sregi

Honestly I started this drama because it was recomended to me and I didn't expect a lot but still they did the concept so dirty…
Just to begin with my overall rating: easily a better 7,5-8 for me (I still can't really decide) - but it depends on what you are looking for in this show. If you fancy a simple supernatural comedy with a bit of romance, this show will be for you. For the rest who are looking for something more dark and thrilling with sophisticated lore that makes sense, this show will leave you really disappointed in my personal opinion.

SPOILERS!
But first I would lik eto focus on the positive side of this mess. The production is really on point - the drama has nice locations, the characters look interesting and the camera sometimes does really incredible job. Just from the visual perespective - the drama is a really good looking piece. For the story I would say that the core or the idea behind the show is really interesting. We have superheroes fighting against religious x scientist organization, which i think is a really brave premise for a kdrama. I personaly love these kind of “normal citizens against evil companies” plots, so I was really excited as the drama progressed and introduced the layers of this fictional universe. To mention the acting I would highlight the never disappointing Kim Hae Sook, who stood out with her performance and also Choi Dae Hoon who made some scenes really emotionaly impactfull. To addition I would say that some elements in the story were really fun and creative - for example the creative ways of using Dae Hoons superpovers, which seem a bit useless but he really made them work, interesting scenes, for example the scene when the two police officers came to the church facility or when DaeHoon was stuck with the possesed believers in the last episode I think. I really had fun with those little highlights in the story but that is about it for me. And honestly many of the positives go hand in hand with the negatives.

So to start with the elephant in the room: the two protagonists and their romance story. I am SO OVER everybody blindly praising Cha Eunwoo and Pakr Eunbins acting. With Cha Eunwoo I think he played only ONE character his whole career (i haven't seen all of his work but a big part). He only plays the kind of shy guy who underneath the trauma dump is slowly developing romantic feeling towards the female lead- which is usually shown through his faint smile and awkward hugs. He brings almost nothing to this character and I refuse to blame the writers, because this guy has so much traumatic experience and we see nothing reminiscent of sadness on his face in the entire show. Even during his emotional scenes his delivery falls sooo flat it hurts. (I'm sorry I had to let this out after such a long time - had problem with him since Gangnam Beauty)
But I was surprised that he wasn't the character I would find the most problematic. Because there is Park Eunbin. And to be fair I don't “prefer” her as an actress but I liked some of her work so I had hope with this one. But oh my what the hell is this disney adorkable mess doing in a show about ilegal child experiments? I have overall problem with this type of character, because many times it feels sooo forced and stupid in a not funny way. And this was a textbook example!! She basically lives as the comedy punching bag throughout the whole show and as fellow revievers pointed out is unnecessarily stupid. She literally has the telleportation ability and is practicaly immortal, but characters treat it as a by the way ability. Everybody is constantly scared for her life - like what the hell. But that is the less frustrating part. The humor of this show heavily relies on her and her joking personality - which feels so unnatural and forced. And I think this is a actor and writer problem, because I have seen this character work a couple of times - for example Kim Bok Joo, she was soo extra but still felt like a real person who is not menat to be only ridiculed. And that is because during the emotional scenes the characters show emotions - they convince you of the gavity of the situation. You may not agree with my example but I would still say that Chaeni is a badly written and poorly executed character.
And to combine the shitshow - the romantic chemistry is absent in this show. I am so dumbfounded about this even day after i finished this show. The story is basicaly relying on the romance between the two leads even though it tries to hide it. There is nothing else that is steadily progressing as the romance plot in my opinion. Which is understandable, we are wathching a kdrama afterall but due to this fact it sould be an easy job to make it feel real, shouldn't it? Well I guess not, because I feel nothing and I mean NOTHING between these two. And that is also falt on both sides beacuse the very few emotionaly heavy scenes are basicaly what we have seen only a few thousand times - holding hand beside bed, kissing to surprise somebody.

So Imagine my disappointment when it came to the story. At this point I was really looking past the characters and more focused on the actual evil plans that were slowly executed. But to my surprise the writers treated the plot of this story as something that is kind of weird and wrong but not thaaat bad. Like really the story is about sicientists who probably abducted many children just to do many let's say unethical experiments on them. And in addition are hiding behing a huge cultish religion, who si providing money to their experiment through fooling a big portion of the city. But these main leads approach it as if basicaly nothing much was happening. At the begining it was very exciting with the unknown substance, alegedly weird animal, paranoid resident, etc. But that gets thrown out of the window as soon as the trio gains those “quirky superpowers”. NONE of them seems to grasp the weight of the situation. Like this is Save me level of despicable but no one is properly doing anything (aside from grandma sometimes). Meanwhile they are trying to get better with their new skillset, which is sometimes funny sometimes really not.
As for the villains they also just don't feel really dangerous and well written to me, like almost everything in this show. As I watched I understood that the evil main scientis is someone who I should really want to kill with my bare hands. But I didn't feel that, he was just kind of there and then died. He just had no character - we don't see him that much to develop a proper hatred for him I think. Also the role of the evil is split between the Wunderkinder (of course it is in german), which made the situation worse. Like there are too many characters for a 8 episode show. Noobody gets enough screentime to develope and for us to care about them. But about that later. I would just like to add to this segment that I see many references in this show - like many. You know the evil corporation which experiments on children and which later proceeds to contaminate the whole city …exactly something out of Resident evil, then the scene with the chainsaw … oddly similiar to The Shining, the bulllet sceene … which is kind of like something that happened in Matrix maybe. And I believe you could find more. Don't get me wrong, I don't think it is wrong to reference or use concepts that have been used before. The problem is that all these things that I listed are kind of serious and treat the plot as something important - which this show refuses to do. I am mostly angry if I compare it to Resident Evil - if you know a little about it you know how “deeply unsettling” the universe is. And for show about a similiar thing refusing to at least do something with it does a bit offend me.

Of course there are many inconsistencies, but just to name a few - the show doesn't explain how the main trio acquired their powers, Juri is going back and forth with believing the Father for no exact reason (obviously he doesnt care about them), Eunwoo's character blows up the whole facility to save his friend but proceeds to provide his new friend for the same torture, etc.

I strongly believe that this show would benefit if it had been longer. Just how were they expecting to introduce the whole concept of the show with all of its exposition and then conclude the plan of the evil side in 8 EPISODES. This is a minimum 12 episodes kind of plot in my humble opinion. To be a devils advocate for a minute - I was really hoping to see more dissterss for the main protagonists, more action form the granny team, like they don't even fully explain why was the grandmother involved.

So to conclude my silent outcry, I don't know if i really want to recomennd this show. It is a really fun watch and you probably won't get bored throughout it but it could be so much more. Because the moment you start thinking about the character's choices the story starts to erode.