Alice (2020)

This a perfect example of a beautiful journey with a disappointing destination

Really a promising show. It is exciting to explore the science of time travel.

The story started with the travellers going back in time to acquire a book of prophecies that marks the end of all time travellers.

Lots of twist and turns, almost all beautifully done. Except maybe the ending, which is very confusing to say the least.

Also, the ending left a lot of questions. Like, why did all time travellers vanished? Even Alice vanished when the older version of the male lead died.

Another thing that really bothers me is their concept of the relationship of the ML and the FL. They used the term dimensions, they claimed that they were from different dimensions. But I'm more comfortable using the term timeline. Doesn't matter what term is being used though, sure they are from different dimensions/timeline but they are still genetically related. And even as the story unfolds, they started to know and to feel their other self merge with their current day persona.

So what does the ending means? If of all time travellers cease to exist, it means that the FL didn't travel through time. Didn't met ML's father and didn't gave birth to ML. In theory he shouldn't exist. But he's alive and living a normal life in a world which is really different. And why does the FL still have the memories of her old life as a time traveller? Does this mean that they are no longer sharing the same genes? Are they supposedly to be lovers now?

Anyway, watched this twice already. I was hoping that things would be clearer after the rewatch. I was wrong.

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The last 30 minutes ruined the entire show

Likes
1. The first half was so interesting and intriguing. I loved the twists at every last scene. But story got so confusing esp episode 14 that i had to stop watching coz it was a big WTH just happened??
2. The final reveal of who the Teacher was unexpected and i loved the main conflict of killing the son or the mother. It's like chicken and egg dilemma.
3. Minhyuk ??? He shined in every scene.
4. I dont know if Park Sun Young is selfish or selfless. I really liked her more than Yoon Tae Yi who is supposed to be a professor but doesn't have a lot of common sense.

Dislikes
1. The unnecessary romantic vibes between Jin Gyeom and Taeyi grossed me out but i kept on watching hoping there is a valid resolution to this. And up until episode 14 i thought the show finally put a stop at it. Had i known this was where the show was really going i would have stopped watching earlier on.
2. The time travel rules kept changing to suit the story when it didn't make sense. I already gave the show a pass on a lot of things. To insist the people are different but later say the memories are merging and theyre the same person is unfair.
3. Again the ending didn't make sense.

Rating: 7.5/10 (i would have given this an 8 despite the flaws until i saw the ending which made zero sense ?)

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Confusing

This drama although the actors were good it was just too confusing.

The storyline was too confusing for me jumping between the past, future and present. There was not much distinction with the actors in each time zone.

I did like the general idea of the story line and understand that it is quite hard to pull it off, they did have factual information on the scientific aspect but yet again confusing.

I wish I did get a ending which look at the romance of the main character but I am aware that it is not a romance.

It did take me longer to watch than other dramas and would not rewatch, but glad I did see it.

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It was umm good at first then went downhill. since it was sci-fi, a genre that I enjoy, so I kinda expect a little bit more but it wasn’t as satisfied :’) It was good, and thrilling in the first half (or maybee up to ep12). The story of time travel and parallel universe was interesting and making me curious on what will happen next especially in first half. The book of prophecy really intrigues me, it makes it like a fantasy genre which again I enjoyed a lot. One thing that I love, prolly the most is about ’dont let the past bog you down, the present is what’s important’.

Done with the praise… now with the issue. The storyline. At first I thought it was only bout time travel, but then it was also about parallel universe. Whenever they travel in time, the end up in another dimension. Okay good, a hybrid, that was quite unique. But then, if there are hundreds of dimensions, why are there loops? wholeeee never ending going around in a circle, repeating the same thing really just tf? wouldn’t there supposed to be different timelines then? The story idea is good, but the storyline damnn it went downhill that bad. Anddd one more thing, he has alexithymia. but what with the sudden explotion of emotion… and is he cured towards the end?

Okay more, And the worst thing, the one I hate the most in the series is definitely the couple. okay at first it was freakin cringe,but then I get it, that’s not his mother… she’s from another dimension, but the exact same face? isn’t that kinda creepy and incest? okay even if I put that away, the couple don’t look good together? I love the ML, i’m okay with the FL, but I don’t think they have that good chemistry going on and they don’t look as good together so I can’t really root for them. It’s better if they just paired ML with his friend, do yeon imo.

Lastly, the ending… wtf. First, I don’t know if I was dumb, I had a difficult time to wrap my head around it. So basically, his mother should not die, for him to not wander who kill his mother and how to save her, and to also make sure he did not turn into monster. Okay but I still have so many more questions.

Anyways, not really recommended because of the poorly written script. But it wasn’t that baaaad cause I’ve seen worse dramas (different genre) prolly just because I love sci fi fantasy thrill genre :))

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Good storyline, confusing execution.

Alice is a drama which explores time travel in a new, but potentially confusing way.

