Someone decided to steal the plot from “Hometown Cha Cha Cha” and messed it up—badly! “Hometown Cha Cha Cha” is infinitely better than this plagiaristic story.

We have a veterinarian who is conned by his grandfather to come to his small town to take over the practice while he and his wife are off on vacation. That was a badly contrived reason, especially since it’s under the false premise that something dire had happened to the grandfather, which draws Ji-Yul Han to the town. Of course, he’s upset that he’s been completely duped. Who wouldn’t be? Especially feigning an emergency! I would have left the town right then and there! The writers should have come up with a much better reason to get Ji-Yul to come to the town. This was a weak element that simply felt ridiculous.

The first couple of episodes are decent, but then it’s all downhill from there as the very uptight Ji-Yul is somewhat cold and aloof toward nearly everyone. Of course, nobody bothers to realize how he’s been conned into the job. They simply expect him to “fall in” and do his job with a smile.

Next, we have Officer Ahn. A woman who has no police officer skills whatsoever. Someone took actress Joy—who smiles, bats her eyes, and gives her little, “Tee-hee!” sound like some blond, blue-eyed woman without a brain in her head. I guess this is the only expression that Joy knows how to use. She’s a very weak actress who makes her role very unbelievable. And, of course, she has that “pouty” face down cold, like a thirteen-year-old when things don’t go her way. Very professional for a police officer who is unable to even deal with a thief.

I’m not sure where they found actor Sung Chul Baek (Lee Sang Hyun) but he’s terrible. He delivers his lines with such flatness that it sounds like he’s standing in front of a school auditorium and reciting a poem. I think I groaned more than a dozen times during the first five episodes as I watched this talentless kid try to sound tough; try to sound concerned; try to profess his romantic feelings.

The love-triangle is cliched, overused, and tiresome. I’ve said it before in several reviews that “My Beloved Summer” is the best series about young love. This one may be one of the worst. Every single cliché was used within the only five episodes that I watched. I couldn’t continue with the series. It was just not worth torturing myself. Especially when there are so many much better series out there. I’m just relieved that each episode was only about 38 minutes long—which felt entirely too long!

Hometown Cha Cha Cha was an absolute gem of a romantic series about a dentist who finds herself immersed in a small seaside town. This series is a poor imitation of that rich story, and without the cliches and silly romantic plots that you might find in a junior high school. The three characters in this series are just not very likable. I certainly wasn’t invested enough to find out how three immature people—adults supposedly in their late 20s, but act like they're all about sixteen or seventeen—resolve their romantic issues. None of them are worthy of any consideration. Officer Ahn is a tease, which I very much dislike as she toys with one man's affections while pursuing another. She's easily the most immature of the three.

This is the first Korean series I’ve stopped watching in over five years of watching them. For me, it was that bad. The series needed much better writing, far better actors, and something more unique and original, rather than trying to copy another series; a series that was truly endearing. In the meantime, I’d highly recommend acting lessons for Joy and Sung Chul Baek, especially. Any series these two end up in, I’ll automatically skip.