CrusadingAngel
Story: [9/10] I really liked the concept of a medical mystery. As it really adds another layer to what may be a typical medical show. You are seeing the doctors take care of patients in a stressful situation as in most other medical dramas. At the same time you have a group of murders going on that continues to keep you curious. These murders add a layer of complexity to the drama. The surgeries and the mystery together pretty much keeps you on the edge of your seat for most of the drama. The main characters are also very well written. The characters do not stay flat and act the same the whole time. The characters learn from the events in the series and some of them grow more as a person. I didn't give this show a 10 for two reasons. The first is because the shows pace ended up being sped up because of 2 episodes getting axed. I feel like the extra episodes could have answered a lot more questions and made the show and the pacing better. The second reason is because I feel like the ending was slightly flat. The show had so much action that each and every single episode (okay maybe not every single one) seemed like the climax. However at the same time, it also made me feel like the ending didn't have much as an impact as I would see in other endings. Hence I couldn't really give it a 10 for the story. Of course that's just my own opinion though. Although I did give the show a 9 for being very action-packed and having good character development.
Acting/Cast: [8.5/10] There's nothing much that I can say about the acting and cast. For the most part no one really stood out to me other the Dr. Lee Yeong Oh. I thought that his acting was really good and that he portrayed his character really well.
Music: [8.5/10] Music is pretty likable. It uses an array of different tunes for different situations.
Overall I recommend you watch the series. This season was very good in general. Beautiful Mind was definitely the dark horse of this season and it ended up proving that it was worth my time. It was a 14 hour well spent :)! I suggest you watch it too if you haven't already.
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Story: [5/10] The story was very lackluster. Most of this had to do with the fact that many of the character's adventures had no real conflict at all. Every time there was trouble, the show's writer magically had a solution to their problem (mostly using magic). Talk about deus ex machina. The characters had to face hardships, but most of them was self-inflicted. Which then leads me to the romance. Also very lackluster as well. Most of the romance was basically the leads falling in love with each other, getting jealous with each other, and then falling in love again. Basically rinse and repeat for 40 episodes. Lastly there was also a lack of a strong villain as well. We find out who the main villain of this show at around episode 40ish. By that time I did not care enough to even pay much attention. Most other shows would have showed you who the real villain (or at least an idea of who the real villain is) by the first few episodes.
Acting/Cast: [7/10] The actors here weren't too bad. I didn't really give them a 7 because of their acting. In fact, I applaud them for being able to act well in a show like this one. As I thought it was amazing how they could act out each battle scene while having it all seem realistic without the CGI in real life. I gave this a category a 7 because there was no big name stars. Chinese Paladin 1 had Ady An, Crystal Liu, Eddie Peng, and Hu Ge. Chinese Paladin 3 had Hu Ge again, Yang Mi, Tiffany Tang, Wallace Huo, and Cecelia Liu. A crazy amount of popular actors and actresses. We had basically none of that here.
Music: [8/10] The music here was okay. I liked it for the most part, however it was nothing all that special as well. Not too many shows has music/ost that are worth a 10.
Rewatch Value: [1/10] I don't ever plan on watching this show again.
Overall I suggest you not watch this show. There's a reason why not many people on MDL has watched this show.
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Story: [8.0/10.0]
There are two things that DOTS should be applauded for doing well. First off, the romance found in this show was very refreshing. If anything, the romance in this show overshadows a lot of the action in the show. I enjoyed watching as the relationships started forming between the main characters as well as the relationships that were forming between some of the support characters. I found myself gushing at some of the romantic scenes as if I were in those scenes myself. Those scenes where just that good!
Another aspect of the show that was done well was the creation of the characters. The show made sure that each and every one of the main support characters stay relevant. You'll see which ones are the main support characters once you watch a few episodes. Each support character's interaction with the other characters only helped to make the story better. I especially liked the part where the doctors were watching the soldiers running. I thought that part was hilarious. You'll just have to watch the show to see what I mean.
Although there were some good parts in the drama, there was also some bad parts as well. Personally I was really annoyed with the villain that the producer/director chose for this show. Not so much because of the actor that it was chose. I was more annoyed at the villain's role in the show. Argus was the main villain of the show. The problem with Argus was the fact that he seemed like some sort of quasi-villain. Argus was more like some sort of jay-walker or speeder in terms of the types of villains that are out there. I was expecting more when they showed him as a drugs/weapons/human trafficker. Unfortunately that was not the case. Honestly I liked the parts where the cast was confessing to each other more than a lot of the confrontations that occurred between the villain. That's not to say that they all of the confrontations were bad though.