At the offset of the drama, it seems quite promising and there are many elements which are intriguing and entice you to keep on watching. The beginning of the drama introduces you early on to the struggles of the main character, and the struggles and experiences he has had in his life to lead him to career of a detective.

Joo Won does an effective job at expressing his characters and emotions (or potentially lack of), and embracing the background of the character to effectively show his yearning to find his mothers killer. Although the characters have been built up well, it soon becomes apparent that the concept is potentially one that is very difficult to execute in the form of a drama.

Similar to most time travel dramas, there are many unexplained elements and storylines which can quickly begin to confuse the watcher. Thus, the drama becomes difficult to watch, are there are simply too many intricacies in the drama, which all seem to intertwine together without much explanation on the what, how or who. Essentially, the further the drama continued, the deeper they seemed to get into a hole, without so much as a spade to dig themselves out.

Despite the amount of inaccuracies and confusion, there is still an element of intrigue which compels you to continue watching and get the closure that is so very much needed in this drama. Unfortunately, even when the drama is finished you are left with many questions, and can still be very confused.

Controversially, there are some moments between Kim Hee Sun's character and Park Jin Gyum which bring in some romantic chemistry. As the relationship between the two are of mother and son, at times it was slightly uncomfortable to watch - despite the fact that this doesn't seem to be the intention.

This drama does have some elements which make it a very intriguing watch, and you can easily finish the drama very quickly due to the areas of tension and the effective acting, however you find yourself disappointed when you have finished it.

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Convoluted storyline

If there’s one thing that is really a big turn off to me is the love story between the mother and son which evolved into romance. Incestuous and just plain yikes to me. Not to mention how many times I got lost with continuity, character timeline and who they are at certain scenarios. Very difficult to follow storyline, and many times I ask myself what the heck is the conflict In The first place. So many loopholes and illogical turn of story. Don’t waste ur time on this. I just like the acting of the main lead and the supporting characters. Some scenes have funny script. The female lead looks old to me; is t credible as a scholarly scientist and did one dimensional acting.

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Ill thought-out storyline

Loved the cast, acting and accompanying music.
Pace not bad, although it flagged a little around half-way.
What really let this drama down, was a poorly thought out ending. There really are gaping holes in it, which totally let down the entire story for me.
The relationship between 2 of the characters was ambiguous and I felt a little uncomfortable.
The character of Jin-gyum was so naive at times, about the cause and effect of time travelling and parallel universes. He really said and did some dumb things. Tae-yi could also be irritating, although she was pretty strong willed at times, whilst at others she's just stand there instead of assisting someone being throttled!
I also felt some characters were just there to fill out the cast, as they really served no other purpose.
It would have been so much better with a more plausible ending and it's not a drama I'd watch again.

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Alice - Great Time Travel Story

I don’t write a lot of reviews but this is my first time watching a drama that updates every week and I’m so happy that I watched it. It was so confusing at first with the duplicating and not knowing who is the “bad guy” but I got the hang of the plot and characters later. I think I could recommend this drama to anyone who like science fiction and action since it was fun to watch. I think the only part I was just sad about was that Detective never really confirming who his father was, it was sad to watch. Last episode made me cry my balls out though. Thank you actors, producers, director, and staff making this drama.

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The Problem with time travel shows

As a SciFi aficionado I can be both critical or lenient of these works depending on variety of things such as technique, whimsy, execution or even for something as lame as a prop (yes I have bashed scifi shows for bad props and makeup). But ideally what you want out of a good scifi is a solid story. One that makes sense and even if you can poke holes in it, the holes can be papered over and be forgiven.

That said, the problem that scifi shows, specifically time travel shows fall into is the need to be linearly different to every other time travel show ever produced to stand out above the rest, even if the story doesn't make sense because then they can say "At least it was different."
This is a phrase I'm ambivalent towards because on the one hand I appreciate efforts to push beyond the boundaries but on the other hand I need it to still make sense in some logical or scientific way.

Time travel = physics. There is no running away from it but somehow Alice tried to avoid using the discipline whilst still heavily alluding to it. A good analogy is a Chef talking about how great his dish, it looks great, probably tastes great but how did he cook it? Give us the recipe! Alice gave us no recipe. Alice uses the premise of multiple dimension in time travel but that falls apart as the show goes on. A lot of things fall apart in the end because there was no good foundation on which to build the drama world with and a little physics would have helped with that.

But coming away from the science bit was the confusing relationships bonds between the ML and FL and other cast. Before the show started airing it was being promoted as a Scifi/thriller with Romance. The romance tag has since been removed but this confused viewers to no end because we were searching for the love interest. I was looking for romance elsewhere but the way how the show played out it just evaporated. The other problem with SciFi genre is that it's often difficult to do character development with the storyline but Alice felt like it was pulling it off in the beginning then got waylaid by time (forgive the pun). I'd like to say that maybe 4 more episodes would have helped this show but at this point who knows. Just as the show used complicated relationships in the beginning, threw it out in the middle, then brought it back in the end was just plain tacky and made me quite resentful of that ending.

