First let me complain about the length. Sixteen episodes are too many for my J-drama watching self. Sure I except it for K-dramas, but that is what I'm used to with them. J-dramas are usually 10 episodes so even though that doesn't really give you enough time to develop the characters I still enjoy getting to the good part quicker. Ok that's out of the way, I really liked this drama. I would absolutely recommend this for folks to watch.
The actor switch is jarring, especially since it's clear there were a number of On Dal scenes missing from the last two episodes. But they didn't really have a choice, so I'm trying to look past it.
Actually, despite the scenes that had rough editing, the last two episodes were better than most of the previous ones. The plot seems to be getting better since around episode 6. The whole assassination plot line was meh. Just a lot of running around in the woods really. But now I'm actually curious to see what will happen next and I can't really predict what all the characters will do. I thought Cheonjubang was really stupid in the beginning (during the whole assassination phase), but now I'm actually curious about them too.
Since On Dal hasn't been much involved in the politics yet, I think the romance will likely be the aspect that suffers the most from the actor switch. It's not like I thought Ji Soo and Kim So Hyun had much chemistry, but it's kinda weird to be thrown a new actor when the relationship had been established with a different one (after all it seems like the main point of episodes 2-5 was the romance). I also think On Dal and Ga Jin had at least one more scene together in episodes 7-8 that got cut. Actually I'm more worried that we've missed something in their relationship than I am about the actor switch. Hopefully, if that is the case, they'll find a way to adjust the future episodes. It's also possible that we haven't missed much and I just feel like we have, due to the fact that I wasn't very taken with the romance in the first place.
2 
https://youtu.be/MmYoqhter5Y
This man is beautiful.
Both leads hands are pretty.
His hugs & words are warm
That's it
Be interesting
Actually, despite the scenes that had rough editing, the last two episodes were better than most of the previous ones. The plot seems to be getting better since around episode 6. The whole assassination plot line was meh. Just a lot of running around in the woods really. But now I'm actually curious to see what will happen next and I can't really predict what all the characters will do. I thought Cheonjubang was really stupid in the beginning (during the whole assassination phase), but now I'm actually curious about them too.
Since On Dal hasn't been much involved in the politics yet, I think the romance will likely be the aspect that suffers the most from the actor switch. It's not like I thought Ji Soo and Kim So Hyun had much chemistry, but it's kinda weird to be thrown a new actor when the relationship had been established with a different one (after all it seems like the main point of episodes 2-5 was the romance). I also think On Dal and Ga Jin had at least one more scene together in episodes 7-8 that got cut. Actually I'm more worried that we've missed something in their relationship than I am about the actor switch. Hopefully, if that is the case, they'll find a way to adjust the future episodes. It's also possible that we haven't missed much and I just feel like we have, due to the fact that I wasn't very taken with the romance in the first place.