All_In

- I did enjoy the drama quite a bit. I'd put it at 8.5ish out of 10 and probably a full 9 for the first 6 or so episodes. I mean to laugh out loud over and over again is a rare thing in a k-drama.
-Baek Jin Sang. Well it's just gotta be. I'm getting over the 'good woman helping an obnoxious man change' trope, but KJH's performance sold me. (he looked like he was having the time of his life with all those death scenes.) I also admire the drama for not going into some huge childhood story about why he was the way he was...and truthfully he was quite often right but just obnoxious about how he expressed it. Verbally humiliating people in public is a huge no no with me.
- I hate love triangles but this one didn't bother me and it worked that it was weak. The way the whole time loop resolved the situation actually worked out quite well. I kind of like that the 2nd lead was just kind of immature because too often they are portrayed as perfect to counter the obnoxious lead. (and, yeah, why did she start liking him when she was going to turn him down...I honestly can't remember.)
-For the most part I agree with your take. I actually really liked how the fantasy time loop scenario played out. It worked better than say About Time's fantasy element which was a friggin mess.
- My main complaint is too much corporate politics, and I think in the last episodes I would have liked less labor union and more about his relationship with all his co-workers and less focus on the business stuff. I would have rather the 2nd lead step up more and deal with that because who cares. I care about BJS and where he goes from here.
-Overall a solid watch though I did some judicious skipping of scheming executives.
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"none of the fantasy Kdramas seem to end well" Yep, and it's why I watched 2 episodes of this and put it on hold. I have trust issues when it comes to the fantasy genre. Even Black which was quite good for most of its run, had an ending that made no sense.

Viki has this one as well.

With 2 episodes left, I find this to be a solid drama with perhaps a bit too much about corporate politics at the end. I don't care about that stuff. I just want to see how this team moves forward which could have been done with fewer episodes. Still laugh out loud funny and heartfelt drama.

I think vigilantes often end up being hero/anti-heroes to people because the vigilantes are dealing with things that the law cannot and most people feel powerless. This is all the more emotional in this drama because of the abuse of kids.

"He needed killing" was considered a justifiable defense for vigilante justice in a lot of places even well into the 20th century.

I think HaNa is okay and they find her in time. Or else this is wishful thinking.

I originally thought when HaNa was hugging him, she was telling him something but that doesn't seem to be the case.

This is some serious variety on your list...love it.

They could do a solid remake of storylines involving Miranda, Charlotte, and Carrie but I don't think they can deal with a character like Samantha, not even on their cable channels. And I'm not even talking about nudity but just the storylines overall.

Just an FYI: I heard this drama is not airing episodes next week re: Christmas scheduling. Take with a grain of salt.

There are aspects I like, and I'm fine with a low key romance; I don't always need things to be super dramatic. I like that even though it has tropes, it is trying to do something different with them. (The ex-husband so far seems to be a nice guy.) But like a lot of other dramas, I do think it could be better. There isn't a lot of sizzle in the way some of the leads scenes are filmed and direction has a lot to do with that. Still I like so many characters and want to see how it is going to go so the drama has been successful in that regard for me.

I still don't get his plan. Was he going to totally let her go, try to woo her again when he thought she could stand up to his mom, or just hang out around her? Besides seeing her at a family function, the drama hasn't really given us a lot of info on whether they even saw each other much since the divorce. So far it seems he was fine just chilling until some competition came along.

I'm just accepting this very low key romance, but I have to admit that - in my mind - I find myself pondering a totally separate drama involving the ex-husband. I really hope they don't ruin his character and turn him horrible. I would love if he was given his own love line.

Yeah, DF didn't go bankrupt. I think WB got bought out by ...maybe ATT. It was someone but can't totally 100% remember. Allegedly there was talk of DF blending in with WB for all their content to be licensed on their own site, but the licensing fees for k-dramas got too expensive with the additional competition from Netflix and Kocowa which sounds reasonable I guess. My main issue with DF was the sudden end. As abrupt as it was for us, right in the middle of dramas, it had to be worse for employees.

I don't know how many years the Kocowa/Viki contract was for. I would think it would be 1 to 3 at least, but I'm totally guessing. Perhaps they would re-up on the contract instead of letting it lapse. I guess it depends on how things go at Kocowa to see if they determine they still need Viki or not.

I like that they managed to keep the comedic aspect of the relationship between WL and the emperor. Overall I rate this an 8.5. I do think some characters changed a bit too much and too sudden mid-way and I didn't quite buy it but an overall solid C-drama and my favorite of the year. (Well, for Wuxia, it was Ashes.)

Just started this and binged the first 8 episodes. I skipped some of the family politics once I got the gist of that situation. (been there, done that). I like how it is progressing and that the chaebol lead actually seems a decent sort.

I think Kocowa's deal with Viki was probably the end of the road for Dramafever (unless/until they regroup which I have my doubts). I think Kocowa, which is now beta testing on the ROKU, will continue with Viki until they can get to a point of not needing them further.

Viki has started doing deals for more J-dramas, and if they are smart they will go after every deal they can with every k-drama cable company that they don't have deals with already. Netflix has already cut into that pie but I think Netflix will be in trouble within 5 years if they haven't put in a firm foundation of original content as the big entertainment corporations start their own streaming services and stop licensing out their content.

Okay, I was keeping the question of who she loved in mind through the second chunk of the drama. First off, since people are questioning something that was made apparent in the book, that is a failure of the writer. I think a conversation or two with MingYu before she kicked the bucket could have alleviated a lot.

I think FuHeng was her first love and she kept a chunk of her heart for him especially as time went on and resentments faded. But this gal compartmentalized and she wasn't ever willing to give up on revenge/goals and that included for FuHeng, the emperor or anyone else. Love for a man wasn't gonna get in the way...gotta respect it. If you think about it, it's her love for the women in her life that really makes her loyal...to her sister and the first empress.

I really liked that most of the comedic aspects of this drama were between the two leads. I liked they were equals of the mind. I think she at least respected the emperor even if she didn't love him when they married. I think she grew to love him and the scene that sealed the deal was the true anguish she felt regarding the whole scene when he confronts her about the birth control potion. I tie that in with the scene when he asks where her heart is and she tells him a woman would only have a child with the man she loves. That's her way of saying, "dude, I wouldn't be having your kid if I didn't love you" but - as we see- she is NEVER going to say it because he loves the chase and her persnicketyness to the end.

Because the gal is so manipulative and speaking out of both sides of her mouth so to speak, the writers could have done a better job letting the viewers in on what was really going on in her mind but that's my final take on it. She loved them both. The emperor got her in this life and Fu Heng gets her in the next. I can live with that.

At first I thought the ex was going to be the standard cheating, nasty chaebol so now I wonder if he asked for the divorce under the pretext of finding another woman because he saw that the lifestyle was turning his wife into a miserable shell of a woman. I wonder if he set her free. Guess we'll see.

I like the low key vibe and we're learning more about the characters etc. I especially like conversations and such happening without an overbearing OST in the background. However, I'm not going to be able to handle the mom and mom-in-law stuff if it's just them being horrible to the lead. I didn't even watch the Something in the Rain drama and the whole mean mom things annoys me.