Signal (2016)

Signal has always been a series which caused me doubts whether I really like it or not as the summaries I have read about this series did not really catch my eye, so I am glad that I gave it the benefit of the doubt (thanks to you voters!) and I ABSOLUTELY love it! It is pretty safe to say that this series is among my favourites right now.

The story was well-created and told in a way that it would keep your interests throughout the show, in which they mislead you with different plot twists and side stories, which eventually were connected to the main story itself.  By dealing with several crime/rape cases. the producers and directors approached each crime in a different way. For example in one crime, you'll know the culprit immediately, while in others you did not. They did even hire the perfect actors/actresses for specific roles as all three of them exceeded my expectations with their performance, especially Lee Je Hoon's role as Park Hae Young impressed me.

So I definitely recommend you all to watch it if you haven't watched it as of yet. It is totally worth it.

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Definitely a must watch!

Definitely the best Kdrama, no scratch that, one of the best dramas ever made!

I have read mostly great things about this drama and wanted to keep it on my watchlist in case I ever needed particularly good entertainment. After almost 6 years this moment arrived. I finally watched it! And I’m not disappointed one bit. Well the last was a lie, the ending is making me kinda nervous.

First two important things:

* All of you who have been watching this series on a weekly basis while it was airing must have nerves of steel. Teach me your ways Senpai!
* And even worse, you were waiting for season 2 since 2016... HOW EVEN??!?

My review:

The drama has everything one needs! Definitely a must watch! Probably no potential for a rewatch, as the suspense is very important for such a crime series.

Positive:

* Great story, acting, music, vibe, suspense, cinematography, pacing, message, characters and villains (I hated them, which is a good sign for villains).
* The 3 leads were charismatic, intelligent and were of different ages which is so refreshing! Oh and the female lead was finally normal (strong enough and still had feelings/empathy), what a surprise!
* The motives and behavior of all characters were believable and kinda human. They all had weaknesses and strengths.
* It has a lot of realism (without being boring/annoying) with a cool scifi aspect to it and a pinch of a love story (no forced “they have to kiss once at the end” and not really a 2nd lead).
* It has no unnecessary CGI or stupid overdone fights (everything felt real and yet exciting).

Negative:

* On a contrary to many, I like the ending, it fits the whole vibe. But it makes me nervous, so I can’t say it is a great ending. I need season 2 to be able to sleep better. Is there any hope we will get one?
* Up until the end I wasn’t 100% sure if what they portrayed between Park Hae Young and Cha Soo Hyun was only respect/friendship or should show some kind of one-sided love on Park Hae Young’s side or the start of a new love between them both. I loved their friendship and wish it was meant that way/will stay that way. However, at moments I felt conflicted, because they would make a great love pair... I would have preferred they would not have given me mixed signals tbh. Does anyone get me or am I the only one seeing things? Maybe I'm just having a permanent 2nd lead syndrome. :(
* If you are watching this for a love story, then you will be disappointed. It’s not the main driver of this show. It’s just a nice touch to it.

Trigger warning:

* This is not a deal breaker for me, because it is needed for a crime series to be good. However, some of you might not like the violence and themes of the crimes they try to solve... Not much is shown, but still, some of you might not be comfortable watching this.

Now, guys go watch it if you haven’t and if you have please talk to me. Tell me it’s going to be alright!!!!!

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This is one drama that I would recommend to all my friends family colleague!! if you are a new fan of k-dramas, you definitely cant miss this thriller drama! from the plot to the small details of this drama, everything is perfect and it really can keep you on your edge of your chair. Although I have watched fashion king (where lee je hoon starred in), I didn't remember the role that he acted in. But after this drama, I'm in lost of words at how amazing his acting is! this has to be his representative drama other than the movie "architecture 101" where he acted with suzy in.

