things actually made this drama shine above all others.

The first thing is just how the plot really feels like a coming-of-age drama, without being overdramatic or sugary. I know it might be fun and inspiring when we watch a youth drama and a friend group is depressed when they find out someone's transferring schools, only to band together to stop it. But in real life, there are a lot of things outside our control and the only thing you can do is let it happen, know you can get through it, remember everyone still cares for each other at the end of the day — no matter the circumstances. That's what this drama did: physical obstacles were rarely overblown into emotional obstacles. It might sound bittersweet, but the fact that the plot flowed this way made it ten times more relatable to real life.

It really also meant that each character was given their time in the spotlight. Every person dealt with something themselves and everyone else was there to support them. Each person in the friend group had a distinct personality and subplot and it never felt choppy or random. It felt simply like learning more about your friends over time. WIFTY struck a perfect balance between giving its characters freedom and still making them feel inseparable that I don't think I've seen done so well in any other show.

I need more drama writers to take notes from Su Zai Zai, who seems like a typical bubbly FL on the surface but was actually really straightforward, stood up for herself, was smart in her own right, and had her own goals and was realistic in chasing them. She's absolute proof that giving an FL a crush doesn't mean it has to become her entire personality.

Zhang Lu Rang was a fantastic ML too. Once again, he might seem like the typical quiet and smart ML, but he was never mean or rude or overly perfect, and he had his flaws too that SZZ perfectly balanced out. This drama perfectly encapsulated why they belonged together. This was one of the rare dramas where the couples didn't get boring for me after they got together.

In fact, the chemistry is absolutely amazing between both couples, who also had their distinct dynamic and plot development.

Between the friendship warming up your heart and the romance giving me butterflies, there are absolutely no moments in this drama that I would skip. The OST fits perfectly and the cinematography is beautiful. The only bad thing I can say about this drama is that it ends.

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Story 1 > Story 2

I actually really enjoyed the first story in this movie — it was quirky but endearing and despite some questionable moments, there was a very subtle layer of comedy that actually made the characters seem like very real and relatable people.

The second story, however, just didn't click with me very much, whether it was the characters' personalities themselves or the kind of haphazard and illogical direction that the plot went in.

Overall there's still a nice nostalgic feeling to this movie, but I didn't found myself that invested in the plot developments.

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I am absolutely gobsmacked that this drama came out in 2019 and still had all the worst things about the dramas that came out ten years ago and still managed to do everything worse.

The writing is a mess. Taking every single trope in the book and just smushing them all together does not give you a story. It gives you needless drama and nonsense. And dumb miscommunications that could’ve been solved with a conversation.

A lot of rich man/poor woman tropes were used, and even though they tried to go for enemies-to-lovers, I felt like the main leads spent so much time arguing over basically nothing. The FL was especially annoying in this aspect as she was antagonistic for episodes for no good reason.

It also tried to do this makeover scene with the FL where every guy suddenly thinks she’s beautiful afterwards. It’s a cliche we’ve seen everywhere, but it flopped so bad here.

And that’s because it felt like the drama itself never bought into the ridiculousness of it all, whereas dramas like BoF did and you could at least enjoy the craziness and suspend your disbelief. This drama used all the crazy tropes and made them tedious to watch.

The characters are all very stereotypical and one dimensional. There’s practically no natural character development, and it feels like they’re just paper cutouts, going through the motions and the plot points the writer put them through.

It also relied on this lack of character development to reuse the same conflicts and have characters do things over and over again.

The only character I really enjoyed was the second lead (Ye Xing Yu), and the only ship I really enjoyed was the one with Yu Xi (boy-crazy roommate).

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Wholesome and heartwarming

This is the EXACT kind of drama I'd always been looking for — wholesome, friendship, romance, no frustrating evil scheming, and no dumb noble idiocy plot twist.

It's true that the girl is the very typical bubbly, bad-at-school type, while the male lead is smart and popular, but the way they did the roles wasn't cliche at all and they were both super likable. Honestly, the ML went soft for the FL very early on, and the FL tried very hard at school, was strong, independent, righteous, and just downright adorable in her optimism.

Second lead was very likable as well and I was pleasantly surprised at how respectful he was of the FL in the love triangle. It's honestly one of the best-executed love triangles I've ever seen and although I wouldn't say I had SLS, my heart hurt for him.

The second ship was honestly amazing and I was LIVING for it. It's the perfect friends-to-lovers kind that's my favorite trope, and they were adorable from start to end, with the way they teased each other and fought, and yet knew each other so well.

The romance was overall pretty subtle, and I was surprised that they pulled off the "childhood connection" trope so well.

The overall drama is so soft, which I loved, and the pacing of the entire show was really good and there was no unnecessarily dramatic drama. The friendships were really great and I liked how they never fought over dumb things. The only part that kind of tripped this part up for me in the middle was when the other girl returned from abroad and the main leads sort of miscommunicated, and it kind of annoyed me that the two main leads never learned how to deal with their feelings and balance friendship — the lack of ability to get the two girls to co-exist was kind of problematic for me.

But ultimately they resolved things naturally and I really liked how they didn't turn any second lead girl into a terrible person in order to push the romance through and make things angsty. The same could go for any character and it was really refreshing how even the guest characters were pretty good people who might've gone astray sometimes — much more realistic and relatable. Even the families weren't overly frustrating, which has happened a lot in school kdramas.

I definitely felt super nostalgic and cried while watching this — I honestly connected to the characters so much and I will forever be sad that I never grew up in such a tight-knit high school class. This is honestly the kind of drama I'd rewatch over and over again in my free time because it just makes me THAT HAPPY.

And the OST is honestly so good. It took me a while to actually start watching each episode because I'd just replay the opening sequence over and over.

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Better than BOF, but crappy ending

I had watched Boys Over Flowers before this—but none of the other versions, and right off the bat I knew I was going to like this better. ALL the characters were more likable, and that even includes FL's parents.

Of course, there were some things that were so ridiculous—like the parts where a bridge/poker game determined who got to stay in school—but there were dumb scenes in the original story, so I guess I had to let that go.

Compared to BOF, I felt like everything was more dimmed down, from the scariness of the mother to the social situation in school. I liked this, as it definitely felt more realistic.

Meteor Garden does suffer from something a lot of Chinese dramas seem to suffer from—the inability to focus on multiple plotlines at the same time. For the side characters, it felt like we were learning about one ship, and then moving on to another one after it had been wrapped up. Also, I didn't give a crap about Terence.

Sadly, the last few episodes of this show were just kind of a mess. Random drama was added in at the end, there was a sudden musical number, and I was so confused and disappointed that that was the ending we were going to get. Either way, I still quite enjoyed watching this.

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