Worst of 2020: The Dramas that went downhill

Sadly, there have been an awful lot of dramas I hated, dropped or couldn’t watch at all in 2020.

Disclaimer: Some of the dramas I hated are well loved by the masses. I just have certain things that I personally hate to see that happened in some of these dramas:

The thing I hate in real life and dramaland is HYPOCRISY. When people are judge-y about bad behavior, but also guilty of bad behavior. Some writers push a plot narrative that the lead characters are great people I am clearly meant to like. Except their interaction with other characters says otherwise.

This is often lead girls who are meant to be sweet as pie, like spunky angels, but are actually immature and snarky towards their love rivals. Thai and Chinese dramas are the most guilty of this.

Or it’s lead male characters who are sweet and loving to the lead girl, but completely cold or even cruel to the second leads who love them. I am completely turned off by this. In real life, I would never want to be with a guy who was great to me, but a jerk to other people, and I have trouble rooting for them in dramas.

Example of a guy who is a complete jerk to the second lead: My ID is Gangnam Beauty

I also hate LOVE TRIANGLES – a lot. Especially angsty love triangles where someone, usually someone nice, or trying to be, gets hurt. I watch dramas to increase the joy in my life and watching people end up heartbroken and alone does not do it for me. Unless the second lead is given a love interest or let down very gently I get annoyed and sometimes drop a drama altogether.

OK, disclaimer over. The good news is I didn’t see any many terrible dramas, but I did see some I couldn’t finish or wish I could unsee.

Itaewon Class. Here is my longer review of the show. In short the lead male turned into a complete and total hypocrite. He stabbed his friend and the woman he said he loved in the back for an actual sociopath. Why should I support a mean, crazy person without a conscience? Or hope they get the guy in the end?
It’s Okay Not to be OK (Psycho but it’s OK). Despite great acting and production, I couldn’t get into this for the reasons listed above. I really don’t understand why I should root for an actual psychopath. Or hope the crazy girl gets the guy. Doesn’t that happen enough in real life?
Record of Youth. I think I made it through two or three episodes before I couldn’t watch anymore. It was the hypocrisy. The lead girl was nice, but she kept giving the impression to her co-worker that she was stealing her clients and she never cleared up the misunderstandings. She just let them grow and once her colleague got angry and mean to her, she got mean back. It was irritating to watch. Even Park Bo Gum’s perfect smile wasn’t enough to keep me watching.
Twenty-Twenty. This is a web series where the leads, especially the lead girl were extremely unlikeable. I felt like she went from socially awkward to selfish and entitled. There was also a love triangle that was both angsty and weird. Here is my longer review: https://mydramalist.com/profile/pollysci/reviews.
Hi Bye Mama. My first impressions of this show were great. I actually enjoyed it for the majority of its episodes, although I hypothetically may have cried a lot. But I absolutely hated the end. I won’t give it away, I’ll just say there were a million alternate ways to write it and I think the writers failed completely.
Parallel Love. This show had the makings of a good drama, but it was SOOOOO CHEESY. Something cornball happened every two minutes and it was just too much to bear. Here is my longer review for the show: https://wordpress.com/post/ckdrama.home.blog/686.
Perfect and Casual. I liked the show initially and maybe it got better after I dropped it BUT there were two things annoying me way too much. The first was the lead females dependence on the lead male. She claimed to be independent, but couldn’t seem to elevate her life at all without his obvious or secret assistance. The writers seemed to think I should believe that she was an independent woman, despite all evidence to the contrary. There was also a love triangle that was less than entertaining. I liked the second lead as much as the first and he was more in touch with his own feelings, and therefore more mature, so I wasn’t exactly cheering for the relationship between the leads.
Likit Haeng Jan. This drama has a lot of good qualities. Seasoned actors. An interesting plotline. Some action and mystery. I even like one of the couplings. But the lead girl reacted to the competitive second lead villainess by being vindictive and immature, and it made her unlikeable to me, which made the show less entertaining overall.

K-Video/Song: Woodz ‘Love Me Harder’ (9/10)

This music video came up on my Youtube sidebar. It was released on June 29, 2020. The thumbnail looked interesting and I’d never heard of Woodz, so I clicked on it.

The first thing I should say is that I wont win any awards as a K-Pop fan, since my fandom is lukewarm. Half the K-Pop songs I’ve ever heard of are thanks to one of my favorite blogs: Unbothered Unnies https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/91156652 which I love love love and highly recommend.

I’m probably not 100% familiar with K-Pop because I have a love-meh relationship with it. This is because I love rap and hip hop the most, although I’m picky about it, and am not that much of a pop fan. There are definite exceptions, ike I will ride or die for Blackpink, but I tend to like solo pop artists best. Get most of them in a group and just no. That’s score one for Woodz, who seems to be all by his lonesome.

The song is pretty good, although not my favorite style and not all that memorable on first listen, since I couldn’t tell you three minutes later what it sounded like. The intro and part of the chorus is my favorite part, which starts with whistling then moves into some pretty catchy vocals. Someone walked into the room when that part was on and started dancing without even noticing they were doing it, which validates how good that part is. Woodz voice is nice, although I couldn’t currently tell it apart from a million other K-Pop kids if you put it in a voice line up.

