This review may contain spoilers
A strong first half that dwindled into the biggest disappointment of this year
For something to 'disappoint' you, you must have had high expectations of it to begin with. And with the way this show started off, many would not have been unreasonable to see its vast potential and expect the show to live up to that potential throughout its duration.
By episode 4, the writer had a rich plot and a set of decently shaded, fascinating characters that were just begging to have their stories told. What started off as a tale of a prickly girl learning to live again with the help of a happy-go-lucky boy-angel dissolved into a hapless mess about two star-crossed lovers being forced apart by a wholly unsympathetic diety whose intentions nobody in this drama understood (not even the writer it seems).
It’s just...GOOD GOD...it had so much going for it you know?!? One of the biggest mistakes this drama made was when it shifted the focus off the female lead’s journey, i.e. her return to ballet, her scheming relatives, her emotional growth, and instead onto the ill-constructed love story between her and the male lead.
Being a romance, a love connection between the two was imminent. But I just wished it had been executed and drawn out better. Not only did it seem to come completely out of left-field, but also Dan and Yeon Seo's relationship was never explored to the extent where it would be believable that they were truly as crazy about each other as depicted in the drama. When does companionship equal passionate love? All I saw was a budding friendship that suddenly turned into a love-or-die kind of affair, which was jarring at best.
Secondary characters had extremely promising trajectories, which were abandoned halfway through the drama in favour of blander plot elements. Ji Kang Woo, a director at Yeon Seo's ballet company was being set up as a noteworthy second lead, and had a fascinating backstory that could've been used to elevate the fantasy aspect to so much more. Furthermore, he had such an intriguing relationship with the second female lead, Geum Nina, that to not expand on it was a disservice to this entire production. Instead, whatever Nina and Ji Kang Woo had soon dissipated into screeching one-sided love declarations from the former, while the latter coldly brushed her off in favour of the forever-pristine main female lead.
All in all, the writer set up some grand goals for herself and failed to follow them through. The lacklustre ending more or less demonstrated this perfectly, as the main couple are reunited in the last five minutes with no explanation given whatsoever. It's almost disrespectful to the characters and the battle they fought to be with each other in the second half of the drama. What writer is shameless enough to build the entire drama around a singular conflict, only to resolve it with one of the most half-assed endings of all time? Other than the writer of About Time, THIS one.
By episode 4, the writer had a rich plot and a set of decently shaded, fascinating characters that were just begging to have their stories told. What started off as a tale of a prickly girl learning to live again with the help of a happy-go-lucky boy-angel dissolved into a hapless mess about two star-crossed lovers being forced apart by a wholly unsympathetic diety whose intentions nobody in this drama understood (not even the writer it seems).
It’s just...GOOD GOD...it had so much going for it you know?!? One of the biggest mistakes this drama made was when it shifted the focus off the female lead’s journey, i.e. her return to ballet, her scheming relatives, her emotional growth, and instead onto the ill-constructed love story between her and the male lead.
Being a romance, a love connection between the two was imminent. But I just wished it had been executed and drawn out better. Not only did it seem to come completely out of left-field, but also Dan and Yeon Seo's relationship was never explored to the extent where it would be believable that they were truly as crazy about each other as depicted in the drama. When does companionship equal passionate love? All I saw was a budding friendship that suddenly turned into a love-or-die kind of affair, which was jarring at best.
Secondary characters had extremely promising trajectories, which were abandoned halfway through the drama in favour of blander plot elements. Ji Kang Woo, a director at Yeon Seo's ballet company was being set up as a noteworthy second lead, and had a fascinating backstory that could've been used to elevate the fantasy aspect to so much more. Furthermore, he had such an intriguing relationship with the second female lead, Geum Nina, that to not expand on it was a disservice to this entire production. Instead, whatever Nina and Ji Kang Woo had soon dissipated into screeching one-sided love declarations from the former, while the latter coldly brushed her off in favour of the forever-pristine main female lead.
All in all, the writer set up some grand goals for herself and failed to follow them through. The lacklustre ending more or less demonstrated this perfectly, as the main couple are reunited in the last five minutes with no explanation given whatsoever. It's almost disrespectful to the characters and the battle they fought to be with each other in the second half of the drama. What writer is shameless enough to build the entire drama around a singular conflict, only to resolve it with one of the most half-assed endings of all time? Other than the writer of About Time, THIS one.
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