OH! if you are a fan of thriller dramas like Signal, I recommend you to watch "voice"!!! IF YOU ARE MISSING "SIGNAL", YOU DEFINITELY HAVE TO WATCH "VOICE"

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There's something seriously missing here

I have this thing that if somebody would recommend me to watch something a lot, I would instinctively postpone watching this thing till forever. Normally I want to know as little as possible about the series I’m about to watch, that way I do it with clear mind and no expectation. And maybe that was exactly the problem I was so disappointed after watching Signal. Plus, at the same time I was watching Kairos, series that’s based on very similar idea, and that gave me additional perspective on how Signal is using the motive of communicating with the past.

The idea is relatively simple. In 2017 detective Park Hae Yeong is solving long lasting murder case when he finds old walkie talkie that allows him to communicate with Lee Jae Han, who turns out to be police officer from late eighties, who’s also working on the same case but in the past. Knowledge that they both acquire helps them solve the crimes that were opened for years. But there’s a catch. Every, even slightest change to the past dramatically influences events in the future (or present, depending how we see it). So every step is very risky.

Writing about Kairos couple days ago I admitted that I love time travelling related motives and Signal was actually first on the list, since it was recommended to me so many times. And I’m honestly not sure where does all that praise come from, since Signal turned out to be merely mediocre drama for me.

I’d like to say here that I’d probably won’t be able to restrain myself from comparing Signal to Kairos, so if you don’t want any spoilers from both of the series, please beware.

I like how whole mechanism of communication via walkie talkie was introduced early on. Basically the first episode was pretty neat introduction to the characters and the way changing the future influences future events. So at his point the viewer has more or less knowledge of what can happen when the past is changed. Even tough first episode was pretty slow, at his point it wasn’t an issue. The problem was that the pace was like that basically throughout the whole series. It wouldn’t be that bad if we get some connection with the characters, but unfortunately they seemed so distanced that it was hard to get emotionally attached to them. And I don’t only mean time distanced but I think it also played a valid role in how the drama was viewed. I’ve wrote in Kairos’ review that the strong side of that drama was emotional bond with the characters. We’ve seen events basically from their perspectives. We’ve shared their feeling, we could immerse ourselves in their pain. Here I had the problem that characters of Signal were much more distanced. Obviously one reason was that they weren’t so connected to the cases they’re solving as it was with Kairos. They were also separated by much longer time period. The crimes were mostly pretty old, since in the present timeline they were dealing with very old, sometimes over 20 years old cases. So the emotional attachment towards them was almost inexistent. And I mean, we've seen some tears, we've seen some anger, but it was just not enough.

The first episode also proved that changing the history is not easy even if you know what will happen. There’s just so many variables that there’s always something that can goo wrong. This drama doesn’t give simple solutions, characters need to fight for the truth constantly, not being sure if their methods will work. And of course past doesn’t want to be changed. Every try may result in failure in other aspects of the investigation. Nothing is this drama comes easy for characters.
At one point this drama was so emotionless it was almost painful to watch. Overall slow pace of the show didn’t really help either.

After couple of really slow episodes, in the second half of the season we’ve finally had characters involved somehow in the action. The fact that they were directly connected to the case made it a bit more interesting. The fact thew Park Hae Yeong and Lee Jae Han actually almost met in the past seemed a bit too much of a coincidence but was quickly explained in a way that didn’t really spoiled anything.

Overall I was impressed on how detailed this drama was to all the events, but unfortunately very slow pace any really unlikable characters threw me off. I just couldn’t immerse myself in watching the drama. And I know that it’s very subjective but this drama just didn’t worked with me, it was missing something to make it more alive. What was good story worth when we get characters that cannot deliver it?

And why the hell is Park Hae Yeong whispering so often? Most of his conversations with Cha Soo Hyun are whispered and most of the times is doesn’t really make sense!

So overall, I really wanted to like this drama. It seems to fit perfectly in my interests. But I just couldn’t. I see good sides of it, I see well developed plot, but no chances to actually get caught up in it.

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The potential...