Overall, the romance and the characters in this show was great. However, the same cannot be said about the plot. The plot was lacking more than just the main villain as well. Sadly it also lacked events that I could actually care about as well. The main part of the show (besides the romance) where the characters where in Urk was mostly very boring. They could have taken about 50% of the material out of the material of that part of theshow and the overall plot would not be any better or worse. It felt like a lot of the story was there for the sake of filling the 16 episodes.
Acting: [10.0/10.0]
As mentioned earlier, the cast did a very great job in this drama. They both did very well in terms of acting and employing the cast to make the show that much more interesting. I did not pay much attention to the acting. That's a good thing in this case because it meant that there acting was very natural. Usually I only notice the action when it's bad. I.e. when someone shows no emotional sadness when there suppose to be sad about someone's death or something. I also enjoyed the fact that the most of the actors and actresses in this show had a great control of the English language. Some parts of the show required the cast to speak English. It was refreshing to actually understand the English when it was spoken and not having to work out the accents.
Music: [9.0/10.0]
As per usual, you really can't go wrong with the music. The music did what it was suppose to. It made sad moments sadder. It made happy moments happier and so forth.
Thanks for reading my second ever drama review on MDL! I hope that you have enjoyed the review. I only gave this show an 8.5 overall, but that does not mean I did not enjoy it. I merely tried to grade as objectively as I can. I rarely give shows that I review all 10s because most often they are often not as perfect as they can be to receive the 10s.
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Story: [9.5/10] One thing that this drama does well is it takes very common story elements and turn it into something special. Have you ever seen a crime-solving drama? I have seen many myself. None has impressed me as much as this one. This show stands out from other crime-solving shows because it involves two people from different times attempting to work together to solve the same crime. There where a lot of flashbacks and events from the past that were used to help the characters in the present solve the different crimes. I must admit that initially I thought that this was not something that would have worked well with this type of show. However, in the end, the director and writers manage to mesh all of these elements together to create a great show such as Signal.
Although there were several things that kept me from giving the show a 10. One of the reasons that I didn't give the show a 10 has to do with the walkie-talkie. I wanted to know more about the walkie-talkie. I was a little disappointed by the end because I had some questions about the walkie-talkie that were never answered. I don't want to bring up the actual question because it may spoil a little of the show for you if you haven't already seen it. Just know that the walkie-talkie plays a very big part in the show and that I'm annoyed because they didn't answer my question haha.
Perhaps another weakness of the show is that it can be confusing at times. As I mentioned, there are a lot of flashbacks, and moments where we see events from the past. It often got confusing because the show would sometimes jump back and forth between past and present. On the flip side of all this, the show also had its' own strengths when jumping back and forth between the past and present. The writers of Signal did a very good job in setting up the different time jumps. As I would often find myself only confused for about 5-10 seconds before saying oh this is what is going on and I see why there was this flashback/time jump etc. In a way, I was never really confused at all because my confusion went away since the show itself answered most if not all of the questions I may have had about what was going on. This is a good thing because most shows don't do this. Other shows will often just leave you to wonder what the heck is going on the whole time.
Overall this show also kept a very good pace. It never felt like it went to fast or that it was dragging on.for too long. I applaud the director and writers for coming up with such a great story. They did a very great job in turning simple plot elements into a very sophisticated story. They didn't exactly invent a new genre or anything (or did they?). One thing is for sure though. They sure know how to tell a darn good story!
Acting: [10/10] All of the actors and actresses did a very commendable job during this whole drama. There were times where I was completely drawn in by the acting. In fact I cried at least two times during this whole drama. Let me just tell you now. I don't cry very often when watching shows. I rarely ever cry while watching sad dramas, let alone a crime thriller! This can mean one of several things. The first possible meaning is that the actors did a very good job acting. The second is that the story was very well told and that we were meant to cry at that part. I'm inclined to believe that it was a mixture of both. There where also several child actors and actresses in this show as well. Although they were all mostly pretty young, their acting only helped to improve this drama.
Music: [9/10] The music was very well made. If there was a suspenseful moment, suspenseful music that fit the scene came with at the right moment. All in all, the music helped enhance certain moments of the show depending on where it was needed. The OST to this show was nothing to scoff at either. Was it a ground-breaking OST that I will listen to for years to come? No, not really. However, it's definitely something that I will put into my playlist in the future.
Overall I definitely suggest you watch the show if you already haven't. You won't regret it! Objectively I can't give this show all 10s because it definitely wasn't completely perfect. However, subjectively it was one of the most well written Korean drama that I've ever seen.
Thank you for reading my first ever review on MDL! I hope you enjoyed it!
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