Cambear
Enjoyable, but not as fun as the original
I loved the first season of The Eternal Love for its humor, romance and just the right amount of cheese. I also enjoyed the second season even if it’s not quite up to the joyous fun of the first.What’s improved since season one:
** Better costumes - Clearly there’s a bigger budget with more elegant costumes and improved wigs.. I do miss 14th Prince’s colorful costumes from season one. (RIP yellow furry shoulder pads.)
** Better sets - They are missing the cool elegance of the first season interior sets, but they expanded all the outdoor locations with some truly breathtaking locations
** More court intrigue - If this is more your thing, the plot focuses more on what’s happening at court and less on the romance
** Some really cool plot twists
**Xiao Tan doesn’t scream nearly as often (she was really shrill at the start of the first season)
Good stuff they kept since season one:
** The chemistry between the two main leads is as strong as ever
** A lot of the great songs from season one are back again
What didn’t work as well as season one:
** A lot of the relationship building for the main leads was taken for granted (which the characters actually admit). The fun of the first season was to see these characters go from hate to love and well, it’s short-changed and brushed over. Big romantic kisses come out of nowhere. This season is definitely less about the romance which is what I loved about the first season.
** A lot of the great supporting cast is back, but their characters don’t get any development. They are there for specific plot points, and the characterization is short-changed. If you didn’t watch season one, you wouldn’t care about their characters from just watching this season. Sad really and I would guess the actors feel that way as well. I really hope this gets fixed for season 3.
** Lots of plot holes. It’s a complicated story so these things happen with time travel and parallel worlds, but there are lots of them.
Overall, it’s worth watching, but just lower your expectations just a bit. I’m still really looking forward to season three!
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Good stuff: Great chemistry between the leads. Interesting and fun secondary characters. Some good twists on those characters. Lovely cinematography and good OST.
Some stuff that wasn’t quite as strong:
The male lead character is a little too idealized — he’s super noble and naive and somehow that doesn’t hinder him at court. It’s a little odd and sometimes I had to roll my eyes.
Weiyoung is the subject of so many plot conspiracies, she has to free herself by playing detective. That’s fine the first couple of times (despite some laughable solutions), but it gets old by the last third of the series.
Despite those flaws, I was emotionally involved with their story so this series definitely does a lot of things right, but the large number of episodes always magnifies anything that’s not working.
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The comedy isn’t based on broad characters, but rather having fun with time travel and pop culture. It’s earnest and happy which makes for a lot of fun in a unique way.
The leads handle the fun and romance so you just cheer them on, no matter how ridiculous or outrageous the situation.
After bingeing so many long dramas, it’s nice to have a short and complete story in two episodes. No needless plot twists to keep things going. Watch this one for a refreshing light rom com.
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The series starts off strong with the game play and reality stories mixing things up. After a while, the focus shifts more towards the real world and some of the fun and novelty wear off. The characters prize looks waaaaaaayyyyyy too much and the secondary love story was completely not interesting once the girl turned overly cutesy and obnoxious.
So very strong start, but things sputter a bit later on. Thankfully it stays away from some tropes which redeems back some stars.
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Let's start with the good: some great aesthetics, terrific fight scenes and a distinctive look for the characters due to the funky head gear and a wardrobe designer who hasn't met a print they don't want on camera. There's also a significant quest which helps to justify the 50+ episodes. So good so far.
But then...sigh
The writing on this show is uneven. The first section is rushed and viewers have to take for granted that there is a great big love affair here. This needed a bit more development considering it's the central plot point. After that, we get a lot of plots that don't go anywhere. They just serve as distractions and they don't even get the courtesy of being wrapped up before the story moves on. Ugh.
Also, so much of this is spent in discussion rather than showing what's happening. It's so conveluted things don't make sense like how they got to the ending.
Lastly, the lead male actor is attractive, but.....boring. He doesn't have the range to make the character really interesting and half way through I had no clue why we were supposed to cheer him on. Every other prince was more interesting and better developed. So aside from the main character, everyone is great.
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There’s also plenty of romance with sparkling chemistry between the leads and great supporting cast. It’s nice to see some new and talented folks shine.
This is lower budget so some of the special effects are cheesy and the costumes are, well, different. (Several muppets died to provide the 14th prince’s wardrobe.) Still, that doesn’t takeaway from the overall impact of this fun series.
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Lots of relationship angst that doesn’t always make sense
Where the to start? I know this is a romance, but they don't actually establish the relationship between the leads before they go straight into angst. He then goes into stalker mode and head games and, wow, not a healthy relationship.This show is about guys using women and making all sorts of poor decisions. It gets wearing and I couldn't really care about them at the end.
It's a shame since there are some good actors and some characters with potential, but those characters get sacrificed in the name of plot points and then this falls apart. Ugh.
Points for featuring a mute character and naming the American school after Robin William's character in Dead Poet Society.
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The story is similar to Moon Embracing the Sun -- they meet as kids, but life gets in the way. This story is more linear, but I wish it felt fresher.
As a man with no memory, Won Deuk is out of place, much like the main character in Secretary Kim. This time, instead of being hilariously vain and out of touch, he's rude and superficial so it's not as fun and a bit of a turnoff.
I am glad that the scheming, shrill ladies of the court was kept to a minimum. That's one trope that I am glad they skipped.
Overall, it's enjoyable, but doesn't quite reach top tier for me since it feels a bit familiar.
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Lots of great stuff and one character I could do without
Epic fantasy with lots of action, conflict and slow-burn romance. Great characters to power the 58 episodes....with one notable exception.I know some people are fans of the hyper cutsey Dilraba, but she plays the same character and it gets on my nerves. This time, her character seems like a bubbly, selfish doll with the mental age of 13 who wants to get their way no matter what damage it does to others. A-Li is far more mature. To me, no one is cute enough to get away with the selfish stuff she does so I started to roll my eyes whenever her character was on screen. Also, she’s so immature, it’s kind of icky when she’s chasing relentlessly after someone who’s got the gravitas of great grandpa. Ick.
Luckily the main romantic conflict works with a couple of the usual misunderstandings and such.
Also, there is the most adorable child in the story which is just too cute for words.
Overall, I enjoyed the story though it feels a bit more by-the-numbers. Aside from the one big fault (that some people actually like), I liked this one a lot.
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But then, the main characters were so limited and the story moves away from the dreams plot that the series starts to crash. Qi Qi is childish, not very bright and whiny for basically the entire series. Bo Hai is not only an iceman, but he does some terrible things which makes it hard to root for him. This is not a couple that I care about.
The secondary characters are better fleshed out with more dimension and seem more capable of leading this story than the main characters. It’s rare that this happens for me, but there’s a lot of talent (and handsome) in this cast.
If this were 16 to 20 episodes, this series would have been a lot stronger. Instead, the story meanders to the high stakes world of floral espionage (I kid you not). The early story runs out of steam so we get that odd story line and a finale that makes no sense so there can be some additional drama.
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Fun rom com that breaks common tropes
This was a fun rom com that breaks a lot of tropes (which I can’t mention because they are spoilers) and it’s refreshing to see that wealth is not the most important thing. (People actually ride the bus!) So the story has more original and likeable characters thanks to a terrific cast.Sure there’s a few plot points that dragged a bit, but overall I liked this a lot more than I expected. It’s funny and it’s got heart and it really tries to shake up the usual characters.
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