You can take my opinion on the song with a grain of salt since my view of a pop song as a minor pop consumer is probably not all that helpful. What I really want is to review the video, which I think I’m more qualified to talk about.

I adore this video and I want more like them! It’s reminiscent of MTV videos when MTV had videos. It tells a story even though I’m not really sure what it is lol.

It starts with a fight in a car between a male and female. The female storms out of the car and some rando guy jumps on it. The guy is dressed in glam punk, so I assume he is meant to be a rebel. There is a police line and money and what look like pill containers. And the rebel keeps showing up wherever Woodz is. I cant tell if the rebel is actually Woodz and I’m sorry, but I was too lazy to try and figure it out. Or maybe Woodz and the rebel are into each other and that’s what the girl was mad about, although that seems a little too progressive for 2020 K-Pop.

Maybe if I knew more Korean language than drama speak and food related words I would know what was going on. Or maybe not, since song lyrics don’t always match their MV’s. The good news is it means I can make it whatever I want it to be.

The video is a little edgy, it’s interesting and Woodz is kind of adorable so it’s a win in my book. The only fail for me was when they had him dancing with a bunch of backup dancers. It was totally unnecessary. Maybe K-Pop video producers think it has to be there or maybe it’s like a security blanket for them. I don’t know. I just know it was dumb and brought down the quality of an otherwise grade A video.

Watch the video here and see if you love it, like it or hate it:

C-Drama: Parallel Love (1st impression)

Parallel Love is a time travel drama, and I really love time travel dramas, so I decided to give it a try. It’s about a woman who is a company director that out of the blue goes back in time when she opens a door. Then she gets a message saying that she has to help a guy become president of his company or she will disappear forever.

The first episode is a little wonky. The door time travel happens really fast and did not make a whole lot of sense. And there was no explanation for why she had to help a random guy get a promotion at his families company.

Also, the female lead did not make a great first impression, on me, or on the male lead. She ran into him during the doorscapade, since he was going through it at the same time that she was. She knocked him over and he told her she should apologize for it. She didn’t. She told him she was late for something, but her speech about being late was longer than any apology I’ve heard so far, so it sure seems like she could have said she was sorry.

The female lead continued to annoy me – and the second lead when she came across him again as he was about to give an important speech at an important event. She bumped into him again, ruining his shirt right before he had to go on stage. And again, she didn’t apologize. The male lead was forced to improvise, but his efforts were ruined.

Of course, he turns out to be the guy the female lead is supposed to help make company president. That was predictable.

When the female lead goes to his company looking to work with him she doesn’t know he is the same guy she bumped into multiple times. But when she finds out and hears that she ruined his important event she continues to be rude to him and still doesn’t apologize. I am a strong supporter of manners so it made it really hard to like her all that much.

The female lead also seemed oblivious to common sense on more than one occasion. She spent a long time opening and closing the door that she time-traveled through, trying to go back to 2020, which she came from. But when the staff approached her asking her to stop she couldn’t make up a good story for why she was doing it and was kicked out so she couldn’t keep trying in the future.

The male lead is actually likeable. He has a dry humor that is pretty great. His only major fault is really the fault of the shows stylist(s) who gave him godawful clothes and very dated hair. The hair I could deal with. The clothes, not so much. His main flaw was being in a career position he might not have been ready for.

There is also a twist to the story where the female lead who went back in time ten years is living at the same time as her ten years younger self. I think this is the most interesting part of the story. My favorite scene was with her ten years younger self and her ex-boyfriend who had apparently dumped her ten years later. Both characters seem like they will remain constant in the story since the ex-boyfriend works at the same company as the ten years older version of the female lead who I assume will have to avoid him.

If the whole drama was about that I would really enjoy watching it, but the show is mostly about the romance between the leads and the first two episodes more than set that up. There were interesting scenes between them about a wedding they had to plan, which involved some petty theft by the leads. It was fun(ish) to watch. But the rest of the lead up to romance involved throwing every single drama trope at the wall. This included the leads falling on each other, pressing up against each other, the female lead having to stay with the male lead at his house, him carrying her, covering her with a blanket and seeing her with new eyes.

This is the reason I paused watching the drama for now – or forever because I couldn’t take it anymore. There were so many ridiculous, corny moments that I can’t even count them all. If I was given a dollar for every time I rolled my eyes during the first couple episodes I would be a thousandaire by now.

This show could get better. It’s pretty highly rated so far. I do think it will probably have an interesting business plot with a female lead who does some cool problem-solving. And the leads might even be good together, although I don’t know how that will work with the whole time travel problem. I am also interested to see what happens with the ten years younger version of the female lead. But is it worth watching the stupid uber predictable cheeseball moments that happen every few minutes to see the rest of it? That it is what I am going to have to decide and honestly, I am not sure that it is.

C-Movie: Fall in Love at First Kiss

I watched this movie after having failed to complete any of the First Kiss, Missin Kissin franchise thinking that a bite size version is what would work best for me. This turned out to be true. Unfortunately, this version was not that great.

