I Saw You in My Dream (2024)

a unique premise with a slow burn

Overall: I was torn between a 7.5 and 8 for this series - one aspect in the finale made me rate it 7.5. I have not read the book this is based on and I reviewed the series on its own merits. 12 episodes about 45 minutes each. Aired on GagaOOLala (except: Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Vietnam, Philippines) https://www.gagaoolala.com/en/videos/4579/i-saw-you-in-my-dream-2024-e01 and WeTV https://wetv.vip/en/play/w52tycxawaajel4-I%20Saw%20You%20In%20My%20Dream/w4100e6rju9-EP0A%3A%20I%20Saw%20You%20In%20My%20Dream

Content Warnings: attempted murder, violence, blood, past death/grief, vomiting, groping/non con touching/sexual assault, stalking, non con picture taking, trespassing

Watch Suggestions (to skip some of the love rival stuff and slow pacing)
- watch episodes 1-5
- watch episode 6 14:30-14:45, then 22:45-40min
- watch episode 7 13:30-end
- watch episodes 8-10
- watch episode 11 beginning to 15 or could even skip and watch 44-47
- watch episode 12

What I Liked
- good that a character apologized and promised to tone it down
- supportive friends
- supportive family
- sweet/caring moments
- intimacy/kissing done well
- consent
- showed how abusers can and do play the victim
- actual consequences instead of the "oh he learned his lesson" bs we normally see

Room For Improvement
- the character exposition dump to start the series
- comedy sound effects that detracted from the comedy
- Yu continued to prank Ai after what happened and Ai not telling Yu why he was really afraid of the dark for years, Yu didn't clarify his relationship in episode 10 which caused unneeded distress and then Yu still tried to prank Ai at the end of the series, Yu overall feels a bit too immature which is why I knocked it down to 7.5
- cringey guitar playing, time jump in the finale
- love rival aspect went on too long/the pacing was too slow
- too much blur filter
- nonsense stuff: a character didn't like the dark but then was cooking in a very dark kitchen, a character should have told another character about their experience at age 20, I don't think there would have been that many/severe injuries from that in ep 12
- episode 11 was so slow that it blunted the suspense aspect
- should have put the beginning of ep 12 in chronological order in ep 11
- the worldbuilding/supernatural aspect was kind of meh, could have been done better

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medicore story/acting, some cringe/fluff, neither fish nor fowl

The trend of lazy writing continues with this show. They had a good novel, the first episodes where interesting and then they buchered the story especially in the finale. That was so lame and so badly acted, just unbelievable.

There are some highlights like cute moments, building up friendships, supportive parents, but there are very cringe moments (very fake guitar playing) and many communication issues (you see it and think "wtf is he doing?"). The showrunners could not decide to make either a comedy or a mature drama and so they decided to go the safe route delivering us the worst of both worlds. If there are too many comendy elements (with of course lot's of stupid sound effects) it's hard to take the story seriously, on the other hand the finale showed they did not really like doing it in a serious manner, so it felt extremly silly and unbelievable. They had an interesting premise but in the end it got from good to bad.

So for me it's neither fish nor fowl, just a medicore show, leaning more to the bad side. If I had not seen this show, I would not miss a thing, but there are even worse shows out there. ?

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