So Alice had some problems but she wasn't a complete mess and I believe this was the screenwriter's debut show. This was a great entrance and I look forward to more of his work. Alice production was really on point and I loved the props. And even though Alice give more questions than answers she was still fun to watch.

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My FIRST EVER Kdrama that got me into Kdrama's

This was my first EVER Kdrama and Asian drama in general. It was the Kdrama that got me into Kdramas and later C/J/Tdramas. I watched this almost exactly a year ago (October 2020) whilst it was ongoing and ironiclly enough, it is the only non-romantic Asian drama I've watched and I only watch dramas with at least some romance.

I'm surprised no one talks about this drama and a lot of people don't even know about it. It is extremely underrated.

I watched this drama whilst it was on going and it had me anxiously anticipating the next episodes every week. It had me theorisng the ending from the very beginning and every episode had me shook. I still remember it very clearly. This drama had no romance, and would have been truly disturbing if it did. But, it had hints of it, hints that the FL may have liked the ML in a non platonic or familial way.

This is the ONLY time travel drama I've seen that actually looks at the science of time travel whilst timetraveling, and actually focuses on how timetravel came to exist. It is a very real world detective drama mixed with outright sci-fi, completely different genres that clashed in the best way possible. It also had me obsessing over time travel dramas for months.

My favourite part of this drama was the story of the ML's parents. I LOVED his parents and they had the most interesting as well as heartbreaking storyline, one we see at the very start of the drama. I would have been happy just to see a drama of their story. I wish we got to see more of the ML's dad, he was the most badass character in this drama and with the best character development, not to mention, handsome as hell.

The ONLY thing I HATED about this drama was the ending. After spending weeks theorising just about every ending I could think off, they somehow came up with the worst ending for this drama that I couldn't even contemplate. Considering how this drama focused a lot on the science of time travel, a science that made sense especially with the chronological order of events, they somehow made the ending make absolutely no sense whatsoever. The last episode made a 180 and completely deviated from the plotline of the previous 15 episodes.

I highly recomend this drama to anyone despite the ending, because the first 15 episodes are definitely worth the watch. It is still one of the most UNIQUE Kdrama's (and Asian drama) I've seen or heard of and the plot was very detailed and every episode was unexpected. You will not be able to anticipate what will happen the next episode, forget anticipating the ending. There are so many twists in this drama and I LOVED almost all of them.

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A whole mess ?

I originally started watching this drama because I wanted to watch something with Moon Jo won, being one of my all time favorite actors this was a must. But I cant deny the disappointment. The reason why I am disappointed is that everything else was stunning and amazing (but the story itself). This drama really had potential but it went downhill. I am not sure why every time kdrama writers try to dabble in Sci-fi fantasy it turns to a whole mess. The story started off somewhat illogical and I tried my best to follow but it only kept getting weirder as it progressed (especially the ending) and I couldnt really understand what the hell is happening half of the time. Is it time travel ? is it different dimensions ? how do people end up connecting with their selves of the past dimensions and having their memories. The doubleganger theory made no sense whatsoever. Is the FL his adopted sister ? mother ? love interest ? I couldn't wrap my head around it, I kept thinking whether it is a really smart story thats beyond my comprehension? I couldn't tell. Towards the end I really stop caring about the story and stayed for joo won's acting, which is as usual, stunning. I didn't think I'd be this sad since I didn't really connect to the story as much but I actually cried . Music is good also VFX. Overall an okay drama that could've been tied better in its theories and topics.

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Watch it, but don't take it too seriously.

I really wanted to give this show a good review. I honestly had enjoyed it up to about Episode 12, and did not understand why it got so many bad reviews here. Past that point, nothing made sense anymore and I was left very unsatisfied with the ending.

Would I recommend it? Sure, it starts off great, but be prepared for a terrible ending.

I think there was so much potential in the story. I was hooked on each episode in the beginning as the plot slowly began to unfold, but towards the middle characters started to act irrationally and couldn't understand what was right in front of their noses. I held onto the conviction that the plot would be fleshed out to a somewhat satisfactory ending, but it reached a climax somewhere halfway through and began going around in circles and circles for a few episodes.

Still, I think the production value is amazing. It's not easy to film and direct a time travel show, and I really appreciate the production team's and actors' efforts in seamlessly connecting each setting.

This is a drama that you'd want to binge in a weekend, but don't anticipate too much what is going to happen. Don't take it too seriously and don't get hooked on the supporting cast, because, unfortunately, they don't have very satisfying endings (particularly Doyeon... feel so sad for that girl). Anyway, just enjoy it for the thriller it is and don't think too much into it.

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