Colum H

Not sure I'd call Crowned Clown and Empress Ki light dramas but each to their own. Couple for you The Fox's Summer and The Story of Ming Lan (which is light like Yanxi Palace) and That Fool for an oldie.

"Duke Su always the puppet master, and never losing his composure or risking anything." excellently put I found myself FF ing through his scenes for that reason, no risk no fun.

He he, Golden Water Formation - snigger, snigger

I'm only on episode 11 so maybe things change.
I disagree with you though, some things are not just a matter of interpretation and are indeed either true or false, right or wrong.

Fortunately dramas and the arts in general are in the end subjective as to our enjoyment of them no matter how objectively we consider the quality of them.
Just a quick glance at your list tells me we have very different tastes but if you have 5mins feel free to recommend me a show or two.

Fun but all a bit over the top with lots of thunder and lightning. ML is a bit wooden as an actor and as a character he's a supercilious, violent bully, which is not easy to root for.

Well I got to ep 5 before grinding to a halt - actors are great as expected but the writing is meh.

Gosh darn those irrational over emotional wimmin are at it again..

FF'ing through most of the secondary character's arcs because they are all too dreadful to be entertaining. Struggling with ML being all cocky and privileged with the FL.

There is a plethora of weird turgid paralyzed faces, fat lips, double eyelids and odd noses in this (as there is in most thrumpty episode dramas). Grandmas' unwrinkled forehead and face freaks me out much more.
As a chap and aware of the unrealistic beauty standards which mainly impact women I'm not dissing any of them but I'm sometimes glad I get to concentrate on the subs.

Park Do Ra has a lot in common with Clark Kent..

The leads are OK and I could cope with the batshit crazy mum but really it was just all too bland and directionless to keep me interested after the first 20 or so episodes. I enjoyed the first bit though.

The FLs character over the first 4 episodes killed it for me.

Excellent show! thoroughly enjoyable and just seemed to get better the further in I got.

Enjoyed this enough to finish it. It loses its way in places but the characters are well played and pull you in.

A lot better than I thought now I've finally managed to watch it all the way through.
Mi Ran an Do Hyun were great but I have to admit to FFing lots of bits they weren't in. All a bit same old well worth a watch though.

Squandered potential. The start peaked my interest but half a dozen episodes in and I didn't like any of them. Just a bunch of snidey, petulant children. Dropped.

We need more comments! surprised how many I agreed with.

Great review - I made it to 16 before I couldn't take it anymore for all the same reasons you mention

Contrived nonsense - any attempt at realism is thrown out early on in favour of 'creating suspense'. Laughable as a Police Procedural series and too superficial to be a thriller it relies on characters taking turns to be suspicious and 'grey'.
Dropped

This just didn't grab me and I found myself skipping many scenes. the manufactured jeopardy of every episode didn't excite me and I really found it hard to care about the competition between Anthony and Oh, and the whole send up of the industry. Go Eun and her mum were the only characters I was bothered about.
I only got to episode 4 so it might pick up after that but 4 hours is enough of an attempt for me.