My 8 year old and I watched this movie and not only did she pick up on the couples very unhealthy relationship (even by c-drama standards), but I had to keep telling her not to be like them if she liked someone later in life.

What made it unhealthy?

The lead girl was a complete stalker (my 8 y/o pointed this out to me, so you know it was bad) to the point where she had a picture of the guy on her blanket and pillow so she could faux spoon him during the night, plus a wall of memorabilia to him. And no matter how many times she was rejected (at least 20) she kept on pursuing the guy.

The lead guy was a jerk to her, which is most c-drama leads, but usually they turn nice by halfway through the show or movie. This guy called the girl stupid, told her not to to tell anyone they were living together, humiliated her, shooed her away repeatedly and even said he was marrying someone else. I mean come on. That might be considered love, if you’re dysfunctional, but it was just sort of pathetic to watch.

There were some cute moments, but not enough. And the idea we viewers were supposed to have, as pushed by the dialog, was that the lead guy became “more fun” because of the girl. And their relationship blossomed while he helped her study. Except none of that was obvious from the scenes they showed. There was no cute montage of them having fun together, and not only did she blackmail him into helping her, he mostly called her stupid the whole time.

The only highlights were lead actress Jelly Lin who was both believable and adorable and Kenji Chen (the second male lead), whose physical comedy was pretty entertaining.

I give this movie a 7/10.

C-Drama: Nice to Meet You (1st impressions)

Nice to Meet You is ending this week, which I think is always a perfect time to start a show, so that is exactly what I did.

I started episode 1, which began with some serious drama. It was a wedding and the groom was apparently hurt by the bride, and so he humiliated her in front of everyone before hurling a ring into the water outside. It was a really good start. It made me wonder what happened and want to watch to find out.

But then it went downhill, FAST. Before I tell you how, here is the plot, care of MDL:

An aspiring designer almost loses everything due to a scheme to take her down. She meets the successor of a premier jeweler that paves the way for a sizzling romance. Gao Jie has always dreamed of becoming a jewelry designer, so she packs up her bags to find work at a mining company in South America. She falls in love with Yu Zhi, the successor of Shengfeng Jewelry. Things do not gosmoothly for Gao Jie after returning to China, but in order to pursue her passion, she gets a job at Shengfeng. Shengfeng used to be the gold label in the industry. However, fierce competition from Western jewelers has reduced the brand’s prominence over the years. To get the company back to its former glory, Yu Zhi breaks tradition by focusing on Western designs. After Gao Jie joins Shengfeng, she becomes fascinated with the exquisite beauty of traditional Chinese jewelry and becomes set on creating designs that fuse Eastern and Western influences. Alas, their cooperation and budding romance encounter roadblocks due to Yu Zhi’s stepmother, Mu Zi Yun. She is also Gao Jie’s aunt who has been conspiring to take over the company.

How did it go downhill so fast you ask. My answer: It got so cheesy, pizza couldn’t rival it. The lead was introduced as he was rock climbing, where he almost fell, but righted himself with his massive (and by that I mean medium sized) muscles. The viewers are clearly supposed to come away seeing him as a strong adventurous type. He then sees the female lead at a club and is immediately interested. He manages to save her from her lecherous boss a short time later, then they part ways. The following morning her awful boss forces her to go to a jungle mine which wasn’t safe. Next thing you know men jump out at her crew and beat them all up (not clear why, maybe to steal what they got from the mine, but I don’t think they’d arrived yet, so it’s a head scratcher) and she runs away and ends up falling down a hill into the water.

Cue the adventurous hero who saves her, and just happens to have tents and a guide with him making running from a jungle gang into a camping experience. But despite the male lead saving her and having necessary jungle equipment and acting gentlemanly towards her, the girl decides to head back by herself. So dumb! She is quickly confronted by a giant python which the male lead saves her from (I told you it was cheesy).

The leads end up together in the jungle, no idea where the guide went, and the female starts to have the feels for the male after he shows her a “tree of life,” which just looked like one of a hundred jungle trees to me, but what do I know.

By this point I was barely hanging on. I had filled my cheese quota for the day, but I kept watching because it could get better, plus what happened to make their wedding so cray. I really want to know. But then the male lead got into the water to bathe (this was ok, shirtless is good says the cougar blogger) and tilted his head back, and at that moment I thought to myself PLEASE DO NOT DO WHAT I THINK YOU’RE GOING TO DO BECAUSE IT’S JUST TOO CHEESY AND I CANT TAKE ANY MORE. And whattaya know, he did it. The male lead came up out of the water like Ariel in the little mermaid and tossed his hair as water flew off him in what was supposed to be a “moment”, but was sooooo ridiculous I have no words for it.

And imagining 49 more episodes like that (49!) does not bring me to my happy place. Maybe it gets better. Usually I give a show more of a chance to reel me in than I’ve given this one so far, so maybe I’ll pick it back up, just to blog it or I could turn it into a drinking game, which is always fun with terrible thing, to drink every time they do something hokey. Although, my low tolerance probably couldn’t handle it if the story stays as corny as it was in episode 1.