So yesterday I finished the drama, and honestly I wanted to love it so so much but it just couldn't live up to my expectations. I really liked the plot, the music, the visual, it gave me a bit of a True Detective feeling. And still I nearly dropped the whole thing after the 4th episode, because the writing pissed me up so much. Basically every character was terribly written.
Lee Jae Han: Who is despite a policeman, creeping on his crush following her from 10 meter and hiding behind bushes when she turns? And literally trying to run away when the girl approaches him? Srsly? As a fresh policeman he should be more than 14 years old i guess. At least later on the show he matures and from there he is the most realistic character of them all.
Park Hae Yeong: The absolute worst character I ever met. In the majority of the show he just stares into the abyss with a question mark above his head, or just simply asking back to every piece of information given three times.
He is not the killer!
He is not the killer?
No he is not
So…. he is not?
Despite he supposed to be the brain in the “team”, he was basically useless in the entire show. He is definitely not a professional detective, just a selfish emotional idiot. Sometimes I was truly thinking he got some mental challenges to understand the most basic things happening around him…
The Cold cases team, is also a non existent thing, because the show falls into the most brasil soap op cliche of all times, the members are not talking to each other, not sharing informations the typical thing where a problem could be solved with 2 sentences but, nooo the characters just staring each other and then walking away silently… Oh Cmooon!
I understand they wanted drama everywhere but this is not the way you should make drama. This is just bullshit. I was preparing myself for the episode where they show us the Inju case (the main thing. The case which started all of this), I really hoped they will give to the `what happened that day` a full episode placed only in the past, and show us (the viewers) the brutality of the gang rape, how the whole village knows what happened, who did it, but keeps silent because of the absolute power of the cement company… That could have been dramatic where we see how bad is when company leaders have absolute power on people and even the police. What we got? A half episode a weird rape scene where one person rapes the girl who gets into the hospital after? So it wasnt a gang rape then? Or when did it actually happened? Did I miss something?
Every time something good happened, and I started to lay back to finally enjoy the show the writers decided to make some idiot choice which ruined the whole experience again and again leaving me frustrated because this show had so much potential. The way Lee Jae Han finds the scarf… I'm still shocked how bad that was. And why the heck they had to explain everything like two times to the viewers? I constantly felt the writers thinking im stupid or just really slow like Park Hae Yeong. I remember the scene where I was like “finally the scene they made clever”. It was the photographers missing girlfriend and the fact she was reading a book and they just showed the book in her hand for a split second and I was like omg yess the book the book! And what happened next? I can imagine the writers were like “Oke, we need to explain to the people what is happening because you know not all of them are so smart like our police” and bammm another disappointing solution. Same with the woman who comes back to SK because of the sick mother. You can put together the puzzle pieces but noooo Cha Soo Hyun explains you everything when she talks to the sister…

Im so pissed, because this could have been a unique masterpiece but the lazy, incompetent writing ruined the show for me.

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just straight up a waste of time

Just bad. The first maybe 3 episodes were great and promising and then everything just took a turn for the worst. Every fucking thing is inconsistent and everyone is just evil. It's like they just had a big ball of the worst things humankind could do and kept picking chits out of it every 20 minutes. No catharsis AT ALL just pain and discomfort. Why were all the murders only of women and children? God i could write a whole book of the the plot holes and issues I have with this drama. Can't believe I wasted so much time — my sister and I started the show one night and got hooked initially but it was so fucking dumb and bad as it progressed BUT we couldn't stop. The agony. We had to complete nearly 18 hours worth of run time in 10 hours by skipping tonnes of shit and watching it at 1.5x (don't worry you won't miss anything) I've never hated lead characters this much ever before the two male leads (esp lee jehoon) were all that kept me going. And I generally only like the women in a show but MY GOD did they make me hate the FL. Just bad don't watch this show it's just awful. I should've just read about it on dramabeans. As a film and writing student especially i really lost the will to live while watching this raging pile of dogshit the crew and cast that worked on this need to reflect on their actions.

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