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Switch On thai drama review
Dropped 12/24
Switch On
0 people found this review helpful
by 8392225
Nov 17, 2022
12 of 24 episodes seen
Dropped
Overall 4.5
Story 3.0
Acting/Cast 5.0
Music 8.0
Rewatch Value 3.0

Another bizarre way how to get to "romance" nowadays

'Switch On' is funny in many respects. Just the phrase "switch on" which is supposed to activate the game is something thai are not able to actually pronounce, lol. It's supposed to be an online game using virtual reality head set which provides experience so vivid, that main heroine is actually questioning whether it's all real, lol. Someone keeps hacking the game, resulting in changing the game's events. Everyone is mostly concerned with this, while the fact that the heroine "returns" from the game (the phrase "switch off" is just as difficult to correctly pronounce for her, plus it's not very discreet to leave the game only by saying it out loud, lol) with her clothes stained with REAL blood is laid aside, lol. Also, 1 hour of real time equals 1 day in the game. The main heroine spends 2 months in the game, meaning 2,5 real days, without as much as getting tiny bit dehydrated, lol. But perhaps her meals she had within the game somehow magically counted. Like the blood, lol.

Episode 4 finally adresses this, and the FL's friend asks her if, when she kissed in the game, her lips felt wet and whether it was a real feeling, lol. Then he explains to her more and more rules further and further, but it's all so contradicting that after a while I completely ceased to understand, lol. Obviously any logic needs to be thrown out of the window if one is to continue watching. Let's just try to enjoy this weird... romance? Next, FL surprises ML taking shower. She gets to see his "naughty bits" as censored. Eh... lol? He then kisses her again but it's not a good kiss, and Gee Sutthirak needs to crouch gracelessly towards short Aom. They visit her childhood home, which looks like her real childhood house as it has her childhood drawings she did draw on walls when she was a kid, though many of them are placed so high on the wall it's a wonder how a child reached there. Oops, forgot to turn off any logic thoughts again.

End of episode 5/24, FL even tells ML that all his world is only a game and switches off right in front of him. So he starts searching whether he and everyone around him is real person and what kind of reality he lives in. For him, it all kinda turns into some kind of metapsychical experience, which means the "gaming" fun is kinda out. For her, episode 6 she already finds her father for whom she entered the game in the first place, which means that ceases to be long-time plot and passes briefly instead of being "emotional reunion" near the final. The actor portraying the father is great, though. Someone needs to add him on MDL.

So, what now? Episode 7, we let the game guy physically materialize in the real world. But no, let him chat with the mainframe for almost whole episode first, lol. Then right after he appears in real world, let the episode end:-) I'm sure many people opened episode 8 right away after such "cliffhanger", but I NEVER binge, just so you know what kind of a viewer I am... I require SERIES to actually work IN episodes. I smirked about how the guy having a conversation with zeroes and ones looked rather stupid. When I returned for episode 8, I found out the guy thinks his game-world is actually a parallel world, equal to ours. Despite being clearly shown that all it takes is to put a virus into the game and PEOPLE around him start disappearing, even memories about them erased. LOL. Then he decides to sacrifice himself. That too happens as soon as episode 9/24, far from the final. Radical conclusions coming this quick, I wondered what was this show's aim, then? When even a game character entering the real word was soon discarded and nothing much came of it?

Well, episode 10, instead of disappearing, Akin starts acting like a conceited wacko, having pompose speeches and new stupid nickname. Actually, he gained personality the game developer wanted for the game to become more "action". Too bad for the FL, though. Her guy just lost his character. We then keep watching the game programmers and the girl's father trying to make the guy act this way or that way... And I must say I was getting tired of these scenes. At 1/2 of the series, the whatever excitement about entering the game from the real world or entering the real world from the game rather dropped, and it didn't matter to me that much whatever the characters were to do next.

There is a game developer bad guy or whatever and it's supposed to be all top secret machinations, while at the same time anyone can watch everything that happens in the game online, LOL. The smart people controlling the game seemed to be getting dumber by the minute... I got bored watching them solving the game problems. The whole show probably took a wrong turn since early eps. Perhaps had they just let the FL "enjoy herself" in the game, without it necessarily having an impact on the real world, it may have stayed fun.

Even after the old personality "game pra'ek" returns, and 1st thing he does is he whines he's been "treated like it's a game", it's funny and... annoying. He complains so much that he's been created for her amusement. While the girl looks at him apologetically. I don't know whether all the gamers were supposed to watch this scene too, but NOW I really don't get this show's aim. Imagine you DO create a perfect partner for yourself, and then that partner starts nagging you just like typical one from the real world, lol. I just wished we could return to episode 5. Why the hell did the girl tell the guy it was just a game? She should have never.

Now, I do understand that next 12 episodes probably will be about dealing with all the adversaries and obstacles and fight for some kind of sappy happy end for the couple, but I can't say I really care for it. The fun is gone.
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